Converting client specific requirements into a useful tool

Dear Friends,

I am sure, many of you would have worked on the development for meeting client specific needs. At times it is very easy to hard code everything for client requirements. However, there is a wonderful furctionality called Variants – which can transform a client specific requirement into a tool for meeting broader requirements. Variants allow you to save sets of input values for programs that you often start with the same selections. Variant is like a variable inputs which can trigger varied search / program options for meeting different requirements. It is possible to store different variants for different purposes and even schedule them as required. Variants can be used either in background or via user intervention.

In EH&S such variant options are available in a sub functionality called Specification Informaiton Systems, which can provide you with different search output based on different selction requirements. Name it Set of Hits or drill down reporting or even Sepcficiation report functionality. It would be useful to explore such functionality navigating into Compliance workbench, generating different search options and save those search outputs, save the search criteria as variants and use them for drill down reporting for generating output. Create report outputs using those search outputs like Excel Output, Substance listing etc.

In future if you are into a client business blueprint or technical development sessions, look into the options of proposing the concept of variants for meeting clients current as well as future likely requirements. giving them handy tools to avoid repetitive developments again in future !.

Thanks

Carbon Sequestration mapping in SAP Carbon Impact !!!!

Dear Friends,

Fews days back I got a mail from a Research Scientist who is working on Micronutrient management in Lakes and Estunaries in Washington University, who is seeing for information on how to capture forest sequestration related calculations into SAP Carbon Impact - This is where the true difference between a Enterprise Software and a Academic Interest appears. At the onset it may seem very easy to map using some custom activity type and provide calculation to accomdate that request. Is it really required for enterprises to work? Enterprise carbon management mainly comprise of Carbon Accounting, Carbon Reporting and Carbon Management - It might easily fall under the scope of Carbon Accounting, however from a enterprise point of view it may not be relevant. This is where it needs to be seen - unlike other SAP modules - which are Industry specific or cross functional, Green House Gas Management is above Enterprise level, it is of Global in nature - how best it is managed depends on the level of details the information is captured - may be it needs to be seen how SAP reacts to such requirements.

SAP Carbon Impact is a On-Demand module from SAP, used for mapping Company Carbon foot print, identify reduction measures, carry out surveys, check for product carbon, validate highlevel company KPIs. It has three types of functionalities built around - Analyze, Assess and Act. You can Assess inventories, Products, use the Analyze to view the Dashboards and reduction projects and Act - for creation of reports, goal settings and offset inventory management. Tools to create master data like Facilities, equations, input and output and templates for reports. You can export SAP Carbon Impact data into SAP Business Objects Business Explorer - to view multidimentional analysis of the data.

Thanks

EH&S Workflows and Reporting

Dear Friends,

As many of you know, the easiest thing in filling the customer workflow and data management requirements – is creating a new development. it is will be very useful if they can be looked from realigning the standard functionality offered by the EH&S. For Example, one of the business requirements is triggering of emails whenever some important information is changed in a specification database or whenever new injury / illness is entered or even creation of customer specific reports for their validations. Instead of investing on the development, existing functionalities might be used.

SAP EHS already have a good functionality which can meet such requirements like EH&S Workflow and Specification Information Systems. . For EHS workflow – a demo definition is provided EHS_DEMO, with a task EHS_DEMO_TSK. This task actually carries out task of processing value assignment types. This task can be copied and adopted to client requirements. The customization settings for the workflow Specify start conditions and Specify task profile can be used to enter the required information. Once Workflow scheduler runs in the background (RC1WFSUB) – they automatically appear in the assigned agent’s inbox.

Similarly, the functionality specification information system provides a inbuilt search options and creation of reports for user analysis. There are different options available like list report, excel output, compositions etc, which can be used for client requirement. To create a report, required number of specifications can be searched using search criteria (this can be scheduled in the background) and once the hit-list is generated a required output variant can be selected to create report.

These two are very versatile functionalities to meet the customer reporting and data management requirements and I feel are very helpful though it’s always tempting to ask for development work.

Thanks

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