Rakesh Kansara, Executive Director
ASK-EHS Engineering & Consultants Pvt. Ltd., Surat.
It is a known fact that Software solutions are utilized in mostly every business and process industries to take advantage of data accuracy, increase work speed, accurate decision making process, and time saving.
There are range of innovative products, systems and solutions developed to fulfill the distinctive requirements of industries as varied and diverse as the industry and trade itself. In large scale industries like; Construction Projects, Power Plants, Oil & Gas Refineries, Pharmaceutical Units, Petrochemical & LNG Chemical Factories Production Units, Steel plants software and technologies are developed and implemented to achieve ultimate challenges and target of engineering, and production and maintenance, operation, inventory, financials, security, human resources, facilities management, and procurement.
Today's industries are complex, multifaceted, highly risky and global. It is the business of smart and timely decision. EHS business directly deals with Environment, and Safety of human lives, as such demands high level of accuracy, priority and management. Human life is most important factor for every company as good as equivalent to generating quality and aggressive production. If the software can achieve data accuracy and real time management by providing data and comparison chart to achieve business automation effectively so why it is not worthwhile to deploy software solutions to achieve effective and accurate Safety Management System.
Industries that consider environmental protection, occupational health and safety at work as important as providing quality usually have managers and departments responsible for these issues. They are called Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) departments, also SHE or HSE departments. EHS management has two general objectives: prevention of incidents or accidents that might result from abnormal operating conditions on the one hand and reduction of adverse effects that result from normal operating conditions on the other hand.
For example, fire, explosion and release of harmful substances into the environment or the work area must be prevented. Also action must be taken to reduce a company's environmental impact under normal operating conditions (like reducing the company's carbon footprint) and to prevent workers from developing work related diseases. Regulatory requirements play an important role in both approaches and consequently, EHS managers must identify and understand relevant EHS regulations, the implications of which must be communicated to top management so the company can implement suitable measures.
Benefits of using EHS Management Software Systems:
- Centralize & share information organization-wide
- Evaluate organization's safety performance in an instant
- Reduce incidents and save time, money and resources by providing analytical data instantly
- Identification of safety hazards and risk assessment
- Achieve Compliance and Government regulations
- Accident / Incident/ Near miss Recording and Analysis and define Corrective/Preventive Action
- Transparent view of organization safety performance considering analysis on Accident/ Incident/ Near-miss, Trainings, Audit results, Observations, Drills, Tool box meetings etc...
- Modules can be developed for all EHS related activities to achieve fast result. Training Management, Audit Management, Inspection Management, Isolation Management, Permit Control and Monitoring, Site Observation etc.
- Streamline your Safety Processes and eliminate duplicate data
- Organize schedule, store & track record and define action of your safety program to drive result
- Set Personalized Key Performance Indicators (KPI) & track performance of your organization
- Generate history data by single click to learn out of your experience
- Generate Project site/ Plant / Corporate reports with graphical presentation and comparison chart on single click
- Give warnings and alerts as per defined criteria
- Knowledge base generation & sharing
- Prevention, planning & monitoring of activities based on the data analysis
- Productivity & cost savings
Important suggestion for procuring EHS Software
It is important for an organization to select software solution that best fits their specific require as per the process. The following topics are useful and should be considered when deciding which software solution is best for your organization.- Companies should spend some time investigating software and the vendor from which they are purchasing. If done right, the EHS software solution can provide valuable feedback through trending and analysis that will ultimately maximize return on investment.
- It is important to search for a vendor who have significant amount of experience in the field of Environment, Health and Safety and should have adopted, upgraded and implemented latest Technologies.
- Customization in software is most important thing, as various companies have different EHS policies, procedures and guideline to manage EHS system as per the trade. i.e power plant sector shall have different requirement then software developed for oil & gas industry.
- The software system should have built in security that limits what specific users or groups of users can see and do in the system. This gives an organization flexibility to access the application from any location or facility securely.
- EHS Software should have an authorization system based on authority in which an organization is able to control which reports and forms that a user or groups of users can see and work with. Companies should feel safe and secure about who can access the data in their software.
- The software should have automatic settings where an organization can set up email notifications that are sent to employees and managers warning them about deadlines and other announcements so that no appointment or deadline will be late or missed.
- A modular solution should be available, it allows a company to pick and choose the necessary EHS areas that they specifically focus on, and can continue to do so as a company grows.
- The software should be efficient, error-free and easy to use, it should give personalized feeling to all users by providing personalized desk board for quick operation throughout.
Various Software Solutions can be developed to support and improve EHS Management System very effectively
- EHS Management Software
- Accident / Incident / Near-miss Recording & Analysis software
- Permit to work Software
- Job Hazard Analysis & Risk Assessment
- Lock out - Tag out Software
- Health Management Software
- Environment Performance Software
- EHS Training Management Software
- EHS Inspection and Audit Management Software
- Employee ID Card and Head Counting Software
- HAZOP Study
- Behavior Based Safety Management Software
- Emergency/Disaster Management Software
- Process Safety Management Software
- Carbon Footprint Management Software
