Two substances are incompatible when, if they meet through a spill or a damaged container, they react and create a bigger problem than the original one. Keeping them apart is not a warehouse judgement call: it comes from the safety data sheet of each product, and how it applies is decided by the company’s health and safety officer. This page explains what gets checked to segregate properly, why segregation almost always fails through a badly assigned location on put-away, and what can be fixed by rearranging, before buying anything.
What does it mean for two substances to be incompatible?
Two substances are incompatible when contact between them — through a spill, a damaged container or firefighting water — produces a dangerous reaction: fire, toxic gases, heat or pressure that neither generates on its own. Incompatibility is not an opinion or a warehouse criterion: it is declared in each product’s safety data sheet, the document the manufacturer or importer issues for every substance, known by its English acronym, SDS. That sheet states what the product must not be stored with and under what conditions. The legal framework in Argentina comes from Law 19,587 on Occupational Health and Safety and its Decree 351/79, while classification and labelling follow the Globally Harmonised System, GHS by its English acronym. How all of that applies inside your warehouse is settled by the company’s health and safety officer, together with the authority that grants the operating permit.
Where the compatibility matrix comes from
The compatibility matrix is the table that says what can live next to what. It is built by reading the safety data sheets of everything that enters the warehouse, not by copying a generic table off the internet or asking the supervisor what he reckons. Two products from the same commercial family can carry different conditions, and a change of supplier changes the sheet even when the container looks identical. That is why the matrix has an owner: the health and safety officer reviews and signs it, it is updated every time a new item is created, and it stays documented. What the operation does with that matrix is a separate job: it translates it into location rules. And that is where the warehouse either holds the work up or ruins it, depending on how it is organised.
The four ways to segregate
Segregating means preventing two incompatible products from meeting, and there are four ways, almost always combined. By distance: leaving clear space between them. By physical barrier: a wall, a partition or a safety cabinet that cuts contact even if there is a spill. By zone: dedicating separate areas with their own ventilation and their own containment. And by logical location: loading into the warehouse management system — WMS, the software that decides what is stored where — the rule that certain items cannot go into certain positions. How much distance is needed, what resistance the barrier must have and what the zone has to comply with are not decided by the equipment supplier: they are set by the applicable regulation according to what you store and verified by a licensed health and safety professional. What warehouse design does decide is that those rules are easy to follow every single day.
Why segregation almost always fails for the same reason
In the warehouses we survey, segregation rarely fails for lack of infrastructure. It fails through a badly assigned location on put-away. The zone is properly defined, the partition is built, the sign is up, and on a busy afternoon a pallet ends up in the free slot that happened to be nearby, which turns out to be the wrong slot. Nobody did it on purpose: the correct slot was far away, the shift was ending, and the rule lived in somebody’s head rather than in the system. That is the exact point where the chain breaks. It also fails the other way round: stock that sits for months in a zone where it does not belong because nobody has visibility of what is in there. Both problems are about records and location discipline, not about building work.
What gets fixed by rearranging, without buying anything
Inventory accuracy is measured by comparing records with physical stock. Results depend on receiving and dispatch records, location rules, training and controls; software or robots do not guarantee an accuracy percentage.
When building work is needed, and when robotics is not the answer
Value space using your own rent or property opportunity cost. Released space can support growth or reorganization; it only saves rent when an actual payment obligation is reduced.
The rule first, the equipment afterwards
Segregation rests on three things, in this order: a compatibility matrix drawn from the safety data sheets and signed by the health and safety officer; coded positions with their compatibility attribute loaded into the system; and an operation that receives the location from the system instead of choosing it. Only when that is in place and still is not enough does it make sense to talk about zones, barriers or densification. STOKA surveys the warehouse and tells you which of the three stages you are missing, even when the answer is that you do not need to buy anything.
Frequently asked questions
They are substances that, if they come into contact through a spill or a broken container, react and produce fire, toxic gases, heat or pressure that neither generates on its own. Incompatibility is declared in each product’s safety data sheet, issued by the manufacturer or importer, and does not depend on the warehouse’s own judgement.
The company’s health and safety officer, within the framework of Law 19,587 and its Decree 351/79 and whatever the permitting authority requires. Distances, barriers and zone conditions are set by the applicable regulation according to what is stored and verified by a licensed professional, never by the equipment supplier.
Generally yes, provided they are segregated in an accepted and verified way: by distance, by physical barrier, by separate zone, or by a combination of those. What applies in each case depends on the classification of each product and is decided by the company’s health and safety officer, not by the warehouse on its own.
By taking the decision away from the person. Every position is coded, each item’s compatibility attribute is loaded into the management system, and put-away becomes directed: the system states the position and blocks incompatible ones. With cycle counting by zone, the rule stops depending on anyone’s memory.
No. STOKA designs, imports, installs, integrates and supports storage equipment, and delivers it with the technical documentation the permit process requires. The warehouse permit itself, and the certification of safety conditions, are handled by the company with its health and safety officer before the relevant authority.