Environmental Reporting Software Details
Integration of environmental compliance reporting software with existing
systems is key to ease-of-use and accuracy of environmental reporting.
Federal and state environmental regulations require a variety
of environmental compliance reports. The corporate or site person responsible
for environmental, health and safety has the daunting task of
developing systems to generate the varied environmental reports.
The HAZMIN® Environmental Reporting Module is specifically
designed to address environmental compliance reporting for the receipt, manufacture,
consumption, shipment, storage, disposal, release and emission
of hazardous materials. The powerful relational aspect allows
information to be entered only once and used throughout the environmental health and safety system.
Flexibility allows the user to focus on their special needs and
to only address that portion of the environmental health and safety software.
The Environmental Reporting Module integrates all environmental compliance reporting
with the user's own Material Safety Data Sheets data, and, where
available, will even integrate the user's own electronic inventory
data. Such electronic data may be in the form of existing purchasing
or inventory systems, or may be generated by any host of bar
code systems. Where the user's existing systems are not sufficient
to document hazardous material/waste inventory or movements,
the Environmental Reporting Module includes powerful tools to augment electronic data
with any necessary manual entry.
The Goals
- For environmental compliance reporting
A comprehensive, environmental management system needs to
handle regulatory reporting for SARA
Tier, SARA 313, Form R, EPCRA, and CAA Title 5. The environmental
health and safety software must be flexible to handle new regulations. To be cost
effective, the environmental management
system must integrate with the existing chemical inventory
and tracking systems. Ideally, the environmental software must
also provide manual input, and track both hazardous wastes
and materials. Those accomplishments make the Environmental
Reporting Module the ideal environmental health and safety management system.
One Database
- "Cradle to grave tracking" is not just a cliché
The Environmental Reporting Module allows the tracking of
material from receipt at the Receiving Dock through disposal
of the waste at the Hazardous Waste Incinerator. One database
eliminates duplicity of data entry, which helps insure consistency
of your environmental reporting. One database that is integrated
with the user's Material Safety Data Sheets assures that reports
are consistent with MSDS component information published by the
manufacturer of the MSDS. The integration comes full circle when
the integrated MSDS's help assure that employees are receiving
Right-To-Know training consistent with the chemicals being reported.
Depending upon the needs of the user, one database can be
used to generate individual environmental reports for one facility
or for multiple unique facilities. The movement of material between
facilities may even be tracked and all associated background
accumulators for compliance reporting will be properly adjusted.
The integration of waste tracking into one database will help
assure that release of hazardous materials, specifically 313
chemicals, will be rolled into one Form R Release Report. The
integration of effluent and emission sampling data will further
aid in documentation at reporting time.
Environmental Reporting
- The right stuff, the right reports
One of the most important questions to ask when evaluating
software for environmental compliance reporting is to ask what assumptions
are being made. Are those assumptions sound? Will any regulatory
agency receiving those reports accept those assumptions?
As someone reading this Environmental Reporting Module description, you are probably
the person responsible for environmental compliance reporting. When you evaluate
environmental health and safety software, you want to be assured that the environmental software, and specifically
the environmental reporting portion, will meet or exceed your
standards for environmental compliance reporting. We, at LOGICAL, take environmental
reporting seriously and strive to assure that the reports meet
both the letter and the intent of the environmental reporting regulations.
Please feel free to ask a LOGICAL Account Representative about any
specific environmental reporting requirements. We will be pleased
to discuss the reports in detail, so that you'll be confident
that the Environmental Reporting Module will meet or exceed your
needs.
The Environmental Reporting Module will compute Form R Thresholds
for manufacturing. receiving, and consuming and Form R releases
for Section 313 chemicals. Form R releases can even include sampling
data, for example, for wastewater, so that those releases will
be rolled into the total releases.
The Environmental Reporting Module will compute SARA Tier II storage reports by product
(MSDS) or by component. When computing by component, the Regulated
Substance Database can be used to link synonyms to a single reporting
name for the most accurate reporting.
The Environmental Reporting Module will compute emissions reports for the Clean Air
Act. Emissions can be based upon components in the MSDS or actual
sampling data of emission streams. "Models" can also
be entered to document emissions as a factor of material usage
or production. Total or average emissions can be calculated for
any reporting period for a specific location (i.e., stack), or
group of locations (i.e., department), or an entire facility.
Some environmental reports can also be computed from the Request
data in the Material Process Control Module, as well as the data
in the Environmental Reporting Module. This allows reports to
be computed based upon the "approved planned method"
as well as documented storage or usage data.
The Environmental Reporting Module is flexible. You only need
to use as much as is necessary to meet your environmental reporting requirements
and any other objectives. The brief descriptions of the reports
given above are not meant to be all-inclusive. If you have questions
about a particular report, please ask us.
Waste Tracking
- out of sight is not out of mind
Tracking waste, hazardous or not, in the Environmental Reporting
Module is as simple as documenting the movement of the waste
from an onsite location (where it was generated) to an offsite
location (where it was disposed). Add a manifest number to the
waste going offsite and you have documented all of the material
on that manifest.
Like any material tracked in the Environmental Reporting Module,
the waste may be tracked as a bulk material or in a uniquely
numbered container. Waste is entirely integrated into the material
tracking system. There are no separate databases or special reports
that need to be run for waste only. To track waste for Biennial
Reports, you just move wastes in and out of the site's hazardous
waste storage location.
Tracking the waste being generated at a location, enables
the user to generate reports for the department or facility.
By entering the standard cost for that waste's disposal, the
waste generation cost for each location, department or facility
can be shown for any time period. When a corporation is tracking
multiple facilities in one HAZMIN® database, the waste generation
from each facility is automatically documented in the Environmental Reporting Module.
Another indication of the Environmental Reporting Module's flexibility is the user
defined waste fields. Since waste can vary between industries,
user defined fields are available so that the user can document
special characteristics of their waste.
Entering the waste analyses enables the software to compute
release of heavy metals, etc. Material moved offsite may then
be automatically rolled up into Form R release reports.
Non-Environmental Reporting
- Have data, will use it
Once you have transferred or entered the necessary information
to the Environmental Reporting Module, one might ask the question:
"Is that all that there is?" The answer is a resounding,
"No".
The reporting capabilities of the Environmental Reporting
Module are so powerful that you may consider using the module
for more than just environmental reporting. The amount of information
that the Module must track to adequately compute the various
environmental reports is extensive. That information can be a
valuable resource for a host of management decisions.
For example, the Environmental Reporting Module documents the quantity of a material
in storage on any date. By including the standard cost information
when you set up the software, you can easily track the value
of materials in storage.
The Environmental Reporting Module documents extensive receiving, consumption, material
manufacturing, waste generation, and shipping information, by
date. For a date range, you can report the quantity of each material
consumed at a location, department or facility. By transferring
the output of hazardous waste shipments, for example, to a spreadsheet,
you can graph the shipments by date.
The Environmental Reporting Module is versatile. You can use it
for environmental reporting or you could use it as an inventory
history system. As with the environmental reports, themselves,
you only need to use as much as is necessary to meet your objectives.
The brief descriptions of the non-environmental reports given
above are not meant to be all-inclusive. If you would like to
know if the Environmental Reporting Module can meet your objectives, please call or email a
LOGICAL Account Representative to discuss.
Queries and Reports
- It's your data, how do you want it?
The Environmental Reporting Module has two powerful means
for data review. First, the custom query feature allows all transactions
of materials and wastes to be searched by any field. While the
primary function of this feature is verification of existing
data, the query can also be used to create a collection of transactions,
which can be "edited" and added to the database as
new transactions. This enables rapid entry of repetitive periodic
information, like manual inventory documentation.
If you do find "bad" data in the system, an authorized
user may easily correct the mistake. Any accumulators that may
affect environmental reporting are automatically corrected.
The other means of reviewing data are the custom reports.
These point and click reports enable the user to easily select
their specific custom report criteria.
Neither the custom query nor the custom reports require the
user to have any programming knowledge to generate reports. All
reports are generated as spreadsheet tables. If the user wants
to further manipulate the data output, the user, with one click,
can export the data to a spreadsheet program, where the user
can graph the data or create any type of custom printout.
