Considering EHS Software?

April 13, 2010 - PRLog -- When making a large strategic investment in any information management software package, it is important to not only meet your current requirements, but also, consider the big picture. While it may be just your department that has an immediate need for data management software, an enterprise-wide solution that spans multiple divisions, departments and other groups will uncover cost saving trends through data mining and analyses’.

If you have to start small, one of the most important things to look for in an EHS software system is its ability to expand into areas that other departments and facilities can utilize. As you show the viability of integrated software, other departments will quickly add on to your system aiding in organizational compliance, but more importantly, synergy through a streamlined information process.

Some simple factors to be taken into consideration before making a decision include:

• Is the solution modular? Does it have the modules you want now, and can it easily and cost effectively expand into other areas of EH&S? As every organization is different, there is no “out-of-the-box solution that will meet your needs perfectly; an adaptable solution is ideal.

• Can the software mimic your unique organizational structure so that the data stored is meaningful? This is very important if you want to generate meaningful trends.

• Does it have built in report writers (both for ad-hoc queries and more advanced queries)? Can you do your own custom data mining and trend analyses?

• Scalability: Will the solution support your group of users as well as the entire corporate environment once you expand?

• Vendor longevity: How long have they been, specifically, engineering EHS software? Look for a company that has been around for the long haul.

• Hosting: Do they have an installed solution and a hosted solution?

• Ownership: If using a hosted solution, who owns the data (very important)? Do you have the right to copy your entire database down to your servers at anytime? Do you own your own data? Do you have access to the hosted server it is stored on?

• If you store your data in-house on your own network servers, find out if the solution is database independent?

• Is the user interface customizable and user friendly?

• Web, windows, or both: Will it run as a windows app or a web app? This is important so that your end users have the flexibility to use the application wherever they are;

• Point and Click Configuration/Customization: Because no application completely meets your needs out of the box, it is important that the software be flexible and adaptable to your requirements; of course, the best solution is one where you don’t have to go back to the vendor for costly changes. Look for a point and click form editor that you can use to make changes to forms yourself.

• Define occupational health coverage: Review a vendor’s modular solution. Make sure they have the modules you need now and look to the future to see that they can cover, right now, what you will need down the road. Otherwise you will be stuck with a system that won’t work for you.

• Make sure they have the modules you need now and look to the future to see that they can cover, right now, what you will need down the road. Otherwise you will be stuck with a system that won’t work for you.

• International language form translation: Do you need your forms translated into multiple languages for your employees? Very few vendors offer this service. Some offer instant form translations. But don’t think of a language as just foreign. Some vendors allow you to come up with a set of terms that your organization uses uniquely and translate a form from its default terms to your terms. This is in essence a language translation too. Look into this feature.

• International unit measure of conversion: Can the software easily convert various units of measure?

• Maintenance and support promotions: Very often a vendor will have promotions running. Check into what’s available.

Look for free support for a period of time.

• How much is support and maintenance? The going rate for maintenance and support seems to be an annual payment of around 15-22 percent of the license fee. This varies. Look at not only annual cost but what kind of support they offer; to whom do you speak? Is the support based domestically? How long will you wait? Be sure to check with a vendor’s references to see how they like their support.

• Mobile Questionnaires and PDA use available? Surveys, audits and questionnaires are a big part of EHS. How often would it be helpful to have this functionality mobile? See if the vendor has a mechanism to take questionnaires out into the field with a PDA application.

• Ad-hoc and advanced reporting capabilities built in: The software should have a number of reporting tools built into the system, including a quick ad-hoc report builder; this should allow users to quickly draw from fields on various forms to put together a report which can be run on demand. Additionally there should be some kind of advanced reporting tool that allows sophisticated programming.

• Support for commercial reporting tools: If your company uses a commercial reporting tool, make sure you have complete access to your data in the database. Ask the vendor if you have direct access to upload and download data directly to the database. Also, ask if the database is documented so that you can access it with little trouble?

Cost Benefit Analysis and ROI

When trying to determine the ultimate return on investment, you are forced to ask the classic question, “What is the cost of an accident that never happens?” This question has plagued risk managers and EH&S professionals for decades. Since the advent of comprehensive EH&S software, the subject has gained considerable interest.

Using data stored in an EH&S software application over a number of years, reports on cost and savings data can be generated based on numerous variables which may ultimately provide increased ROI.

The number of organizations that decide to take a piecemeal approach to meet their EH&S needs is staggering. Initially, organizations underestimate their long-term and sometimes, even their immediate, short-term EH&S needs. Because of this, they spend time and capital they can’t afford developing and updating a series of native systems that may never meet all of their data management needs because of a lack of integration and data validity.

When organizations replace native systems with an integrated modular system that meet their demands now, and grow with them in the future, they incrementally improve their return on investment through not only reduced support costs and improved integration, but more importantly, increased organizational compliance due to reliable data and powerful reporting tools.

Learn more about EHS software:  Search “considering EHS software” in Google.

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Knorr Associates Inc. has been providing DataPipe, the complete EH&S information management software solution for over 30 years. DataPipe is a smart and simple, modular software solution for collecting and managing EHS data.