Artificial Intelligence and Environmental Compliance–Revisited–Part 4: AI, Big Data + Multi-Tenancy = The Perfect System

AI and Big Data to Drive EHS Decisions via Multi-tenant SaaS

With data and information streaming from devices like fire hydrants, there is little benefit from raw data, unless a company owning the data has a way to integrate the data into its record system and pair it with regulatory databases and GIS. That is where the advancement in SaaS tools and data sources mashups has helped set the stage for AI as a growing need.

Humans are not very good at analyzing large datasets. This is particularly true with data at the planetary level that are now growing exponentially to understand causes and fight climate change. Faced with a proliferation of new regulations and pressure to make their companies “sustainable” EHS departments keep adding more and more compliance officers, managers, and outside consultants, instead of investing in technology that can help them. Soon, they will be turning to AI technology to stay on top of the ever-changing regulatory landscape. 

Locus - Big Data - IoT - AI

AI, in addition to being faster and more accurate, should make compliance easier. Companies spend too much time and effort on the comprehensive quarterly or annual reporting—only to have to duplicate the work for the next reporting period. The integrated approach, aided by AI, will automate these repetitive tasks and make it easier than just having separate analyses performed on every silo of information before having a conversation with regulators.

In summary, whether it is being used to help with GHG emissions monitoring and reporting, water quality management, waste management, incident management, or other general compliance functions, AI can improve efficiency, weed out false-positive results, cut costs and make better use of managers’ time and company resources.

Complex data - Data redundancy

Another advantage of AI, assuming it is deployed properly, concerns its inherent neutrality on data evaluation and decision making. Time and time again we read in the papers about psychological studies and surveys that show people on opposite sides of a question or topic cannot even agree on the “facts.” It should not be surprising then to find that EHS managers and engineers are often limited by their biases. As noted in the recent best-seller book by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics laureate Daniel Kahneman, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” when making decisions, they frequently see what they want, ignore probabilities, and minimize risks that uproot their hopes. Even worse, they are often confident even when they are wrong. Algorithms with AI built-in are more likely to detect our errors than we are. AI-driven intelligent databases are now becoming powerful enough to help us reduce human biases from our decision-making. For that reason, large datasets, applied analytics, and advanced charting and data visualization tools, will soon be driving daily EHS decisions.

In the past, companies almost exclusively relied upon on-premise software (or single-tenant cloud software, which is not much different from on-premise). Barriers were strewn everywhere. Legacy systems did not talk to one another, as few of the systems interfaced with one another. Getting data into third-party apps usually required the information to be first exported in a prescribed format, then imported to a third-party app for further processing and analysis. Sometimes data was duplicated across multiple systems and apps to avoid the headache of moving data from one to another.  As the world moves to the multi-tenant SaaS cloud, all this is now changing. Customers are now being given the opportunity to analyze not just their company’s data, but data from other companies and different but potentially related and coupled categories via mashups. As customers are doing so, interesting patterns are beginning to emerge.

The explosion of content—especially unstructured content—is an opportunity and an obstacle for every business today.

The emergence of artificial intelligence is a game-changer for enterprise EHS and content management because it can deliver business insights at scale and make EHS compliance more productive. There are numerous advantages when you combine the leading multi-tenant EHS software with AI:

  • Ability to handle the explosion of unstructured content where legacy on-premise EHS solutions can’t.
  • AI can organize, illuminate, and extract valuable business insights if all your content is managed in one secure location in the cloud.
  • Locus helps you take advantage of best-of-breed AI technologies from industry leaders and apply them to all your content.

We are seeing in the most recent NAEM white paper, Why Companies Replace Their EHS&S Software Systems, that people want the ability to integrate with other systems as a top priority.  Once the ability to share/consolidate data is available, AI is not far behind in the next generation of EHS/Water Quality software.

This concludes the four-part blog series on Big Data, IoT, AI, and multi-tenancy. We look forward to feedback on our ideas and are interested in hearing where others see the future of AI in EHS software – contact us for more discussion or ideas! Read the full Series: Part One, Part Two, Part Three.

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    Locus Technologies goes all-in on AWS

    SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 23 July 2019 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the market leader in multi-tenant SaaS water quality, environmental compliance, and sustainability management, today announced that it is going all-in on Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), moving its entire infrastructure to the world’s leading cloud. By moving its flagship product EIM (Environmental Information Management) to AWS this month, Locus will complete its transition to AWS. Locus previously moved its Locus Platform (LP) to AWS in 2018.

    EIM is the world’s leading water quality management software used by many Fortune 500 companies, water utilities, and the US Government since 1999. Among its many features, EIM delivers real-time tools to ensure that water utilities deliver clean water to consumers’ taps and don’t discharge contaminated wastewater above allowable limits to groundwater or surface water bodies like streams, lakes, or oceans.

    EIM generates big data, and with over 500 million analytical records at over 1.3 million locations worldwide, it is one of the largest centralized, multi-tenant water quality management SaaS systems in the world. With anticipated growth in double digits stemming from the addition of streaming data from sensors and many IoT monitoring devices, Locus needed to have a highly scalable architecture for its software hosting. The unmatched performance and scalability of AWS’s offerings are just the right match for powering Locus’ SaaS.

    Because of the scope of its applications, Locus is expecting to leverage the breadth and depth of AWS’s services (including its database systems, serverless architecture, IoT streaming, blockchain, machine learning, and analytics) to automate and enhance the on-demand EHS compliance, sustainability, facility, water, energy, and GHG management tools that Locus’ software provides to its customers.

    Running on AWS’s fault-tolerant and highly performant infrastructure will help support Locus’s everyday business, and will scale easily for peak periods, where reporting demand such as GHG calculation engine or significant emissions incidents like spills can skyrocket scalability demand.

    By leveraging Amazon CloudFront, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) and AWS Lambda, Locus is migrating to a microservices architecture to create more than 150 microservices that independently scale workloads while reducing complexity in the cloud, thereby enhancing every element of the customer cloud experience. Locus built a data lake on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and will leverage Amazon Redshift to analyze the vast amount of data it is storing in the cloud, delivering insights and predictive analytics that uncover chemicals trending patterns and predict future emissions releases at various locations.

    Locus intends to leverage AWS IoT services and Amazon Managed Blockchain by building a new native integration to help businesses generate value from the millions of events generated by connected devices such as real-time environmental monitoring sensors and environmental treatment systems controls. AWS IoT is a set of cloud services that let connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications like EIM and Locus Platform and other devices. Locus IoT Cloud on AWS allows customers to experience real-time emissions monitoring and management across all their connected sensors and devices. And for customers who want to allow multiple parties to transact (e.g. GHG trading) without a trusted central authority, AWS provides a fully managed, scalable blockchain service. Amazon Managed Blockchain is a fully managed service makes it easy to setup, deploy, and manage scalable blockchain networks that Locus intends to use for emissions management and trading.

    For example, a water utility company that maintains thousands of IoT-enabled sensors for water flow, pressure, pH, or other water quality measuring devices across their dispersed facilities and pipeline networks will be able to use Locus IoT on AWS to ingest and manage the data generated by those sensors and devices, and interpret it in real time. By combining water sensor data with regulatory databases, water utility companies will be able to automatically create an emergency shutdown if chemical or other exceedances or device faults are detected and as such, will be better prepared to serve their customers and environment.

    By combining the powerful, actionable intelligence in EIM and rapid responsiveness through Locus Platform with the scalability and fast-query performance of AWS, customers will be able to analyze large datasets seamlessly on arrival in real time. This will allow Locus’ customers to explore information quickly, find insights, and take actions from a greater variety and volume of data—all without investing the significant time and resources required to administer a self-managed on-premises data warehouse.

    “After 22 years in business, and after evaluating AWS for a year with our Locus Platform, we decided to switch and continue all our business on AWS. We are taking advantage of their extensive computing power, depth and breadth of services and expertise to develop an effective cloud infrastructure to support our growing business and goal of saving the planet Earth by providing and managing factual information on emissions management, all the while reducing operational costs of Locus’ customers,” said Neno Duplan CEO of Locus. “By operating on AWS, we can scale and innovate quickly to provide new features and improvements to our services – such as blockchain-based emissions management – and deliver exceptional scalability for our enterprise customers. With AWS, we don’t have to focus on the undifferentiated heavy lifting of managing our infrastructure, and can concentrate instead on developing and improving apps and services.”

    “By organizing and analyzing environmental, sustainability, and water quality information in the cloud, Locus is helping organizations to understand the impact of climate change on drinking water,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS. “AWS’s unmatched portfolio of cloud services, proven operational expertise, and unmatched reliability will help Locus to further automate environmental compliance for companies ranging from local water utilities to multinational manufacturing corporations, to federal government research agencies. ”By choosing to go all-in on AWS, Locus is able to innovate and expand globally, developing new solutions that will leverage comprehensive analytics and machine learning services to gain deeper insights and forecast sustainability metrics that will help deliver clean drinking water to consumers around the world.”

    Read on GlobeNewswire

    Artificial Intelligence and Environmental Compliance–Revisited–Part 2: IoT

    More recently, big data has become more closely tied to IoT-generated streaming datasets such as Continued Air Emission Measurements (CEMS), real-time remote control and monitoring of treatment systems, water quality monitoring instrumentation, wireless sensors, and other types of wearable mobile devices. Add digitized historical records to this data streaming, and you end up with a deluge of data. (To learn more about big data and IoT trends in the EHS industry, please read this article: Keeping the Pulse on the Planet using Big Data.) 

    In the 1989 Hazardous Data Explosion article that I mentioned earlier, we first identified the limitation of relational database technology in interpreting data and the importance that IoT (automation as it was called at the time) and AI were going to play in the EHS industry. We wrote: 

    “It seems unavoidable that new or improved automated data processing techniques will be needed as the hazardous waste industry evolves. Automation (read IoT) can provide tools that help shorten the time it takes to obtain specific test results, extract the most significant findings, produce reports and display information graphically,” 

    IoT - Internet of Things

    We also claimed that “expert systems” (a piece of software programmed using artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. Such systems use databases of expert knowledge to offer advice or make decisions.) and AI could be possible solutions—technologies that have been a long time coming but still have a promising future in the context of big data. 

    “Currently used in other technical fields, expert systems employ methods of artificial intelligence for interpreting and processing large bodies of information.” 

    Although “expert systems” as a backbone for AI did not materialize as it was originally envisioned by researches, it was a necessary step that was needed to use big data to fulfil the purpose of an “expert”. 

    AI can be harnessed in a wide range of EHS compliance activities and situations to contribute to managing environmental impacts and climate change. Some examples of application include AI-infused permit management, AI-based permit interpretation and response to regulatory agencies, precision sampling, predicting natural attenuation of chemicals in water, managing sustainable supply chains, automating environmental monitoring and enforcement, and enhanced sampling and analysis based on real-time weather forecasts. 

    Parts one, three, and four of this blog series complete the overview of Big Data, IoT, AI and multi-tenancy. We look forward to feedback on our ideas and are interested in hearing where others see the future of AI in EHS software – contact us for more discussion or ideas!

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      Artificial Intelligence and Environmental Compliance–Revisited

      On 12 April 2019, Locus’ Founder and CEO, Neno Duplan, received the prestigious Carnegie Mellon 2019 CEE (Civil and Environmental Engineering) Distinguished Alumni Award for outstanding accomplishments at Locus Technologies. In light of this recognition, Locus decided to dig into our blog vault, share a series of visionary blogs crafted by our Founder in 2016. These ideas are as timely and relevant today as they were three years ago, and hearken to his formative years at Carnegie Mellon, which formed the foundation for the current success of Locus Technologies as top innovator in the water and EHS compliance space.

      Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Better EHS Compliance (original blog from 2016)

      It is funny how a single acronym can take you back in time. A few weeks ago when I watched 60 Minutes’ segment on AI (Artificial Intelligence) research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University, I was taken back to the time when I was a graduate student at CMU and a member of the AI research team for geotechnical engineering. Readers who missed this program on October 9, 2016, can access it online.

      Fast forward thirty plus years and AI is finally ready for prime time television and a prominent place among the disruptive technologies that have so shaken our businesses and society. This 60 Minutes story prompted me to review the progress that has occurred in the field of AI technology, why it took so long to come to fruition, and the likely impact it will have in my field of environmental and sustainability management. I discuss these topics below. I also describe the steps that we at Locus have taken to put our customers in the position to capitalize on this exciting (but not that new) technology.

      What I could not have predicted when I was at Carnegie Mellon is that AI was going to take a long time to mature–almost the full span of one’s professional career. The reasons for this are multiple, the main one being that several other technologies were absent or needed to mature before the promises of AI could be realized. These are now in place. Before I dive into AI and its potential impact on the EHS space, let me touch on these “other” major (disruptive) technologies without which AI would not be possible today: SaaS, Big Data, and IoT (Internet of Things).

      Locus Artificial Intelligence

      As standalone technologies, each of these has brought about profound changes in both the corporate and consumer worlds. However, these impacts are small when compared to the impact all three of these will have when combined and interwoven with AI in the years to come. We are only in the earliest stages of the AI computing revolution that has been so long in the coming.

      I have written extensively about SaaS, Big Data, and IoT over the last several decades. All these technologies have been an integral part of Locus’ SaaS offering for many years now, and they have proven their usefulness by rewarding Locus with contracts from major Fortune 500 companies and the US government. Let me quickly review these before I dive into AI (as AI without them is not a commercially viable technology).

      Big Data

      Massive quantities of new information from monitoring devices, sensors, treatment systems controls and monitoring, and customer legacy databases are now pouring into companies EHS departments with few tools to analyze them on arrival. Some of the data is old information that is newly digitized, such as analytical chemistry records, but other information like streaming of monitoring wireless and wired sensor data is entirely new. At this point, most of these data streams are highly balkanized as most companies lack a single system of record to accommodate them. However, that is all about to change.

      As a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon in the early eighties, I was involved with the exciting R&D project of architecting and building the first AI-based Expert System for subsurface site characterization, not an easy task even by today’s standards and technology. AI technology at the time was in its infancy, but we were able to build a prototype system for geotechnical site characterization, to provide advice on data interpretation and on inferring depositional geometry and engineering properties of subsurface geology with a limited amount of data points. The other components of the research included a relational database to store the site data, graphics to produce “alternative stratigraphic images” and network workstations to carry out the numerical and algorithmic processing. All of this transpired before the onset of the internet revolution and before any acronyms like SaaS, AI, or IoT had entered our vocabulary. This early research led to the development of a set of commercial tools and technological improvements and ultimately to the formation of Locus Technologies in 1997.

      Part of this early research included management of big data, which is necessary for any AI undertaking. As a continuation of this work at Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Greg Buckle and I published an article in 1989 about the challenges of managing massive amounts of data generated from testing and long-term monitoring of environmental projects. This was at a time when spreadsheets and paper documents were king, and relational databases were little used for storing environmental data.

      The article, “Hazardous Data Explosion,“ published in the December 1989 issue of the ASCE Civil Engineering Magazine, was among the first of its kind to discuss the upcoming Big Data boom within the environmental space and placed us securely at the forefront of the big data craze. This article was followed by a sequel article in the same magazine in 1992, titled “Taming Environmental Data,“ that described the first prototype solution to managing environmental data using relational database technology. In the intervening years, this prototype eventually became the basis of the industry’s first multi-tenant SaaS system for environmental information management.

      Locus - Big Data - IoT - AI

      Today, the term big data has become a staple across various industries to describe the enormity and complexity of datasets that need to be captured, stored, analyzed, visualized, and reported. Although the concept may have gained public popularity relatively recently, big data has been a formidable fixture in the EHS industry for decades. Initially, big data in EHS space was almost entirely associated with the results of analytical, geotechnical, and field testing of water, groundwater, soil, and air samples in the field and laboratory. Locus’ launch of its Internet-based Environmental Information Management (EIM) system in 1999 was intended to provide companies not only with a repository to store such data, but also with the means to upload such data into the cloud and the tools to analyze, organize, and report on these data.

      In the future, companies that wish to remain competitive will have no choice but bring together their streams of (seemingly) unrelated and often siloed big data into systems such as EIM that allow them to evaluate and assess their environmental data with advanced analytics capabilities. Big data coupled with intelligent databases can offer real-time feedback for EHS compliance managers who can better track and offset company risks. Without the big data revolution, there would be no coming AI revolution.

      AI and Water Management – Looking Ahead

      There has been much talk about how artificial intelligence (AI) will affect various aspects of our lives, but little has been said to date about how the technology can help to make water quality management better. The recent growth in AI spells a big opportunity for water quality management. There is enormous potential for AI to be an essential tool for water management and decoupling water and climate change issues.

      Two disruptive megatrends of digital transformation and decarbonization of economy could come together in the future. AI could make a significant dent in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by merely providing better tools to manage water. The vast majority of energy consumption is wasted on water treatment and movement. AI can help optimize both.

      AI is a collective term for technologies that can sense their environment, think, learn, and take action in response to what they’re detecting and their objectives. Applications can range from automation of routine tasks like sampling and analyses of water samples to augmenting human decision-making and beyond to automation of water treatment systems and discovery – vast amounts of data to spot, and act on patterns, which are beyond our current capabilities.

      Applying AI in water resource prediction, management and monitoring can help to ameliorate the global water crisis by reducing or eliminating waste, as well as lowering costs and lessening environmental impacts.

      Parts two, three, and four of this blog series complete the overview of Big Data, Iot, AI and multi-tenancy. We look forward to feedback on our ideas and are interested in hearing where others see the future of AI in EHS software – contact us for more discussion or ideas!

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        A better way to manage all those ops readings

        Manage all those ops readings without spreadsheets or paper forms

        I am constantly reminded by the number of calls we receive, that no matter how robust a SCADA and HMI system is, there is always a requirement for in-field O&M verification and documentation. It’s almost universal, and spans a myriad of industries, large and small, the need to monitor and record thousands of periodic (daily/per shift/weekly, etc.) routine readings/recordings at a prescribed frequency often recorded on pen to paper field forms. The same processes sometimes use “template” spreadsheets for data collection that are then emailed/placed on shared file servers or otherwise sent to some central location for review and post processing. These processes are antiquated and subject to data quality and record keeping challenges.

        It’s time for an upgrade!

        Why simple form builders are not a good software solution for ops data

        Electronic forms are great for collecting data and almost every business entity has built such forms in spreadsheets, word processing or simple databases to collect the information. In addition, there is a software category of form builders and they can certainly build forms. The question becomes is it a good fit so solve your business process issues?
        Most customers have more sophisticated needs than simply collecting information on one or more custom forms – they want to do something with all the information collected far beyond what simple form builder tools can provide. Even customers with sophisticated spreadsheet forms, can’t manage them as they multiply exponentially or their Excel gurus retire.

        Here are some examples of where you may require software tools beyond a simple form builder:

        • Collecting equipment readings on each shift at multiple locations and report the data to centralized management, who review the data, look for trends/ issues.
        • Verifying and validating data at the point of data entry to eliminate data entry errors.
        • Automatically visualizing (charts or tables) information in near real time to make operations decisions.
        • Sharing the information with others.
        • Scheduling activities related to periodic or infrequent data collection events.
        • Receiving notifications when actions are due.
        • Automatically creating regulatory reports in prescribed formats.
        • Creating complex work flows and audited approval processes.
        • Creating intelligent forms with calculations based on past data or other criteria
        Locus Platform Mobile Summary Table

        Forms with Benefits

        Locus Platform is a configurable platform with standard applications that are easy to configure to customers unique requirements. One of its many strengths is its powerful form builder capable of creating simple or complex forms with simple or sophisticated logic. So for customers looking to move from paper and spreadsheet templates, it’s an excellent option to consider, especially if you require more than a simple “fill in the blank” form for transmittal using mobile devices. Best of all, the data are securely stored in a database structure for reporting and alternative business uses and analyses, compared to the almost impossible management of hundreds of spreadsheets or paper forms.

        Here are some examples where sophisticated forms are integrated with a flexible database:

        • Water Utilities – Tracking chlorination and aerobic digestion processes with daily inputs/outputs with a monthly summary and chart, and tracking well production across well fields.
        • Water Utilities – Tracking periodic sewer discharges and water samples for permit compliance.
        • Agriculture – Monitoring food processing equipment for compliance with optimum equipment operating parameters for air permits.
        • Pharmaceutical/Chemical Manufacturing Facilities- Tracking EHS daily, weekly, monthly, etc. investigations and in-house audits.
        • Universities – tracking chemical inventories.
        • Facility Engineering – Documenting O&M activities for groundwater treatment systems.
        • Electric Utilities – Monitoring water/energy/gas usage from old style meters for sustainability reporting with data entry validation.
        • Refineries and Terminals – Collecting O&M, usage and wastewater data.
        Locus Mobile integrates with Locus Platform

        If you still rely on paper forms and template spreadsheets and are ready to streamline your process and enhance the value of your data, give us a call and we can show you a range of options that will retire the paper forms for good!

         

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          Make your O&M mobile apps work harder for you!

          Mobile apps for water and wastewater operation and maintenance (O&M) activities have been around for some time now. Most users are familiar with the benefits such as instant data collection and access to reference information for better, more reliable O&M monitoring. However, as new software tools are consistently becoming more powerful and more accessible, that “ground-breaking” mobile app that you purchased five years ago may now be looking a little dated.  When you are ready to upgrade, here are some of the features that are the new “must haves”.

          Unique and custom forms

          For many O&M programs, you may have your own data collection needs that are specific to your facility or industry.  Mobile O&M apps now allow you to tailor your input forms to add new data fields, remove unwanted fields, change some of the logic like making certain fields required, and make certain fields tied into established pick lists.  Even better, you can match the mobile form to the original paper form, making the transition to mobile simple and intuitive for staff.  And, the more the merrier, as modern mobile apps let you have multiple forms on the same app so you have everything you need in one place.

          Real-time entry validation

          It is not enough to just enter your O&M information into a mobile device.  You also want to make sure you are entering correct data.  Current O&M mobile tools can check your entry as you enter it and validate against whatever criteria are established for that data.  So you make sure that you’re entering a pH reading of 7.2, rather than 72.  You can also use configurable pick lists to limit data entry to your specific desired entries and not have to correct misspellings or 16 different ways to say “out of service”.  Make sure that pick lists are configurable and can be shared with each of your company’s devices.

          Barcode and QR code scanning

          You are probably already using your phone to compare prices at your local store.  It is amazingly easy to simply scan a product’s barcode and instantly see the best available price locally or online.  Since virtually every phone/tablet now has a built-in camera, you can use that to scan barcodes or QR codes to associate data entry with a tagged sampling port or asset. This can save you from possible mismatch errors that can occur when simply selecting from a list or typing in data.

          Use your voice

          We are starting to use voice recognition technology in our mobile devices to quickly send out text messages.  Why not use it for recording inspection/audit comments or field issues?  Voice recognition is improving every year, and can provide your comments onto a data collection form much faster than typing and can be especially useful for conditions where gloves are required and typing or stylus input is not practical.  Using the phone’s native abilities, take advantage of voice feature to streamline note taking, knowing that you can always fix up any issues back in the office.

          Review, Sync, Repeat

          Mobile apps should have a summary screen to review your data before sending it back to your database, such as a summary form for all data collected during a shift.  And once you do sync your data back to the main database (you have a main database right???), instantly reset the form for the next day data collection event so you are always ready.

          No Internet?  No Problem!

          Mobile apps that won’t function when there is no connection should be abandoned.  You need to be able to collect data no matter the location and the signal strength.  Look for mobile apps that function with zero connectivity, and save the data until a signal is found.  Not every location at modern water and wastewater facilities has a hot spot, so be prepared with the right app.

          [sc_button link=”https://www.locustec.com/applications/mobile-field-data-collection/” text=”Learn more about Locus Mobile” link_target=”_self” background_color=”52a6ea” centered=”1″ separator_style=”double”]

          Simplify your EPA fenceline regulatory reporting

          Locus Platform provides the solution for managing and submitting fenceline monitoring data.

          Locus handles all the EPA required environmental data collected at your refinery giving you a simple solution for all your data management and reporting needs. Our enhanced GIS+ mapping, data reports, formatted outputs, and charts help you streamline, consolidate, and take control of all your crucial environmental information.

          Infographic - Locus Fenceline Monitoring

           

          Contact us to learn more about Locus’ Fenceline app

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            5 time-saving tools for EHS compliance

            We all know the struggle of getting things done with shortened staff without compromising the quality of our work, especially in EHS. Locus Technologies’ Locus Platform (LP) offers multiple options to ease your complexity by providing a truly SaaS platform packed with some nifty apps. Here are some tools in LP that can help you utilize your workforce much more efficiently:

             

            1) Dashboards tailored to your needs

            Every software has built-in report and dashboards, but they may not meet all your needs when purchased off the shelf. If you need a new report, chart, or other visualization of your data, it usually incurs a custom software development charge, but not with Locus Platform (LP). LP allows you to assemble the information you want in your chosen format (bar or line charts, maps, tables, treemaps, diagrams, etc.) and share your custom dashboards and real-time information/data with your team.  In addition, the views and dashboards export to Excel, so you can easily integrate with commonly used tools and further mine the data. At the enterprise level, powerful dashboards will help you understand the status of each facility based on a matrix  you design. With the LPs flexibility, facility information can be automatically populated based on the user credentials, saving your team time and frustration.

            Screenshot of Sustainability reporting dashboard on Locus Platform

             

            2) Simplified Sustainability Reporting

            Locus Platform’s Sustainability application and calculation engine support simultaneous calculations using multiple methods for various reporting programs including EPA, California ARB, CDP, TCR, DJSI, and others. This allows users to input data only once and utilize it to report to multiple federal, state, and voluntary reporting programs, according to their required format. The application will also support direct electronic reporting formats for many reporting programs, so that additional manual transcription and submittal of data are no longer necessary. This is a very powerful tool and a huge advantage to customers in terms of improving efficiency, while reducing costs.

            Locus Platform Sustainability

             

            3) Integration

            Integration, if done correctly, can save you a great deal of time and headache during some of the most tedious and cumbersome tasks in EHS data management. Locus Platform (LP) has built in a unique point and click integration application to enable connection with major databases or third-party systems that have open API (Access privileges). Some integration, database, and communication standards and methods that are supported include OLE compliance, SOAP, COM, Java, XML, web services, ODBC/ODMA/SQL/Oracle, VIM, and MAPI. LP also works well with MS Excel and provides a powerful two-way synchronization allowing users to download parts of the database to Excel, then work, edit, and verify or append data on their local copy of Excel where they have no internet connection. Any revisions they perform to the downloaded data in Excel can be automatically synchronized back to the Locus Platform application. During the process, a complete audit trail will be preserved. This can be a great time saver especially when you are sending large volumes of valid values in a database or if you are migrating any historical data.

            Locus Technologies Integration

             

            4) Mobile

            Locus’ Mobile application allows you to sync with your server to create data collection profiles on a mobile device, whether it’s your phone or a tablet. It will allow you to click through and enter data on the device even when you are offline. Data validation is performed in real time and is stored locally on the device, once the phone reaches an internet signal, it will sync with your server, and the data will automatically be updated in Locus’ cloud-hosted solution. What’s more, Locus Mobile works seamlessly with both EIM and Locus Platform.

            Using Mobile you receive the benefits of data entry directly on the mobile device, with immediate data availability on the cloud when you reach an internet signal. Other advantages of using Mobile include location metadata and mapping integration, bar-code/OR code scanning, voice recognition, and form customization. If you’d like to know more about the Locus Mobile application, check out the Top 10 cool features in Locus Mobile.

            Locus Mobile integrates with Locus Platform

             

            5) XML Exports

            Locus has prioritized enhancing its GHG application in Locus Platform to make it easy to manage GHG emission inventory tracking and reporting requirements. Locus Technologies is the only software vendor that is a certified GHG verifier under the State of California’s AB32, and has performed the most GHG verifications in California since 2015. The State and Federal eGGRT web portals are notoriously cumbersome and require a significant amount of your time to input all the required data and generate your report. But with XML support, you can bypass almost the entire data entry process, and complete your submittal within a few minutes.  XML reports support many greenhouse gas subparts, including EPA GHG Subparts C, D, W, and NN.  And because data entry for EPA and CARB is consolidated in the XML GHG application, it eliminates the need to maintain separate agency spreadsheets and software. Additional reporting programs are also adding support for XML submittals, such as EPA’s eManifest.  This functionality can be a huge time saver for anyone working with these online regulatory reporting tools.

            Locus Platform XML export

             

             

            Solving water utility data management challenges—one conversation at a time

            Last month I got the opportunity to attend AWWA Water Quality and Technology Conference in Toronto, Canada. I was very enthusiastic to interact first hand with end-users of different water technology tools, and interact with other water technology professionals.  It’s one thing to design software and support it, it’s a whole different thing to sit and talk with the real customers and real end users and get unfiltered feedback.

            As a Product Manager, I’m usually connected with our customers by the various email and messaging systems that provide an endless amount of documentation, but nothing can substitute for an in person conversation. I heard first-hand how there is a need to change existing business practices and stop using older, non-integrated systems that only provide part of the data solution. This scenario is not a new problem; there is a need by most water entities to centralize data, and more easily load, share, analyze and report data. I have had this general conversation many times, but the more in depth, one-on-one conversations about sample planning and data collection provided the most useful feedback. I had the opportunity to give a brief demonstration on “Scheduling and collecting routine water samples using Locus Mobile and EIM” at AWWA, which provided a great venue for candid feedback. Based on these conversations, I have summarized a list of frequent challenges that users encounter during their water sampling process and how they can be solved using the right tools or better communications.

            Challenge 1: Finding a flexible sampling planning tool

            The overall feedback I heard from attendees is their sampling is generally routine, but the planning tools need to allow flexibility in terms of different sampling intervals and date ranges, different field and analytical parameters, and account for location grouping. Using a well-designed application can pull together all of this detailed information, and can provide a summary view of the individual samples. A manager can easily view sample status, and whether the sample is complete, in process, or planned.  A well-designed application can also generate the chain of custody (COC), and lab and sample shipping date information and labels per sample, which is a huge time saver. This type of sample tracking detail seemed to be very useful to many conference attendees to help ensure they are in regulatory compliance with required sampling frequencies. A key feature to look for is an application that is flexible enough that it can allow one-time, unplanned sample events such as water main breaks, customer complaints and schedule changes, and can handle complex multi-year routine sampling with ease. As a plus, it’s easy for you or your manager to know where you stand at any time.

            EIM screenshot of sample planning edit form with email notification and calendars popouts

            Challenge 2: Eliminating data entry errors caused by hand data entry

            Everyone I talked with had dealt with data entry errors and fixing bad data when it was transcribed from field notes to Excel or other programs.  Everyone wanted a better way to streamline the error prone data collection process.  Many attendees were interested in an alternative to the pencil/paper/clipboard method and had goals to move to tablet or smartphone for data collection.   As a field data collection mobile product manager, this was my area of expertise.  The universal wish list for mobile field applications included:

            • Easy to use and set up
            • Built in data validation to catch data entry errors at the source
            • Direct upload to a data system so the end of the day all the daily samples were in the system with the push of a button
            • Prepopulating locations especially for large water systems
            • Complete field instructions for samplers on what to collect and where to collect it to eliminate missed samples
            • Smart tracking to know on a daily/weekly basis, what samples were collected and what samples were still outstanding
            • Integrated with sample planning tools (See challenge 1) to automate the sampling instructions and track the data collection activities vs plan

            Locus Mobile

            Challenge 3: Getting the most out of their software, especially regarding updates

            Everyone one is aware that software updates all the time.  Sometimes its security enhancements and sometime feature enhancements or bug fixes.  Based on feedback from attendees, a source of frustration is getting a software update and not knowing what was updated or how best to incorporate a new feature/enhancement into their established process.  There was also concern for impact to an established routine with field crews that were used to the existing way of doing things. Even if a functionality improved the workflow, enhancements are only valuable to a user if they understand how to use them and how to incorporate them into their existing process.

            Some suggestions from the attendees included:

            • Concurrent documentation updates with software updates
            • “Quick start” guides for new functionality
            • Online training on the new functionality with recording for later viewing
            • Heads up on what is coming in the next several months so they can do strategic planning (sharing the roadmap)
            • Sandbox environment to test the enhancements before going in production so they can plan how to incorporate the features into their process and train field crews

            Mobile applications, which appear very simple to the users, are in reality complex software and require careful integration with the receiving database for a range of complex use cases.  This makes rolling out new mobile features challenging for both the developers and the users.  Enhanced customer/developer communication along with a sandbox environment can go a long way towards solving some of the inherent issues with rapid innovations and updates associated with cloud and mobile software.

            Locus training and support

            Take Aways

            • In person feedback beats everything
            • Communication is key.
            • Software tools are available and can solve a lot of the common data management challenges, but know what you want, know the problem you are trying to solve, and know it will take some time and effort but the end result will significantly improve your business processes.

             

            About the author—Bill Donaldson, Locus Technologies

            Bill Donaldson, Locus Technologies

            Mr. Donaldson has 5 years experience in SaaS systems, performing Product Management and QA/QC of Locus Mobile iOS application and Locus’ Environmental Information Management system (EIM). While completing his B.S., Mr. Donaldson held several paid internships, where he configured a Relational GeoDatabase and a Database Management System (DBMS), for biological data entry.

            Cut your monitoring costs with EIM sample planning

            Sample planning can be a valuable and necessary tool for many in highly regulated fields, including water utilities, where adherence to regulatory defined sampling schedules is essential.  Moreover, if you have reviewed the drinking water requirements, you know the regulations require complex and variable schedules ranging from monthly samples at routine locations for a set list of parameters to once every five, seven, or nine years at other locations for a completely different list of parameters.  Missing a required sampling event can mean fines and public notice to customers.

            Other industries face similar complex sampling needs and the financial and reputational impacts can be hefty for missing required samples. So if you are currently an EIM user, or considering an environmental information management system, don’t forget about sample planning components that will save you time and money.

            Here are some benefits of Sample Planning that may make you a believer.

            Streamline routine or repetitive sampling – set it up once and reuse or modify as needed

            Sample Planning in EIM excels in streamlining repetitive sampling, such as required drinking water samples, or quarterly monitoring well samples.  Any sampling events with a schedule from daily to once every 10 years can be planned in EIM’s module and reused again and again, even with tweaks to the schedule for the samples to be collected.  Imagine the time savings and the simplicity of having your regulatory requirements all lined out for the year and not have to worry about missing required samples.  For water utilities, this is especially valuable given the very strict schedules and the public health implications of missing sampling events.

            EIM screenshot of sample planning edit form with email notification and calendars popouts

             

             

            Automatically generate COCs and bottle labels

            When samples are planned in EIM, it is a few simple clicks of the mouse to generate COCs, work lists, and bottle labels for the field crew.  This saves time for the field and office staff, and helps ensure they collect the needed samples and not miss a collection or a field or laboratory parameter. Moreover, higher levels of accuracy and fewer transcription errors are ensured as sample IDs and requested analyses are printed electronically rather than entered by hand.

            Screenshots of sample planning module with form and environmental reporting output

             

            Its fully integrated with Locus Mobile  – you can send your Sample Plan to field staff to ensure they collect the samples needed

            For customer’s considering using Locus Mobile to streamline their field data collection, Sample Planning is a natural fit.  All the samples planned in the Sample Planning module can be delivered directly to Locus Mobile for one or more field staff.  You can even have multiple different events sent to the field crew so they can plan ahead in the field.  All the collected data is uploaded to EIM in real-time (if service is available) or later (if not) for review and final checks after the field event is concluded.  Imagine giving your sampling teams the weekly plan and tracking the progress each day as they sync their data.  A handy feature of Locus Mobile, it can remove all the previously collected samples from the plan each day to make your field sampler’s life much simpler.

            Larger drinking water utilities will find the integration of Sample Planning and mobile quite appealing, especially with daily sampling by multiple sampling teams and a large number of required routine samples.

            Locus Mobile

             

            Analytical Results GridAll your required field sample information is already in EIM for your sampling event.

            When lab data comes back from the lab, you no longer need to enter in the field sample information, it will already be in EIM.

            For drinking water utilities, where you may be sampling daily for chlorine at your sample locations, imagine seeing the results across your distribution system instantly, and ability to see it on a map in near real time.  Even better, you can share the results with your operations team with a simple dashboard link.

             

             

            Locus sample planning module with configurable calendars and email notifications

            Always know where you stand on your sampling activities

            By using Sample Planning, you will know exactly what samples have and have not been collected.  You will also know which ones were collected late, and which ones are yet to be collected.  This type of information can help ensure you don’t’ miss required samples, and identify schedule impacts when collection is not going according to plan.

            When missed samples are identified, its easy to add to the next day’s sampling and send that information to field teams using the integrated mobile app.

             

             

            Environmental data management and environmental reporting software- EIM screenshot in labGain ability to track receipt of laboratory results with fine precision

            For customers that need to track laboratory results down to the method and analyte level, Sample Planning will make that tedious task easy.  Therefore, if you ordered an EPA Method 6010C analysis and no result for lead is reported, you will know immediately when the results arrive back from the lab that the deliverable is incomplete.  EIM will also tell you when the lab substituted one method for another. You can then decide whether this change is acceptable or not.  Because most regulations include a long list of required analytes and acceptable methods, this type of detail is invaluable to help ensure that you remain in compliance.

             

             

            Locus EIM - Lab invoice trackingMake review of laboratory invoice easy as pie

            Trying to review laboratory invoices, especially for large sampling events or complex sampling programs, can be a chore.  With EIM’s Sample Planning module, most of the hard work is already done for you.  Once you have all your data back, EIM will tell you:

            • If the quantity invoiced is more than the order
            • If an invoiced line item has been invoiced previously
            • If an invoiced line item total cost and/or unit cost is incorrect