How Did You Pick Your EMIS?
Kelvin Roth
May 12, 2011
Today, EMIS have expanded beyond just environmental management systems and compliance. They now touch everything your department does including health and safety, auditing, training, and corporate sustainability metric tracking. An effective EMIS is a critical component of most thriving EHS departments. Most companies invest a tremendous amount of time, money and “brain sweat” into these systems. So how come some systems are a lot more successful than others?
Here’s the secret: it all starts with choosing the system that is the best fit for your needs. Choose correctly and your life becomes easier, your staff becomes more effective, and you’ll lose 10 pounds (ok, that last part may not be true). Choose incorrectly and your workload doubles, your staff spends time running in circles, you’ll spend $$$$, and you’ll gain 10 pounds (again, not proven, but the stress eating will likely do this).
Don’t get me wrong, configuration and implementation are also very important. But, if you choose the wrong system, you’ll spend far more time and money on those two activities than desired and you’ll likely never end up with the EMIS you need or want. Choose the system that is the best fit for your needs and those two steps become much much easier.
I’ve recently co-authored an article with Laura Murphy, from KMI, that lays out eight essential steps for getting this big decision right. What are some of the mistakes you've made in going through the EMIS selection process? What would you do again? What would you avoid?
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About the Author
Kelvin Roth
CF Industries Inc.
Kelvin Roth is the Vice President, Environmental, Health, Safety and Quality, at CF Industries. He is an EHS professional with more than 25 years of experience in building global, results-driven EHS programs and dynamic EHS teams. He is also a past president of the NAEM Board of Directors. Follow him on Twitter at @Oenodog.