Environmental, health and safety compliance management software is used to capture and control a variety of important regulatory information and data. This data can include regulatory requirement task management, corrective action information, accident and incident information, chemical and hazardous substance information, industrial hygiene exposure assessment data, and environmental emissions and release information. Often, the reason for capturing this data is to fulfill or meet some regulatory requirement, but companies choosing to implement and maintain an compliance management software solution should take a broader view and look to these systems for driving continuous improvement in their organizations.
Types of Continuous Improvements
The types of continuous improvements that can be gained from effectively analyzing the information capture in the compliance software system are many. Continuous improvement projects can result in the following benefits:
- a reduction in the time required to complete regulatory compliance related tasks;
- elimination or reduction in the use of hazardous chemicals or substances;
- reduction in accidents and incidents;
- reduction in compliance violations;
- accelerating the time to market for new products;
- increase in employee involvement;
- increase in community goodwill; and
- many others.
Questions to Ask
When selecting a compliance management software solution, the selection team will need to consider and answer several important questions. These questions include:
- How many people will need access to the system?
- What level of access will they need?
- How scalable will the system need to be?
- Will the system be multi-facility?
- Will the system be multi-country? And will language translation and internationalization be necessary?
After answering these questions, the selection team should then develop a table listing all the user specifications and requirements. Each one should be identified as a "must have", "nice to have", or "not necessary." Keep in mind, that if you're an international company, that your selection team should include individuals from outside of the U.S. Once the key requirements have been compiled, then product information can be obtained, and on-line demonstrations can be scheduled. When viewing the demonstrations, ask yourself "Is this the type of information that can help drive continuous improvement in my organization?" If not, you should consider another solution.