Global Chemicals Company Integrates for HSE Compliance Visibility

A Global Chemicals Company Integrates for HSE Compliance Visibility

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Environmental ConsultingEnvironmental Consulting

Industry

Chemical Manufacturing

Location

United States

Trinity Consultants’ client, a global specialty chemicals company with leading positions in lithium, bromine, and refining catalysts, serves customers in a variety of industries, from energy and communications to transportation and electronics. Their far-flung operating footprint includes facilities worldwide.

Trinity had been working with the client since 2001 to support air and environmental needs. In 2018, Trinity’s Digital Solutions team came on board to assist with HSE software selection. In mid-2021, the company elected to implement Wolters Kluwer’s Enablon® software for Multi-Media Environmental Compliance and Data Management, and Industrial Hygiene (IH). Enablon’s success factors included their reputation for quality HSE solutions, broad EHS functionality, and flexible configurations. The client requested speculative implementation and solution plans from Trinity and another Enablon partner that was currently serving as an IT consultant to the firm.

The goal was twofold: 1) Deploy a global Environmental Management Information System (EMIS) to integrate HSE compliance management and reporting across plants in the US, Europe, South America, Asia, and Australia and 2) Enable IH monitoring in the five regions for centralized planning, management, and analysis, including migration of historical IH data for reporting and analytical purposes.

Trinity was awarded the Enablon implementation project based on the team’s deep industry, environmental, and IH experience, and based on Trinity’s cost-effective roadmap to a practical and timely implementation.

Challenge

Prior to the request for solution, each client site was managing environmental compliance locally, using manually intensive, disparate, ad hoc systems. So, no cohesive view of regulatory risk was available for the organization.

Their numeric and analytics compliance data for air, water, waste, and industrial hygiene was scattered over their various sites and mostly on spreadsheets. To chart and graph performance against goals, data that resided in operations software had to be converted first. The process was susceptible to data inconsistencies and errors, and pinned environmental experts to routine and mundane tasks.

Further, because their locations spanned the globe, time zone and language differences made communications especially
challenging. All this, in the middle of a global pandemic, made resolving the situation extremely difficult.

Solution

Trinity solved the language and time zone challenge by enlisting local translators to assist on calls at mutually acceptable hours, usually early in the morning Eastern Time and capped at about one hour per session. Following pandemic protocols, the meetings were conducted over video conferences, wherein participants mapped and monitored roles, responsibilities, and tasks in sprints. Enablon’s embedded translation tool helped set system displays in native languages, further clarifying user understanding.

Most of the sites involved were without a data management system, so migrating data to the new solution was often tedious and time-consuming. Trinity and Wolters Kluwer Enablon worked with the client’s IT lead to extract, transform, and load the data for launch. Trinity gained efficiency during data transformation using Microsoft’s Power Automate tool to automate data manipulation of hundreds of records. Any spreadsheet data that could be used was formatted and input, while a few of the facilities simply started from scratch.

Trinity recommended using Enablon’s out-of-the-box capabilities to level set each site with basic functionality. Where gaps in functionality appeared, the partners reconfigured the software, using drag and drop edits where possible, as well as custom coding using Enablon’s proprietary language.

With client requirements met and future-state business processes documented and configured within the system, Trinity initiated user testing and training. Finally, Trinity and the client rolled out the solution to additional sites following the data, training, testing, and support model developed by Trinity during the pilot phase of the project.

Services Performed

The team designed and implemented a compliance data management system, conducting workflow analysis and process mapping to ensure efficiency. They managed data migration and integration of historical records, provided user training and onboarding for site teams, and delivered ongoing digital support with system optimization to maintain peak performance.

Result

The industrial hygiene module went live in February 2022; the compliance reporting system went live in April. After the five pilot plants were up and running, Trinity tracked system usage seeing user activity steadily build. Within two months, all sites had users completing tasks on the system; they could now handily share information with the corporate office and across sites without tying up valuable staff.

Graphical user dashboards connected team members worldwide to centrally stored global data for a single source of truth against which industrial hygiene could be accurately analyzed, monitored, and proactively managed, and compliance reporting could be efficiently performed with confidence. Not only did the system improve visibility into compliance tasks, but it also reduced risk by providing a reliable legal register where all permits and documentation could be readily accessed in response to audits. Similar results were obtained for the additional sites to which the solution was deployed. While these results indicated a high degree of success, the ultimate measure of achievement was the high degree of satisfaction from the site-level and corporate-level users alike.

To date, Trinity is now providing sustainment support, education, and training, while also optimizing and enhancing the system based on user feedback. Plans are in place to continue expanding the base of connected sites moving forward.

2x

Faster Compliance Reporting

1

One system for multiple sites

Improved

Data Accuracy and Audit readiness

We chose Trinity Consultants because of their specialized knowledge in environmental matters. That decision paid off in a smooth, well-executed transition to the Enablon system. Their process experience and flexibility in transferring their knowledge to our people worldwide was commendable. We are very satisfied with the outcome

Client Project Lead | Global Specialty Chemicals Company