"We didn't start the fire ,it was always burning" : Bottlenecks in Supply chain of Hazardous Substances

These lines from  the song made famous by Billy Joel sums up the disaster waiting to happen in supply chain of hazardous materials

On 4th August ,the world  saw one half of the city of Beirut going up in flames literally and figuratively, The world watched in horror as the explosion rocked the city .

I, Gayathri Nair , an MBA student want to shed light into how important safety guidelines are in the transport of hazardous substance, which are an integral part of human lives. A minor over sight can cause untold devastation which will take maybe centuries to heal.

The Beirut explosion : an overview

In 2013 ,a vessel bound from Georgia en route to Mozambique was seized at the port of Beirut for outstanding debts ,the cargo confiscated and the ship  decommissioned and deemed unworthy . The cargo was shifted to hangar 21 where it has been on hold since last 6 years .

The Big Bang : a trail of destruction

163 dead , more than 6000 maimed for life , millions of dollars worth propert going up in smoke ....the trail of devastation was huge but since it happened in a warehouse that faced the sea ,the city was partially spared from total annihilation.

Adding fuel to fire : conditions in supply chain that precipitated the effervescent reaction

A huge cache of highly flammable ammonium nitrate was stored in a large ,run down and unsecured warehouse .The political climate in Lebanon is highly volatile ,so this cache was a disaster gestating  and waiting in the wings to explode.The rundown warehouse had a dislodged roof that exposes this consignment to the weather .Fireworks were stored side by side ,increasing the flammable quotient of the warehouse.The warehouse was commissioned for a make over without informing the workers of the volatile nature of the consignment .The spark during the repair increases the temperature of the warehouse there by incubating the fireworks to catch fire and in under an hour the ammonium nitrate detonated

 Kinks in the Armour :  weak links in the supply chain

Beirut blast can't be dismissed as an isolated event .the very same mistakes happen regularly in the supply chain of hazardous materials

The moving ,transporting and storing of hazardous goods is not handled with care .

In 2018 ,a can of aerosol bear  repellent  stored on the shelves of a Amazon warehouse in new jersey  fell down and exploded, sending 24 of its staff in a very critical condition . This was a regular occurrence so in 2019 Amazon built a specialized warehouse to store hazardous materials .  It took Oft repeated  accidents for Amazon to take this decision

Better safe than sorry : lessons to be learnt

Supply chain managers need to be in the know of the potential danger involved in the movement of hazardous materials through their own or associated supply chains that share warehousing or logistic capacity

Keeping the warehouse secure conditions  , fireproof and educating the ground handlers if the nature of the stock will go a long way in preventing accidents

Product information management

Product information management provides a range of tables where reference information for various dangerous goods list for road ,air and sea freight .ADR ,relating to the international carriage of dangerous goods by road , IATA,the international air transport association dangerous goods regulations , IMDG ,international  marine dangerous goods code etc

Each of these codes provide a list of dangerous goods and reference to their transport ,storage and handling

The hazardous material feature in supply chain management provide a collective of useful directives of product information of hazardous products .these directives helps to print and design shipment details of the hazardous goods .

To preserve life ,property and prevent accidents hazmat ,the laws governing the transportation of hazardous materials a complex set of directives is in place

However the mode of transporting hazmat consignment ,the directives for safe transportation has to be adhered to or risk fines ,penalties and other libel suits

Explosives ,toxic gases , flammable  liquids ,Flammable solids ,oxidizing substances , organic peroxides , ,radioactive materials and corrosives so goes the list of hazmat graded from category 1 to 7 Identification number as in the hazmat material table , packing group identified in roman numerals ,quantity o f material being transported need to be on the vessel ,either air ,sea or road .

Conclusion

Maintaining a smooth supply chain is critical ,but there is general lack of confidence among hazmat professionals in the ability of their organizations to meet the changing compliance mandates .a recent label-master  survey found that 51 percent of hazmat professionals find it difficult to keep up with the latest regulations and 15 percent were not confident they could ensure dangerous goods regulatory compliance across their organization

Inadequate infrastructure and  training are main bottlenecks . Despite technology advancement many supply chain companies rely heavily on manual process when it comes to hazmat regulations ,so possibility of human error is more which can seriously impact safety.