SAP Environmental Compliance for meeting EPA’s new regulation on GHG

Dear Friends,

On May 13th EPA issued final rule on GHG Emissions, which states that when an Industry (high emitters) wants expand its operations it needs to demonstrate that it will be using the Best Available Control Technology (BACT). At first glance it may look that it majorly impacts the financial terms of the Industry in acquiring control equipment and less to do with the Compliance and Regulatory needs.

For meeting these requirements, companies needs to use permit management, task management, document management, advanced Reporting and at the same time use sophisticated GHG Calculations and based on their GHG Calculations would like to report key environmental KPIs– SAP Modules like SAP Environmental Compliance and SAP Carbon Impact will be huge help for companies meeting this requirement.

Some of the features of SAP EHS Environmental Compliance – Emission Management / Environmental Compliance / GHG Management will be of huge benefit, like Calculation of GHG emissions, Permit Management, Modeling for engineering changes, Reporting component and finally its ability to integrate with SAP R/3 components. Significant among these are ability of SAP Environmental Compliance to communicate with web services for emission data – especially from Continuous Monitoring Systems (CEMS), ability to store documentation and advanced reporting capabilities like BI/ BO.
You can access the final legislative document from http://www.epa.gov/nsr/documents/20100413final.pdf.

Thanks

SAP EH&S 3rd Party Data content and its usage

Dear Friends,

We hear a lot about EH&S 3rd party content like Phrases or regulatory content and their significance for driving cost effective regulatory compliance and also to drive MSDS Authoring serives. These 3rd party regulatory data consists of Phrases (majority of those are from CED), Regulatory Data, Expert Rules, Standard EHS Properties (it actually updates the standard property tree) and Report Layouts, which will be a significant help given the huge time and money is required for complying regulatory needs. and legal requirements. This data is used for regulatory classification of substances as well as authoring of material safety datasheets.

Using these SAP EH&S Automated datasets with EH&S Expert Rules, Open Content Connector for DG and PS Regulatory Data it is possible tocreate legal documents in a quick, cost effective and reliable manner. The use of these automated tools reduces the implementation time, eliminates point solutions and multiple interface development requirements and also ensures on going adaptation and enhancements according to changes in legislations.

The best practice involving 3rd party tools involve the following steps like i) Create or change a substance ii) Call EH&S Open Content Connector iii) Load and evaluate the header XML iv) Select what data shall be downloaded, v) Load substance data from the corresponding XML file vi) Show the data to user to set flags, vii) Save data and viii) Save data into EH&S Database ix) Use the updated information for triggering secondary data determination using EH&S Expert Rules like driving automated MSDS making and x) Use of Standardizied templates to generate reports.

Thanks

SAP to Acquire TechniData, how this impacts EH&S consultants

Dear friends,

Today I read news that SAP to acquire TechniData. Along with last year's transfer of EH&S IP products rights to SAP, this move will induct experienced EH&S workforce into SAP. It is definitely one of the exciting things for SAP on Sustainability Front, next to acquiring Clear Standards acquired almost one year ago. I would rate the current acquisition much ahead than the previous one - though TechniData and SAP are already interconnected for so long. There are many who are interested to see how this will impact EH&S delivery and whether it’s a positive for them or not, so on.

Definitely it’s a positive move for the SAP's EH&S and sustainability market as a whole . With SAP expertise and TechniData EH&S background, you will see much more innovation on SAP EH&S and Sustainability front, a definite next generation products from SAP including realization of EH&S as a SaaS product. There is also possibility that SAP would like to do customer on-boarding themselves for this specialized field, so it could impact EH&S consultants for where customer would go for this new opportunity, but at the same time opens up new EH&S consultants opportunity due to wider SAP presence and customer confidence. Finally SAP is proposed to expand its SAP EHSM and Sustainability portfolio, so it would be imperative to increase their EHS Staff. As on today it is reported that TechniData has 500 employees and 1,600 customers.

Overall I find this move, interesting, challenging and exciting for EHSM consultants.

Check this link for some FAQ about the acquisition

http://www.sap.com/about/investor/pdf/TechniData_FAQ.pdf

Thanks

Chemical Safety Assessment and Exposure Scenarios using Chesar

Dear Friends,

Few days back I happened to work with Beta version of ECHA new tool called Chesar (CHemical Safety and Assessment tool). This is a tool developed to support in preparing Chemical Safety Assessment and Chemical Safety Report. It has features like getting the data fro IUCLID, Assessment and Exposure Scenario building and generation of Chemical safety report. The exposure estimatio in Chesar is based ECETOC and ERC / EUSES and it can even use external exposure estimation tools. When I created a CSR, it automatically created 45 pages dossier as per the CSR format.

After working with SAP REACh Compliance for so many months, this tool has given me very good insight into a functionality which, I was assuming for past 2 years and also a probable direction on Best Practice Scenario for achieving REACh Compliance cosisting of SAP REACh Compliance and 3rd party tools!

When I see this tool with an overall SAP REACh Compliance business process, it fits into the overall framework either during initial transfer of all uses and substance information directly into IUCLID (which is carried out using IUCLID - EH&S interface) and using the information for actually carrying out exposure estimation, or even after final legal process check and end point gap analysis and transfer the data into IUCLID5 (as per original SAP REACh Compliance 1.1. business logic).

So from SAP EH&S, it would be useful to create a Chesar Property tree consisting of administrative data, Physicochemical data, Environmetnal hazard information and trafer that information for Exposure estimation - since these are the data which system needs. I understad, with the existing REACh property trees (classes/characterisitcs) within SAP REACh, it should be possible to create a flexible property for ease of use for Chesar, it would not only reduce the burden of maintaining additional endpoing documents which are not required for Exposure assessment, but also ease of use. Once exposure estimation is carried out in IUCLID 5.2 it is good idea to take the data back into SAP EH&S eSDS property tree and use that for creation of eSDS or even create eSDS in Chesar (need to wait till June 2010).

Thanks

Meeting Regulatory challenges - In testing times

Dear Friends,

A recent market report suggested that nearly sixty percent of the companies they surveyed are not satisfied with their current IT systems. In another report it also highlighted that nearly half of user community will be dissatisfied with the slow rate of IT change in their enterprises. There is likelihood of this dissatisfaction to increase as companies may not invest hugely to change their current IT landscape. On the other side of the coin, organizations are reminded to fulfill or to meet the business requirements, regulatory requirements, and stakeholders’ expectations. Under these testing times, Business process management / Reengineering provide a framework, where organizations can improve the agility and regulatory and sustainable performance.

The typical challenges, an organization a face when it comes to this sphere of business is, more often EH&S / Sustainability need localized execution to meet the regional requirements. The principle steps to reach out to there is i) Assess the company footprint in the world of regulatory compliance / Sustainability, ii) Establish end – end business processes for meeting regulatory / compliance requirements, iii) Standardize the core processes that are stable, like 3rd party data services to manage and automatic processing of information, iv) Look for business process changes and identify localized business processes and adapt global solution and finally v) Migrate to new process, in a planned and systematic way involving key business users.

Thanks

SAP EH&S Learning Thread

Dear Friends,

Few days back I got a mail asking if I take a step by step sessions on how to get into SAP EHS coverinpg important concepts and information. This thread is for that purpose. I will be periodically updating this thread with new information.

Thanks
jak

Learning EH&S – Session 1: What is Specification Database ?

Specification is the central database for EH&S. These data often referred to as Product data. This data includes regulations and laws concerning the products and ingredients. Example of specificaiton data include handling requirements, storage requirements and transport requirements, physical chemical characteristics, safety information and hazardous information. These specifications data are of different types based on the nature of the data they handle and also based on their close association with sub modules of EH&S like Hazard – related to Industrial Hygiene and safety, Waste Code – Related to Waste Management, Dangerous Goods Classification – Related to Dangeorous Goods Management and Substance – for Product Safety. So we can use the same concept to separate the specification database into Different specification Categories based on the broad category of data they contain or in EHS Sub module where they are used like i) Substances ii) Agent (Hazard) iii) Dangerous Goods Data iv) Waste Code.

Substance database contains header information and position data – often called value assignment information containing actual property information. For EH&S to work and function, these data needs to be created, used and updated at a regular intervels of time. It is possible to crate and update specificaiton information in SAP EHS, while for automated updating of the Specification database, 3rd party sources are used. The tools for updating the specification can be EH&S Expert - Open Content Connector – which uses xml format for updating the specification database – which will be covered separately in other session.

Specficiation database is closely linked as a specification model – which is related to Product Structure which we want to map into SAP EHS and at times its useful to sub – divide the broad specification category into small components to handle the data appropriately. For example It makes sense to separate Substance Specification into different Types based on exact piece of information they contain like Real Substances, Listed Substances, Un Listed Substances etc.

To create a specification in SAP EH&S access the T – Code, CG02BD, if you want to specifically create a specification database then CG02 (product Safety), CBIH92 (Industrial Hygiene and Safety), WAO02 (Waste Management).


Thanks

REACh Use and Exposure mapping using SAP EH&S– Industrial Hygiene and Safety

Dear Friends,

Few days back I got a request asking if I write something on Use and Exposure in REACh and How SAP EHS is supported and also about eSDS and GHS. I try to write some high level information. This goes like this –

REACH legislation requires an understanding of how chemical substances are used, specifically, how they are handled throughout their life cycle from manufacture to disposal. For those substances that are hazardous, a risk assessment is required to be performed for each use to demonstrate that it is safe Expsoure scenarios needs to be preparated for hazardous substances tha are produced or imported > 10 t/a. Use and Exposure categories provide specific information tailored to the various user groups about what has to be borne in mind when the substances are used. For REACh Use & Exposure Scenario – Exposure assessment and Risk rating are carried out with Sophisticated 3rd party tools like ECETOC or yet to released CHESAR, for which the current system only the output is stored for reference.

Access the following url to see the Google Presentation on mapping of Use and Exposure in SAP EHS - IH&S Componenet.

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B37ZjPJIaBcONTNiYWVjZDUtZmFiNy00MGNiLTk4ZjUtYWUwMTJhYjBjNWU5&hl=en

Advantages of the model is i) Simplified model taking data from existing systems and proposed REACh – which reduces work effort ii) Mapping multiple substances to one work area – for maintaining Use & Exposure Information further reduces the implementation and reporting effort which can make the system available in shortest possible time period . iii) Existing properties and data is used, as much as possible, such as the existing Use properties from REACh and EH&S.

Some of the classes that can be used without any problem for preparation of eSDS and GHS include– Data maintenance in Exposure Scenario, customer exposure and GHS LABELING. The GHS classification data almost all the data is existing except for some supplementary hazard statement and M-Factors information.

Thanks