Development of MSDS Map for Visual Safety Management of Hazardous and Chemical Materials

For preventing the accidents generated from the chemical materials, thus far, MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) data have been made to notify how to use and manage the hazardous and chemical materials in safety. However, it is difficult for users who handle these materials to understand the MSDS data because they are only listed based on the alphabetical order, not based on the specific factors such as similarity of characteristics. It is limited in representing the types of chemical materials with respect to their characteristics. Thus, in this study, a lots of MSDS data are visualized based on relationships of the characteristics among the chemical materials for supporting safety managers. For this, we used the textmining algorithm which extracts text keywords contained in documents and the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) algorithm which visually addresses textual data information. In the case of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in the United States, the guide texts contained in MSDS documents, which include use information such as reactivity and potential risks of materials, are gathered as the target data. First, using the textmining algorithm, the information of chemicals is extracted from these guide texts. Next, the MSDS map is developed using SOM in terms of similarity of text information of chemical materials. The MSDS map is helpful for effectively classifying chemical materials by mapping prohibited and hazardous substances on the developed the SOM map. As a result, using the MSDS map, it is easy for safety managers to detect prohibited and hazardous substances with respect to the Industrial Safety and Health Act standards.

유해화학물질의 시각적 안전관리를 위한 MSDS 지도 개발