Where did HMIS® come from and how was it developed?

HMIS was originally developed by the paint manufacturing industry to aid in compliance with OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard. It has been in use since the late 1970’s and use has spread to numerous other service and manufacturing industries such as health care, chemical manufacturing, public utilities, transportation, education, construction, etc.

Under the revised HazCom Standard, OSHA has indicated that the use of the HMIS system is still permissible in house, but HMIS labels may not appear on containers leaving the workplace.