Indicators for Successful Remediation
When looking for a GHG reporting program, there is one element that is typically overlooked. This short video gives us more insight.
When looking for a GHG reporting program, there is one element that is typically overlooked. This short video gives us more insight.
When looking for a GHG reporting program, there is one element that is typically overlooked. This short video gives us more insight.
It is always concerning when environmental issues are significant enough to start grabbing headlines. Typically for an environmental project to become newsworthy, there have been significant impacts to human health or the environment. It is extremely rare to see any environmental success story in the news, simply because there is no reason for the public to become alarmed about it. So unfortunately, there is usually some level of urgency involved when most companies are putting serious thought into their public communication efforts.
Two primary topics are always at the forefront of criticism when there is any sort of news on environmental projects: 1) the magnitude of the impact and 2) the public communication efforts made for the project. For almost every project, there have been significant efforts put into addressing the first topic. The responsible party has usually invested a lot of time and money into removing contaminants or finding ways to eliminate their impact on the environment. Unfortunately, despite those efforts, if an environmental project is in the news, there is still some outstanding issue (or multiple issues) to be addressed.
On the topic of public communication, however, many responsible parties are doing the minimum required by their regulator, and therefore leave themselves vulnerable to criticism for not doing enough to keep the public informed. One very common form of public communication is fact sheets: one or two-page “plain language” summaries of the environmental project that are intended to be easily understood by the general public. Fact sheets are effective in that they can be bulk mailed to an entire neighborhood and provide all the necessary information. But the downside is that fact sheets often take several months to prepare. Since they are issued by the regulator, they typically require review from multiple divisions within the regulatory body including lawyers and public coordination specialists with very little familiarity with the project. For that reason, fact sheets are usually outdated before they are even published. Most printed formats are subject to the same issue to some extent.
To avoid this scenario, some responsible parties are taking a proactive approach by creating a public-facing website that is continuously updated with the latest project data and status. Current web technologies make this relatively cost-effective to set up and maintain. Certain elements on the website can even be connected to live data so that information is available as soon as it is collected. While there may be some reluctance to this kind of ‘over-sharing,’ it is invaluable in responding to complaints about lack of public communication. Information can be made available to anyone immediately, and email lists can be established for anyone interested in getting notifications on important updates. Additionally, a data review process can be established between the data collection and the public distribution. While this does add a short time gap before making the data publicly available, it ensures the data are representative and valid so that they do not create unnecessary concerns. And the data review process is often much faster than the review of written text.
Communication efforts are becoming increasingly important for environmental projects, whether it is for remediation of legacy sites, keeping pollutants out of the air, or providing safe drinking water. Using modern communication methods can vastly improve the level of public confidence that environmental concerns are being addressed and can also mitigate the risk of negative publicity associated with lagging public communication efforts. If environmental data are continuously made available, there is less for the public to become alarmed about. Consider integration of a public communication program with the ongoing data collection and/or cleanup efforts, rather than addressing the public as an afterthought.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just get compliance software with much less time and effort? That is where Locus’ pre-configured apps come in. They are market tested and fully featured yet still allow for flexibility/configurability in key areas such as: Adding new data fields to capture industry specific information. Adding or removing document […]
Business intelligence (BI) is a critical component of any organization. BI lets you analyze data on your processes and products, so you have the information needed to make decisions and take actions to improve your business’s performance. BI applications have been available for several years, with offerings from many companies including Microsoft, Oracle, SAS, Qlik, and Tableau.
Initially, BI was focused on just a few areas such as finance, logistics, and sales. As BI effectiveness evolves you need information covering all aspects of your business. One key information set is spatial information, which is usually managed in a geographic information system (GIS). GIS applications have been available since 1965 but only became widely commercially available in the 1980s when ESRI released its first GIS applications. Since then, GIS has spread from the desktop to mobile devices and the cloud.
Often, an organization’s spatial data is separate from other data, kept in its own department or application. For example, your organization might have a GIS department that manages geographic information for your facilities. However, spatial data might also be in other departments such as sales (locations of clients); physical plant (buildings, infrastructure, assets); logistics (sales or delivery routes), or even human resources (safety incident locations). It can be challenging to bring together these disparate spatial data sources and integrate them with non-spatial data stored in spreadsheets, databases, files, and other data warehouses.
Several recent business trends, however, have made it much easier to bring together both spatial and non-spatial information to support GeoBI or Geographic Business Intelligence. First, the rise and ubiquity of the internet ‘cloud’ has made it possible for an organization to put all their data into the cloud. Your business staff can now access all your data, regardless of the physical location of the data or your staff. Second, GIS has evolved from its earlier days when it was a way to automate traditional cartography. Now, GIS supports advanced spatial analysis and visualization techniques, including buffering, contouring, interpolation, network analysis, and 3D mapping. And third, new applications and methods have broken the barriers between spatial and non-spatial data. GeoBI software applications can manage both types of data, letting you combine all your data for analysis and visualization. Applications that don’t explicitly support both types can be connected through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs) for seamless transfer of data.
Locus Technologies has been a leader in bringing GeoBI to environmental data management. Locus’ software supports non-spatial data analysis via reporting, charting, and expert query functionality. The Locus GIS+ add-on lets you add spatial data to your analysis with the GIS+ functions for spatial query, data classification, time series analysis, buffering, and contouring. Let’s look at some examples.
The above examples show how GeoBI can bring all your data together for use in analysis and decision-making, leading to a more complete picture of your facilities and processes. Furthermore, by having one suite of applications for your GeoBI needs, your organization can be more efficient. If spatial and non-spatial data are in separate silos, accessible only by different staff, it is difficult for one person to perform a complete analysis. Files, maps, spreadsheets, and other data objects must be shuffled between different persons and applications. With your data in Locus software, a full GeoBI analysis can be performed by one person, leading to productivity gains and cost reductions.
In the future, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to GeoAI, which would combine GeoBI with powerful features such as predictive analytics, pattern mining, and anomaly detection. Stay tuned for a future blog post on these exciting possibilities!
Acknowledgments: All the data used in the examples was obtained from the publicly available chemical datasets online at Intellus New Mexico.
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 verifications 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!
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 to 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.
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.
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!
When looking for a GHG reporting program, there is one element that is typically overlooked. This short video gives us more insight.
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Welcome to another Compliance Minute from Locus Technologies. Chris DeCree talks about Waste Profiles, automating your waste management documentation.
Click the video to learn more.
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Locus Technologies Product Manager, Snetu Karania, discusses the use of the Report Generator. A helpful tool in the Locus Software toolbox – this powerful instrument saves time and labor. In this video, Snetu shows how easy it is to generate a detailed report.
Click the video to learn more.
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Locus Technologies provides cloud-based environmental software and mobile solutions for EHS, sustainability management, GHG reporting, water quality management, risk management, and analytical, geologic, and ecologic environmental data management.