There are several recent bookmarks within the book of mankind’s progress denoting outstanding periods of excellence: industrial revolution, mass production assembly lines, technological and computing based developments etc.

Yet, if we were to make an observation on Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) – the trifecta of human survival; a culture of hindsight or retrospection becomes more apparent rather than the progressive prowess that we have so demonstrated, as suggested earlier.

Clearly, such hindsight isn’t sustainable anymore. With newer environmental regulations and compliances being set up, updated and its watch-guards nominated to monitor the situation, organisations are waking up to a perpetual reality. This is where an efficient EHS management software can deliver a realistic change for a more positive approach to an organisation and its EHS policy.

1. Mitigating paper trails is not only an exercise in being sustainable and environment friendly for corporates and organisations, nowadays. It is crucial from the actual EHS management standpoint. Through the several layers of incident management, audit and defined tasks with its suggested actions in EHS domain. Pen and paper based method for documentation and reporting become less accurate, cumbersome to visualize and offer little to no help in building an institutional EHS memory.
2. Excel based solution do not fare any better as well. EHS management software offers the flexibility and resilience to absorb large amounts of data and help your organisation by allowing your EHS team in making efficient decisions. Assisted by analyses, performance graphs and data visualization, all with the click of a button. Tabulated sheets over the course of time will start looking granular, without having much to deliver on their own.
3. Large organisations and multiple sites means that a standardized EHS process workflow would be appreciated by various teams and EHS managers spread over different locations. Super scale plants or “megafactories” face issues related to delocalization of works’ and therefore a standardized workflow means better identification and its application, say by a worker from a different shop-floor, undertaking permit to work request at another division, within same plant.
4. Regulatory and compliance based reminders are of great value for any organisation that has to deal with renewal of licenses, regulatory and compliance based inspections that ultimately deliver an overall EHS scenario . It may involve hazardous aspects of chemical handling, water quality monitoring from the source of discharge or whether the pharmaceutical manufacturing in question conforms to GMP. The fact of the matter remains that an EHS management software can alert and deliver reports generated from all the aggregated data it has compiled facilitating an audit or inspection-ready plant.
5. EHS can help your organisation grow and project a sustainable and environment friendly persona, not just for the looks of it but with demonstrable activities. EHS management software will help define an action based approach rather than reactive approach that is seemingly more common. The EHS process efficiency which is enabled by data driven insights and decisions have definitive economic benefits which can be channelized to fuel corporate social responsibilities.

As a short list, these five reasons can become the starting point for embracing a software approach to EHS management. The dynamic environment especially within organisations, manufacturing plants and facilities with sophisticated automation driving them forward, calls for ‘automation’ driving the EHS domain as well. With wearable technology enabled by Internet of Things (IoT) capable of detecting heart irregularities with 97% accuracy and big data approaches – actionable predictive analytics would become the next step in the evolution of EHS management software.