| Financial analysis: |  |
| Environmental impact analysis: | --- |
| Waste management/P2: | |
| Environmental cost listing/database: | --- |
| Cost estimation: | --- |
| Alternative product/process comparison: | --- |
| Financial analysis: | |
| Environmental impact analysis: | --- |
| Waste management/P2: | |
| Environmental cost listing/database: | --- |
| Cost estimation: | --- |
| Alternative product/process comparison: | --- |
| Cost control | --- |
| Resource control | --- |
| Estimating control | --- |
| Schedule control | --- |
| Scope control | --- |
| Risk control | --- |
The prices listed are for total packages, but users also have the option of purchasing individual modules in each of these packages in which case the price would be higher. These prices were effective from March 1994 and are subject to change without notice.
EMS is designed to manage environmental compliance and management requirements related to EH&S. It makes use of a database of information that is updated at least annually. The product is not designed to generate options and does not do any risk assessment or liability costing. It has a required module for facility management, wherein all company-specific information related to chemical inventories and regulations is managed. This module has additional options for safety equipment (location and maintenance),import and maintenance of CAD diagrams, and safety plans listings for the company. The various EMS modules address the following areas:
EMS has components for Federal, State, and local regulatory compliance and reporting requirements for EPA and OSHA regulations. The tracking component allows users to maintain complete records of all materials by location and department/person accountability. Built-in chemical reference tables are designed to include regulatory, hazard, and reporting data for EPA designated hazardous and extremely hazardous chemicals. The system supports waste minimization and source reduction by reducing material purchasing and disposal costs through surplus management.
The Waste Management System tracks hazardous waste handling from pickup to packing and disposal. It also prepares manifests, tracks permits, and prints drum labels. Label and storage requirements are graphically displayed. The waste management system also has a module for contract/cost/invoice management for waste hauling and disposal, allowing users to maintain records on contracts, cost-effectiveness, and other miscellaneous information. Chemical safety offers additional hazardous waste modules including those for PCB tracking, container tracking, generating land ban forms, and hazardous waste handling/transport look-up tables.
The MSDS management system allows users to develop and maintain MSDS sheets using libraries of standard phrases and sections. The MSDS database cross-references with a chemical reference database that contains hazard and regulatory information on over 4,500 substances. An MSDS management version has just been released in the Windows format, which allows users to import and catalogue MSDS images in addition to MSDS in a database format. MSDS sheets maybe obtained and converted from a variety of sources including CD-ROM and printed MSDS's scanned through OCR.
The human resources management component includes employee training, industrial hygiene monitoring, and incident/accident management and reporting, which includes generating the OSHA 200 log.
The other major modules include air emissions, R101 ad hoc management reports, and ICS inventory collection system. The air emissions module gives users the necessary information required for the Air Toxics Release Form R. ICS is a data collection tool for chemical inventory data input, which also contains a database of chemicals with their CAS numbers and tables with vendor names, units of measure, container types, product class, etc. It is offered for both DOS and Macintosh systems.
| Raw material acquisition | --- |
| Manufacturing stage | --- |
| Use/reuse/maintenance | |
| Recycle/waste management | |
Life-cycle stages covered may vary by module. The Waste Management System covers the fourth stage as it tracks hazardous waste handling from pickup to packing and disposal. MSDS management and the chemical inventory help manage use and reuse of chemicals in the facility (although this information is not tracked). The human resources management component also includes activities undertaken for environmental health and safety. The system covers the manufacturing stage only to the extent that byproducts (emissions) as a result of the manufacturing process can be computed. The waste management portion of EMS is linked with the chemical inventory. Once a chemical is declared as a waste, it is transferred to the waste management system.
However, these life-cycle stages are not necessarily covered in the case of each individual chemical, material, or product. For example, if a chemical is not manufactured in the facility, only use and waste disposal stages (for that chemical) would be considered. Also, the products manufactured in the manufacturing stage are not covered (if at all) in all their life-cycle stages either. The life-cycle stages are not kept distinct within the system.
| Conventional | |
| Potentially hidden | |
| Contingent | --- |
| External | --- |
The system considers hidden costs related to hazardous waste management. The contract/cost/invoicing module could include information on some conventional costs such as labor and materials as well. It includes an area for cost tracking in inventory that covers conventional costs related to purchasing chemicals and materials. The preloaded databases in EMS contain some default cost information. The system includes a table that allows users to enter information on waste amounts, which are converted into pounds, and disposal costs are estimated. EMS does not have a framework to estimate or include liability or external costs. All other hidden and conventional costs associated with use and reuse of materials, environmental management (e.g., capital, labor), and compliance (e.g., health and safety, administrative costs) are not included.
Thus, the full costs of using a material or product in a facility, including all these cost categories cannot be estimated. Also, all conventional and hidden costs are not tracked and entered into the system. Users can customize the system only through service requests to Chemical Safety. The costs entered cannot be collated to form a historical cost library. This could be a useful feature for assisting in cost estimation for projects, because hidden cost estimates cannot be found in most (if any) commercial cost databases.
The system does not do any cost estimation.
| Net present value (NPV) | --- |
| Payback period | --- |
| Internal rate of return (IRR) | --- |
| Benefits cost ratio | --- |
| Other | --- |
EMS has the capability to interface with existing inventory, purchasing, employee and other systems. Users can customize almost any facet of EMS, including reporting and adding new fields and features to suit their requirements. EMS has a limited amount of flexibility in incorporating user-defined fields (usually up to three). The system has on-line help. The modular format allows users to purchase only the kind of information they currently require with the option to make additions in the future.
The chemical database is compiled from Federal and State databases and is updated regularly. Upon request, Chemical Safety also provides a list of clients for reference about the product. They provide options for system support, consulting, software/hardware leasing, and inventory analysis and data entry. The annual system support fee is provided at 15% of the system license. Chemical Safety also offers services for system customization and project/implementation management.
Although cost information can be included in certain sections, it is not given special attention. Rather, the focus is on management activities that would help prevent unnecessary expenses. However, there is no format to evaluate these initiatives. The operational costs associated with tracking, human resource management, etc., are not included in the system. EMS is restricted to hazardous material and waste management. It does not address management of all solid waste, storm water, drinking water, and others.
The system considers only hidden costs of waste disposal with no options for additional fields to be added by users. These cost components cannot be detailed as required by users. Other conventional, contingent, or less-tangible costs cannot be estimated or detailed. Changes in the system can be made only through service requests to Chemical Safety that are charged on a time and expense basis. There is no feature for maintaining historical cost records, as related to different activities, quantities, and types of materials managed. The system is not designed for, and has no modules for, project management. Like most other waste management and tracking tools, the primary objective is to facilitate compliance, not to manage and minimize costs. However, if this area were developed, pollution prevention and other environmental initiatives would be encouraged as a result of better cost information.
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