Posts filed under 'ESS'
As a result of ESS’ continued expansion and the growth in global adoption of our sustainability software platforms, ESS has hired Scott Lockhart as Chief Operating Officer. Scott will be responsible for executive oversight of ESS operations, as well as a member of our executive strategy council.
Scott has 15 years of experience in leveraging enterprise software for asset optimization, EHS and compliance with clients representing a variety of vertical industries, including oil and gas, electric utilities, chemicals, aviation, metals and pulp industries.
Scott comes to us from his previous position as Vice President and Executive Board Member of Data Systems & Solutions (DS&S), a division of Rolls Royce. He was focused on enterprise asset management and optimization, equipment health monitoring, process safety and compliance. In addition to business management and growth objectives on DS&S’ executive board, Scott was responsible for the operations, services and software groups. His previous experience also includes key leadership roles at Trinity Consultants and SAIC.
I have known Scott for many years and admired his proactive approach and success in connecting the dots between environmental, health & safety (EHS) and crisis management software and asset management and optimization information systems (EAM) to enhance enterprise-wide business performance and operational excellence. We both strongly believe that by more closely integrating these key information systems, organizations can identify and ensure common data work together to drive improved levels of EHS compliance while increasing reliability and performance of assets. This translates to increased availability of critical assets to improve both compliance and profitability. Reducing complexity and risk that is associated with disparate data silos within EHS and EAM information systems also ensures higher quality data is delivered to the other sources throughout the enterprise that rely on that information.
I am very excited to have Scott on board and look forward to his contribution toward our future growth and success.
Tags: chief operating officer compliance coo eam ehs enterprise software ess scott lockhart
June 9th, 2008
ESS is currently building an enhanced mobile framework using the latest Microsoft technology and tools. Joseph Jordan, ESS’ director of Mobile Architecture, is heading up this project for us. This framework will be used to build new and enhanced workflow, data collection, data transfer, and data distribution capabilities.
What are the benefits of utilizing mobile solutions for enterprise EHS management and sustainability? For one, using mobile devices makes data collection and monitoring of critical information faster and easier. This technology also makes workers more productive by giving them the ability to respond to all types of business challenges in real time.
The new framework and architecture we are developing gives organizations real-time access to critical data and information, streamlining compliance activities and improving data integrity. Mobile technology has always made it easier for organizations to collect data from the plant or site level so it can be quickly uploaded into their EHS software databases for analysis and communicated throughout the organization. These new mobile development tools now also make preventative and predictive information including metrics, KPIs and business intelligence reports accessible to the operator’s via mobile “push” technologies to help them better manage their areas of responsibility which were previously only available through the desktop. That’s one big reason why we are excited about our plans to add these new mobile capabilities to our EHS and Crisis Management solutions for air, water, hazardous waste, fugitive emissions, chemical inventory management, auditing, incident management and industrial hygiene. You’ll see more about this in the near future.
ESS has been delivering handheld and mobile solutions for over 10 years, beginning with our Waste Management bar code and waste tracking handhelds and Jordan Systems chemical inventory mobile tools. So this technology isn’t new to us. What’s new and better is the higher quality of information available to the users as well as real time and wireless data transfer, improving oversight and decision making while freeing up more time for other important duties.
Another benefit of this new and advanced architecture platform is that it will also enable our customers to standardize on common handheld devices across the entire spectrum of integrated modules within our integrated sustainability platform. In addition to reducing the aggregate cost of hardware for mobile capability this will also result in:
- Easier and more intuitive data entry
- Enhanced data integrity and automation of compliance processes
- Improved productivity. Simpler data collection effort
- Improved field documentation of incident investigations
- Faster identification and implementation of corrective actions by site personnel
These new enhancements will speed up process management and data collection, improve accuracy for all EHS functions and help ensure regulatory compliance, production uptime and injury free workplaces.
Here’s an anecdote that shows the benefits of a mobile device. Mind you, this isn’t even a crisis — just a normal day to day activity in the life of an operator:
A manager of a waste storage facility is currently offsite, but would like to check the status of the overnight preparations for a waste shipment scheduled to take place later that morning:
The Mobile Approach: The manager is offsite and receives an alert on his PDA or smart phone, enabled with mobile technology. With an icon click, information appears on the screen indicating that there may be a problem with a hazardous waste shipment that is incorrectly labeled. The manager makes a quick call to the plant to inquire about the project status and clear up the issue with the overnight supervisor. Upon the manager’s arrival at the facility, waste drums are promptly re-labeled, loaded and ready for shipment.
Typical Desktop Approach: The same manager, without the benefit of mobile technology, drives to the facility, unaware that a problem exists. The manager logs onto a desktop computer, enters the appropriate application, which requires another login and password; uses a navigation tree to drill down to the report menu; uses a pull-down menu to choose the affected facility; and finally clicks the icon to run the report. That’s when the problem is identified.
Because many compliance activities occur away from the desktop, handheld functionality is a critical link in the compliance automation chain. Thanks to innovators like Joseph Jordan and other members of our development and product management team, you’ll see these mobile technology solutions in our offering in the near future.
Tags: ehs ess microsoft mobile framework mobile solutions mobile technology
May 9th, 2008
Corporations have recently enlisted new participants to support their greenhouse gas management programs: Chief Information Officers (CIO). That point was reinforced in a recently-published article in CIO Magazine.
CIOs are now on the front lines of corporate climate change programs. That’s because manual spreadsheet accounting and disparate legacy systems are not able to support organizations’ need for accurate, verifiable carbon data for compliance under market based compliance schemes that are being considered in the U.S. and several other jurisdictions, as well as growing disclosure demands from investors, community stakeholders and activists. In order to meet those new standards, organizations will need to implement information management tools that support efficient and accurate reporting and analysis in order to address changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) management that are just around the corner. CIOs will play a central role in that process.
ESS has just published a white paper entitled, “A CIO’s Guide to Global Climate Change,” which provides a detailed discussion of this issue. It’s now available for download from our web site.
The process of building a program for evaluating, monitoring and measuring GHG emissions should begin with the development of a carbon management strategy. Managing climate risk in the context of corporate objectives starts with understanding the company’s operations. Executives need to identify which practitioners or business units need to use the data and for what purpose. Answers to these questions will provide critical direction for best practices for collection, processing and reporting of GHG information.
It’s a very complicated process, and will likely affect most businesses — including many that previously have not been required to provide GHG emissions reporting.
So GHG management is coming out of the bailiwick of environmental managers, facility managers and even the risk managers. CIOs will soon inherit responsibility for a challenge that has real bottom-line implications. That will eventually require organizations to develop a comprehensive plan for GHG management, supported by an integrated software platform.
Tags: cio ghg emissions reporting ghg management global climate change greenhouse gas management
May 7th, 2008
Last year, I was asked to write a manuscript for a new book on corporate ethics. My topic was how environmental issues had become part of corporate ethics and sustainability, an ethical imperative. The book, entitled Executive Ethics: Ethical Dilemmas and Challenges for the C-Suite, was published on April 10th and is now available on Amazon.com and in bookstores.
As recently as 2000, environmental stewardship was not a major priority among business and political thought leaders. In many cases standards for environmental practice were not much different from government-mandated emissions laws. Business leaders believed the primary environmental responsibility of the enterprise was to maintain compliance with standards adopted by federal and state governments, and to ensure that factory emissions did not threaten the health of workers and nearby residents, as an extension of their commitment to local corporate citizenship.
But since the dawn of the 21st century, there has been a rapid evolution among key business leaders who are moving critical benchmarks from regulatory compliance to real leadership, as they adjust to their customers’ increased consciousness of environmental sustainability, growing concern about greenhouse gas emissions and resultant effects on global warming and climate change.
These concerns are now being reflected both on the production floor and in the boardroom. Corporations are proving that they can successfully balance concerns for the environment with the traditional priorities of operating profitable enterprises.
Industry analysts are predicting that the next few years will be critical for manufacturers, retailers, financial services firms and others as they establish sustainability goals for their long term business roadmaps. This movement is driven by a commitment to corporate ethics as much as it is by pragmatism.
Companies that embrace sustainability are taking a long-term view of their effects on society. They are departing from traditional views of private property rights and ownership. Such firms don’t respond simply for regulatory purposes (such as mitigating the effects of air or water emissions on the surrounding community), but because of a desire to avoid the potential costs if the global environment is seriously threatened.
I was delighted and honored to be asked to write about this topic. I hope it sparks even more discussion about the importance of environmental ethics within the larger discussion of corporate ethics.
Tags: corporate ethics emissions environmental executive ethics global climate change global warming sustainability
May 1st, 2008
This year’s ESS EXPO was a great event. We had the largest EXPO attendance ever. And our judges had a difficult time choosing among the sustainability initiatives nominated for ESS Excellence Awards.
After a great deal of thought, a panel of judges, including executives from BNP Media’s Pollution Engineering (PE) and Industrial Safety & Hygiene News (ISHN) magazines, EXPO’s official media sponsors, named The Dow Chemical Company winner of the “Best of the Best” 2008 ESS Excellence Award for its outstanding achievements in leveraging information management technology to achieve its enterprise sustainability and operational excellence goals. Dow earned the top honor by showing how they saved $2 million following implementation of an integrated EH&S platform covering about 200 production sites across North America. The system generated productivity enhancements, streamlined Dow’s environmental reporting and enabled company officials to replace hundreds of redundant legacy systems.
Dow was one of 31 public and private organizations that received ESS Excellence Awards this year. Honorees represent a wide range of organizations across industry sectors, including global leaders, mid-market companies, public utilities, military agencies, educational institutions and federal, state and local government agencies.
The remaining 2008 ESS Excellence Award winners included Alcoa, Inc.; Andrews Air Force Base; Beale Air Force Base; Brookhaven National Laboratory; Campbell Soup Company, Napoleon, Ohio; Cardinal Glass Industries; City of Columbus, Ga.; Delta Air Lines, Inc.; Duke Energy; Gilbert Fire Department; HD Supply, Inc.; Illinois Auto Electrics Company; JR Simplot; Kocsis Consulting Group, Inc.; Koppers; Kroy Lyondell Chemical; Maryland State Highway Administration; Metro Nashville Government; New Jersey Natural Gas Company; PetroChina Company Limited; Purdue University; Raleigh Parks & Recreation Department; Kentucky Sanitation District No. 1; Seagate Technology; Sea Ray Boats; St. Petersburg Police Department; Sumner County Government; Tempe Fire Department; The Dow Chemical Company; USDA Forest Service; and Vought Aircraft Industries Building Products.
Additionally, nine organizations were recognized as Honorable Mention recipients: Arcelor Mittal Steel; Boeing Commercial Airplane Business Unit; Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD; Colgate-Palmolive; Good Environment Pty. Ltd.; INVISTA; Momentive Performance Materials, Sistersville, W. Va. Plant; New Brunswick Emergency Measures Organization; and URS Corporation.
Notice that the award winning organizations, as a group, represent a wide cross-section of industry sectors ranging from consumer goods to aircraft manufacturers, chemical companies to federal, state and local government agencies. This indicates the widespread adoption of and support for sustainability initiatives throughout both the private and the public sectors.
Tags: alcoa dow chemical EH&S ess expo koppers petrochina sustainability usda forest service
April 23rd, 2008
Management in this century requires global orchestration–managing from the outside in. Enterprises are starting to use Web 2.0 to do this — putting application data in a very common user interface, like a browser.
That was the message from Simon Jacobson from AMR, the keynote speaker at ESS EXPO.08. Jacobson was one of several speakers that provided insightful perspectives on key business and IT challenges to a record-setting audience of corporate and government executives and thought leaders who joined us this week in Phoenix for our annual business conference.
This was one of several thought-provoking sessions where industry leaders and thought leaders came together to discuss issues that will have a huge impact on the enterprise in the near future. I’m pleased that this and many other presentations have firmly established ESS EXPO as a forum where industry leaders can meet some of the people who are providing solutions for tomorrow’s issues today.
Emerging issues such as managing greenhouse gases through the supply chain, caps on carbon production and energy consumption are emerging on the list of corporate priorities, Jacobson said.
He talked about how Web 2.0 is being used in the enterprise and architected in a framework called Manufacturing 2.0 that pulls data out of legacy applications into a more modern framework. In the configuration, organizations can maintain legacy data storage, and still have applications talk to one another.
What is the visibility of environmental performance across extended supply networks? How do organizations get a consistent view of performance across the enterprise? Fragmented and manual systems make it difficult for corporate managers to get answers. These systems have to be consolidated into a single instance that will give you a way to automate work flow and build assumptions.
Environmental software, Jacobson said, should be web-based, and all EHS data should be consolidated in a common database that takes collective intelligence, ties it together, and shows it back to the user. Adoption of Web services is on the rise in the enterprise. Applications such as wikis, blogs and podcasts are also on the rise to help companies get around the latency of data in a crisis situation.
How do companies integrate EHS with typical GRC systems? They must be integrated with the rest of the business applications, such as he ERP, the supply chain and product focused applications into a controls management system that enables development of processes and procedures for risk remediation — and all of those show as intelligence on a management dashboard.
Jacobson predicts that REACH will impact all manufacturing processes, and thus financial compliance, IT compliance, and environmental compliance will have to be integrated.
Of course, the technology that Jacobson described is available today. ESS is deploying integrated EHS platforms for major organizations around the world including global leaders like PetroChina.
Tags: amr ehs environmental software ess expo grc greenhouse gases reach simon jacobson web 2.0
April 17th, 2008
If you haven’t already registered, here’s a personal invitation from me to join us at ESS EXPO.08 from Sunday, April 13 - Tuesday, April 15, at Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort outside Phoenix, Arizona.
ESS EXPO.08 is the largest software users’ conference of the year dedicated to Environmental, Health & Safety and Crisis Management. Attendees will see the latest technology innovations from ESS – with up-close looks at new versions of our software (Essential Suite™ version 7.1 and the browser-based version of Compliance Suite™) as well as quick tips and in-depth explanations from the experts who design, develop and support those tools. In addition, our training team will offer training courses that address key regulatory compliance issues and best practices.
Participants will hear the latest news about a variety of Governance, Risk and Compliance issues and information management challenges. Sessions like “Corporate Sustainability: Helping People and Businesses Reach Their Potential” by Microsoft and “REACH – Understanding and Implementing for Compliance” by PTK, Ltd — the firm that co-authored the regulation — provide a brief sample of the topics that will be discussed at this year’s ESS EXPO.
At ESS EXPO, you can meet your peers, exchange best practices and meet keynote speakers Simon Jacobson of AMR Research and racing icon Kyle Petty. Jacobson will provide an overview of enterprise trends, while Petty, of course, plans to talk about NASCAR and business success.
Our business partners will show how they can enable ESS users to achieve even greater success with complementary solutions and services. And finally, ESS software users will benefit from sharing their own ideas and experiences while networking with other top professionals from a wide variety of vertical industries.
ESS EXPO.08 continues the tremendous success of previous EXPO events, which have attracted hundreds of EHS and Crisis Management professionals.
Tags: amr research corporate sustainability crisis management ehs ess expo governance risk compliance kyle petty reach
February 13th, 2008
I’ve been winging my way around the country attending holiday parties at some of our sites this week, and it has brought home to me what an incredible group of people work for ESS, and how important people are to the success of any company.
According to Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, the journey always starts with disciplined people — people who are ambitious for the company and the cause, rather than just for themselves. These people don’t have to be sent to “motivational” workshops; they are self-motivated. And their leaders don’t believe in overnight success or the management theory of the moment.
Collins analyzed more than 1,400 companies, and found that in each case, “a down-to-earth, pragmatic, committed-to-excellence process — a framework — kept each company, its leaders and its people on track for the long haul. In each case, it was the triumph of the Flywheel Effect over the Doom Loop, the victory of steadfast discipline over the quick fix.” The people in Collins’ great companies are hedgehogs, rather than foxes. They concentrate on the essentials and ignore everything else.
“Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity. They are ’scattered or diffused, moving on many levels … never integrating their thinking into one overall concept or unifying vision. Hedgehogs, on the other hand, simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything. It doesn’t matter how complex the world, a hedgehog reduces all challenges and dilemmas to simple—indeed almost simplistic—hedgehog ideas. For a hedgehog, anything that does not somehow relate to the hedgehog idea holds no relevance.” (p.90-93)
We’ve been building a company of hedgehogs for the past fourteen years. We aren’t sexy, and we don’t seek or get lots of PR. But we try to stay on task so we move in the right direction.
People join ESS because they believe in the cause: helping the environment by providing information management tools to businesses, so they can better manage their operational risks, including GHG emissions, health and safety hazards and emergency incident management.
And this year, as we celebrate the holiday season, we are also grateful to our customers, who are also hedgehogs: they are focused on their sustainability initiatives and on making their businesses great in 2008. Happy holidays, and see you next year.
Tags: emergency incident management environment ghg emissions good to great health safety jim collins
December 21st, 2007
As we wind down to the end of a very productive year at ESS, I’ve begun to reflect on our many successes. A growing number of corporate executives now recognize that integrated technology platforms offer the most effective way to measure and mitigate risks associated with environmental, health, safety, crisis and performance management. We have been at the forefront of that trend, and we’re grateful that a significant number of those corporate executives have chosen ESS software to support those initiatives.
People think that at a company like ours, technology is our most important asset. It’s not. At ESS, our people are our greatest asset.
Long ago, we made a commitment to build a team with the industry’s best domain experience and duration of service. As a result, we have the strongest and deepest experience in the industry, with a combined 820 years EHS domain experience and 970 years developing software for EHS. We’re a veteran team and we’ve been together for many years, getting better and better at what we do. And at a time in which other companies are experiencing significant brain drain, ESS has a depth of experience that’s unmatched.
ESS has been at the forefront of strategy and innovation in the industry since our inception. We have leveraged our industry expertise and domain experience to develop a comprehensive set of best-of-breed solutions. Over the years, ESS experts have pioneered the development of landmark technology solutions to address challenges for refrigerants, air and fugitive emissions, crisis management, chemical inventory reporting and hazardous materials tracking.
Our strength and industry experience ensure that ESS information management solutions are properly aligned to address real industry needs. Our depth of experience ensures that ESS technology helps organizations to drive increased productivity and supports initiatives to reduce risks associated with EHS and Crisis Management performance.
Now we’re going to let you meet some of our difference-makers – the people on our team who are, in large part, responsible for our success. You’ll hear many interesting stories from people who are at the nexus of big changes in EHS software business.
We’re proud of our team, and it will be my pleasure to share short clips of our team members during the next few weeks, so you can see why we believe that our people make the difference at ESS.
Tags: crisis domain experience ehs environmental health safety industry expertise information management solutions
December 12th, 2007
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