EMS Software
Selection Guide
How to Find the Right
Environmental Management Software
For Your Organization
Contents
Step 1 - Define Your Needs ... 2
Step 2 - Determine Your Options ... 6
Step 3 - Selecting Your EMS Software ... 17
Sealing the Deal - ROI & Justification ... 24
How to find an EMS software for your company
So you’ve decided that you need software to help you with your environmental management – or you’re at least thinking about it.
Congratulations on getting this far. It means you’re one step close to truly solving your problem and reaching your businesses goals. But, here comes the hard part – you now have to actually go out and find software...and not just any software – the right software. The software that will be the perfect fit for your organization. The software that will automate all of the environmental tasks you hate doing and save you hundreds of man-hours and thousands of dollars. And, of course, it has to also be reasonably priced. Finding this perfect software can be extremely challenging – daunting even – considering the expense related to choose the wrong software.
That’s why we wrote this guide – to help you find your “perfect fit”. It will take you about 20 minutes to read, but it will save you hours of headaches and potentially thousands of dollars as you look to find the software your company needs.
We’ll also go over some important items, like implementation times, costs associated with software, desired functionality and other things that will pop up on your path to discovering your perfect EMS software.
This guide was designed to help you find the perfect software by taking you through a simple, straight-forward, systematic approach that boils the software selection process down to 3 key steps:
1. Define Your Needs – Creating your roadmap to success
2. Determine Your Options – Understanding what the market can offer 3. Select Your Software – Choosing your perfect fit
Step 1
Define Your Needs
How to create your roadmap to success
So, you say you need software, but do you know why? Of course you do, but have you gotten specific? When asked, would you say something like “We need software to help automate our environmental management?”
Or would you say something along the lines of “We need software to manage our
chemical usage data, automate our TRI calculations, provide internal reporting for our 4 North American facilities and keep all 30 of our global environmental compliance staff up to date with their monthly tasks”.
Being able to produce an answer more like the second option here will result in a much higher chance of finding your “perfect fit”.
Defining your needs is probably the most important step in the entire software selection process, but (luckily) it is also the easiest. Spending some time getting this right up front will prevent a lot of headaches down the road.
In order to define your needs properly, there are two steps to take: 1. Create a list of your business goals.
2. Write down your requirements list.
Obviously, any software product is useless if it doesn’t help you accomplish your business goals. But when writing down your requirements list, it’s also important to understand the functionality that’s available in the market, so you aren’t looking for something that’s simply not feasible. This will be covered in the next section.
For now, let’s take a look at the two steps in a little more detail...
Business goals
The first step towards defining your needs is figuring out what your business goals look like.
Are you looking to free up time for your staff to spend time on other work? Are you looking to eliminate errors in calculations?
Or are you simply looking for an automated system to delegate all of the annual tasks related to your EMS to the appropriate staff?
Take 5 minutes now and write out a list of the main challenges that your company needs software to tackle, and the corresponding end goals you have in mind for each. If you’ve really focused in on your goals, you’ll have 10 reasons or less. Aim to write each of your business goals as statements, such as...
Reason for the software
We need EMS software because every year it takes a huge amount of man hours to calculate all of our air emissions and we’re never 100% sure if the numbers are accurate.
End business goal
Be able to easily produce accurate air emissions reports from our EMS software.
Requirements list
Requirements are the connections between your reasons for needing software and your end business goals.
If, for example, you need to enter data out in the field and away from your desk, then “mobile access” would be one of your requirements. This is another stage of the process where it pays to get specific.
If reporting is one of your requirements, then be clear about exactly the type of reports you need and the information those reports needs to contain. Write down each of the requirements next to the corresponding reason and goal.
Now, you may be thinking that ‘I know why I need software – I don’t need to write all this silly stuff down’...
We understand, it can seem unnecessary – but writing down the reasons, goals and requirements means you’ve taken the time to think about them and your choice will be made against these criteria.
Scoring against these criteria will ensure that you really are getting the best fit for your company, and not just some software product that a slick salesman managed to
convince your CFO to buy, because of some fancy dashboards. (You wouldn’t be the first company that had this happen to them!)
~ So, let’s recap on the action steps for this section ~
1. Layout a Goals & Requirements sheet
2. Take 5 minutes to write out the top reasons and goals for having the software; be specific!
Step 2
Determine Your
Options
Why it’s important to understand the market
After you’ve written down your list of specific requirements, it’s important to then start learning about what’s available in the market. This will help you supplement what you know you need, with what is actually on offer. You may find that there is some
functionality and features that you simply weren’t aware of which may turn out to be “must haves” for your company.
Each environmental software provider has their own specific way of doing things, but there are a few common functionalities and attributes that you should look for when writing up your requirements.
Built from the ground up
We feel that it is important to address the fact that many managers (just like you) and facility floor staff have bad conceptions of some enterprise software systems because of experiences they’ve had.
These bad experiences generally occur because some software system is sold to upper management and then shoehorned into the organization in an attempt to “improve performance”.
Unfortunately, some of these systems have little-to-no connection with how things are done on the ground, and don’t offer any functionality that can be used aggressively to generate real value for the people using it day in, day out.
More often than not these systems become data-hubs where “the record-keepers” are forced to store data (on-top of their regular work) because the organization has paid a huge amount of money for a software system that shouldn’t “go to waste”.
This results in “making work” and reduces staff with important jobs to nothing but data entry specialists, who hardly have time to walk around their plant and do their job. This is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved - you don’t enjoy your work,
upper-management doesn’t see an increase in performance, and the software company doesn’t earn a good reputation for itself.
It’s important to ensure that any software you look for is ‘built from the ground up’, because if a software doesn’t have floor-level support it will never succeed. So, how can this type of lose-lose situation be avoided, and what exactly should a real EMS software do that can add a ton of value to your organization?
The 7 Pillars of a Compressive Environmental
Management Software System
There are certain functionalities and qualities that an EMS software package should strive to deliver so the system is doing the heavy lifting and not just forcing a different kind of work on “the record-keepers.”
These are:
1. A single, unified database.
2. Automated material data collection from vendors. 3. Integration with control technologies and CEMS. 4. Built-in material & chemical vetting.
5. Automated regulatory & internal reporting. 6. Dynamically updated regulatory support.
7. Technical support with environmental expertise.
Having these essential pillars in place means your system can provide you with the fullest possible range of benefits.
For example, software that has excellent reporting capability but doesn’t automate your data retrieval from your vendors will reduce the number of hours required for
generating reports, but will significantly increase the number of hours spent on data entry...
Similarly, software that automates your calculation/reporting workflows but doesn’t have regulatory support won’t be much help when you end up submitting a compliance report without updating it to reflect the latest regulations.
Let’s take a look at each of these pillars individually and why they play such a crucial role in returning maximum value to your organization.
A single, unified database
Having a single unified database for all of your organization’s environmental data is the basic foundation of any successful EMS. It comes with some clear advantages and very few disadvantages.
Unfortunately, for many organizations the reality is that they use many different software tools for their EMS – with several programs being used for compliance reporting & calculating environmental performance. These are detached and do not communicate with each other, which means that data must be entered several times, with the results needing to be compiled when necessary.
Since all of these numbers are basically derived from the amount of materials you use in your processes and other usages at your facility, all of this data should be calculated from the same source.
Any EMS platform should strive to limit the amount of data entry required to produce the necessary outputs your organization needs, and this is only achievable with a single, unified database.
Automated Data Collection from Vendors
The #1 cause of calculation errors in compliance reports can be traced back to the moment when chemical component data is recorded into your environmental management system.
Manually transferring this data is huge source of human error. It’s sad to say that even when you’re meticulous about data entry, mistakes can happen. Manually entering data by hand is also a black hole for your time.
When a vendor sells you a new chemical or product, they typically just send along an MSDS, which contains wide chemical component ranges to protect their
proprietary information. They leave it up to you to figure out which data to use for your calculations, and take no responsibility when the data they send you isn’t 100% reliable. The best solution is to have EMS software that bypasses this pitfall of manual data entry by electronically transferring the data directly from the vendors. This can take the shape of a shared online database, a secure web portal, or a template that your vendors complete which you can upload.
This puts the accountability for data accuracy back into the hands of the vendors, and ensures you collect all of the data you need for reporting, without compromising their proprietary information. If you’re apprehensive about asking your vendors to work this way then it’s best to find a software provider that already has these relationships in place.
Those partnered vendors will be happy to get you on board with a system they are already using because it actually makes their job easier.
Chemical vendors that use a shared database system usually see these benefits:
• They can enter data once in their database and it automatically gets transferred to all their clients.
• Significantly less time on client support, answering emails and telephone calls.
• They have a competitive edge in the market by offering such a service.
• Confidential data and compound formulations are more secure over a secure portal.
And when your vendors are more confident providing more accurate information, you’ll see more specific data than the typical MSDS provides, which in turn makes your
reporting and forecasting easier.
Integration with Control Technologies and CEMS
If any of your processes use any pollution control technologies, like a scrubber or an oxidizer, it is essential that your EMS software is able to integrate with the data generated by these types of equipment.
If your EMS doesn’t, then you’re not getting an accurate digital representation of your emissions and you’ll have to adjust your reports by hand. Integrating with CEMS (short for Continuous Emissions Monitoring System) is also vital for any business that is required by permit to take constant emission records.
Having EMS software that can connect with your CEMS is the best way to optimize all the data your CEMS produces. For example, a CEMS can tell you the minute a piece of control technology stops functioning, sending you out of compliance. Any EMS software capable of integrating will send you an email alert, letting you respond as soon as
possible, and reducing your noncompliance penalties & fines.
Knowing the minute-to-minute details of your compliance can make the difference between paying for 3 hours of noncompliance and paying for 3 whole days of
noncompliance. That alone can provide the return on investment break-even point for EMS software in certain industries.
Built-in Material & Chemical Vetting
One of the best ways to improve your environmental performance is to stop potential environmental risks from ever coming in the front door. Whenever a material enters your facility, you need to make sure it doesn’t contain anything that could potentially harm you now... or somewhere down the line.
Even if a material doesn’t contain a banned substance, it can still jeopardize your compliance by generating too many emissions or going against a specific permit
condition. There are dozens of lists of compromising and banned chemicals that you can evaluate your incoming substances against. And don’t forget to check any internal lists that need to be considered for any of your CSR or sustainability initiatives.
Manually vetting all incoming materials can be mind numbing, and there’s a lot of room for error. For example, a chemical might have an alternate name that is used on certain ban lists - or a federal ban list might have been recently updated. Making a mistake at this stage could lead to trouble with your product lifecycle, some big noncompliance fines, or even a temporary shutdown.
The most efficient method of safeguarding against these situations is to use EMS
software that automates this vetting process. It should be able to quickly cross reference an entire database of banned lists, have an index of alternative names, compare CAS numbers to identify chemicals and automatically update its lists to reflect changes in various regulatory lists.
EMS software can make being proactive an automated process, enabling you to spend time thinking on which materials will save you money and improve your
environmental performance instead of worrying that you’re inadvertently putting your compliance at risk by using the wrong substances.
Automated Internal & Regulatory Reporting
No EMS software is complete without the ability to quickly generate reports for both internal and external reporting. Without a strong reporting function, all you’ll have is a sophisticated data bucket.
Environmental management is all about reporting: reports to federal agencies, reports that prove compliance, reports to shareholders, sustainability reporting, and
The software you choose should have ready-built reports that are available with only a few clicks. This will eliminate any calculation errors from your reports and bypass the pain of searching for different calculation factors.
Of course, most EMS software solutions come with a reporting function; so, when you’re evaluating your options, keep the following in mind:
• The software should come with a comprehensive “ready-to-use” reporting
library that includes all the most vital regulatory compliance reports you’re
required to submit.
• You should be able to easily build or get custom reports built for you that match your internal information needs. For example, if you need to be to see all of the VOC emissions from 12 selected stacks, then that should be doable without any major fuss.
• Having custom reports built for you shouldn’t cost you a fortune. Many companies will try to nickel and dime you when you need extra reports built.
Don’t stand for it.
• Reports should be generated in a “ready to submit” format that adheres to EPA electronic reporting tools and online templates. That way you can just send reports instead of having to reformat them for submission.
• Reports should be available in a number of different formats, including PDFs, spreadsheets, and dashboard reporting.
• You should be able to specify the units of measurement and other
parameters of your report. For example, you might want to convert GHG
emissions into their CO2 equivalent units, or see your emissions broken down per unit of production.
Dynamically Updated Regulatory Support
The simple fact is that you need to stay up to date with how the government is changing their rules. When you look for EMS software, make sure the provider is constantly updating the list of relevant regulations that apply to you by offering dynamic regulatory support.
Regulations change every year, which can wreak havoc on your compliance reporting if you’re not following them closely. Just staying up to date with these changes can eat up a lot of your resources, before you even get down to calculations.
If you’re in the same position as most other manufacturing companies, you simply haven’t got the environmental resources to regularly monitor these changes. This means things can go unnoticed.
Your provider should have dedicated staff whose full time job is to research changes to regulations and keep your regulatory library up to date with the latest changes to any regulations that apply to you.
Just as you wouldn’t trust your compliance to an inexperienced environmental
consultant (or a consultant who doesn’t even deal with environmental records typically), you shouldn’t use EMS software designed by a firm without an environmental
background. And when you choose to work with environmental professionals, they should be able to provide you with the same level of regulatory support that a consultant would.
Technical Support with Environmental Expertise
As with any enterprise software, having technical support is essential. The last thing you need is a computer glitch getting in the way of your otherwise perfect environmental management or making it impossible for you to meet a deadline. But even the very best EMS software systems can encounter difficulty during standard business operations. You need a software provider that will help you through these situations as quickly as possible, and not just transfer you to an overseas call centre that doesn’t know anything about your specific business or environmental management needs.
Every software developer will tell you they provide technical support. However, the quality can vary dramatically. Here’s what to look for in great technical support:
• The technical support personnel you deal with are environmental management experts. They know exactly what your compliance requirements are and how to help you deal with them.
• You get to work with the same support person throughout the entire process, including implementation, troubleshooting, and customization.
• You never get transferred to a call centre or have to deal with a robotic automated system.
• Your technical support also knows what your compliance priorities are so they can help you prioritize your technical solutions.
We strongly recommend that you add all of the 7 pillars to your requirements list if you feel that they could add value to your organization.
Once that’s done, it’s time to start looking for potential suitors...
Finding Your Potential Software Suitors
Now, fully armed with a list of goals & requirements, along with an understanding of what the most effective EMS software’s are capable of, you’re ready to start looking for your potential software suitors.
This is done in two phases: 1. Create Your Long List 2. Cut to Your Short List
Create your long list
This step involves compiling an exhaustive list of all the software solutions that seem to meet your needs.
With the number and variety of solutions available on the market, you want to be as inclusive as possible.
The idea here is to cast the net as wide as possible, and then to tightly filter the list to find only the solutions that can offer you what you really want.
This reduces your chances of missing a product that is a good fit, and provides you with a short list that contains all of the best possible options.
You’ll also be able to tell any team member that asks if you considered ‘X’ that you have, because it made your short-list.
This step is time-consuming, but it’s crucial to make sure that you don’t miss out on any of the hidden gems.
There are so many places to look for software, and if you’re not careful you could spend hours looking.
a. Environmental management system software b. Environmental management software
c. Environmental compliance software d. Environmental software
2. http://www.capterra.com
3. http://www.environmental-expert.com/
Compile a list of all the solutions that look like they may be a good fit in a spreadsheet. Don’t worry if they’re not the best fit, we’ll deal with that later.
Your spreadsheet should list your must-have features, and have places to mark how well each specific solution meets your requirements.
You’ll want to structure it so you can compare the different solutions based on features, price and support.
If possible, you should aim to find at least 15-20 potential solutions.
Cutting to your short list with the top 10 critical questions
Use these 10 questions to help you focus your list into hyper-targeted software providers.
1. Does the solution satisfy your most important requirements? 2. Does the vendor offer excellent support and speedy service? 3. How user-friendly is the solution?
4. How compelling are the vendor’s testimonials/reviews?
5. How easy/complex is the implementation and will it add to the cost? 6. Does the solution require changes to your business processes?
7. Does the vendor have customers similar to you? 8. How customizable is the solution?
9. How innovative is the solution, compared to others on the market? 10. Does the solution satisfy some of your less important, “nice to have”
requirements?
Pretty much all of this information should be available on each company’s website. Because this can take some time, however, don’t be afraid to give the vendors a call if you have a specific question about their software and its features.
~ Let’s recap the action steps to this section ~
1. Create a long list by searching comprehensively in online software directories and on search engines, such as Google.
2. Add your long list of vendors to a spreadsheet to compare with your must have features.
3. Score each solution in the long list based on features, price & support. 4. Eliminate all but the top 15 from your long list.
5. Look at the top 15, ask yourself the 10 critical questions, speak with some vendors and trim the list down to the top 5 solutions.
Step 3
Selecting Your
EMS Software
How to finally find your perfect fit
Here’s when things start to get a little bit serious. This is the point in the process where all the hard work you’ve done up to this point starts to pay off.
This final step involves 3 stages:
1. Get references from the vendors on your shortlist, grill them with questions. 2. Do software demonstrations/trials with the top 3 vendors on your list. 3. Negotiate the best deal with the final, winning vendor.
It’s important to note here that step 1 & 2 are interchangeable.
You may find that some providers will only give you a list of references after they’ve had a chance to demo you their product, shown you the value of their software and feel there’s a decent chance that you’ll purchase. Others might offer them up-front. It really depends on how well the sales interaction has gone up to this point.
Let’s assume though, that they’ve given you the references up front and we’ll start with that.
Talk to their references
When asking a prospective software provider for references, explain that they should be as similar to your company as possible.
The ideal reference that you’ll want to speak with will be: 1. In your industry
2. Of similar size to your company 3. With similar business requirements
4. Located geographically near your company
5. A customer of theirs who has been using the software for at least a year
Try to talk to at least 2-3 references to get a good range of answers to your questions.
Questions you should ask when talking to reference
You may have your own list of questions that you’re burning to ask the company’s references, but here are the top 7 questions that we recommend:
1. What was the true cost of the software (including implementation, upkeep and maintenance?)
2. What’s the quality of the support you receive from the vendor?
3. Have you experienced any bugs or problems with the software? If there were any, how were they dealt with?
4. How, specifically, has the solution cut costs or improved efficiency (or has it)? 5. Did the company follow through on any promises that were made during the
evaluation?
6. What does your company receive from the vendor in return for being a reference (i.e. what is your relationship to the vendor)?
7. What would you have done differently when selecting/implementing this software?
Do software demonstrations/trials with the top 3
vendors
This is where things start to get really interesting. A demo is not so much about learning about the software - although that is a big part of it – rather it’s about learning who is providing the software. Ensuring that the company can actually provide the
functionality you need is important, but you also want to get to know the people you will be doing business with over the next number of years.
Just as no two EMS software solutions are the same, environmental software providers can also vary greatly. When you are taking part on demos, there are a few key elements to watch for from the providers themselves:
They Ask the Right Questions
Any environmental software designer will want to ask you questions about your processes and facility to figure out exactly what you’ll need. The process of finding the right fit will be a back and forth conversation between you and your potential provider. The type of questions they ask are a good indicator of how successful your relationship will be.
1. They try to assess your environmental needs before talking budgets
2. They want to know about your processes, permits, and materials in detail, sometimes even before the demo.
That means they are interested in showing you what you need and nothing that you don’t.
3. If they don’t have a report you’re looking for, they ask you what you’re looking for and offer to build it for you.
Listen for transparency about pricing.
Some providers will take every opportunity to charge you for professional services whenever you want something customized, while others will offer it as part of their service. Companies that hand you additional charges for any functionality you need beyond the standard offering have very little respect for the process you have to go through to get a solution approved.
Selling a case to upper management is hard enough, but it becomes even harder when you have to go back to ask for more money because the initial price you gave was inaccurate. This reflects badly on you and puts you in a situation where you have very little room to manoeuvre.
4. They are willing to provide you references.
Any reputable developer will have a list of references that are eager to talk to the
provider’s prospective clients (Review the last section if you are looking for questions to ask any references they provide).
They Make (and Keep) the Right Promises
Every provider is going to make you promises about what they can deliver. But there’s a big difference between making empty promises and being willing to follow through with these commitments.
Be sure to grill them about any promises their references talked about that were not fulfilled or - if you haven’t spoken to their references yet – grill them about promises that they make and how they plan to keep them.
On top of these promises, any software provider you work with should make and keep the following promises:
• “We offer full, in-house tech support during and after implementation. There will always be someone available to help you out with any questions you might have.”
• “We have a money back guarantee if our software doesn’t deliver the results we promised. We know our product works well and we put our money where our mouth is.”
• “We do all our work in house. No third party will ever handle your data or answer your tech support calls.”
• “You always own your own data. We keep it confidential and will store it as long as you ask us to.”
They Have the Right Experience
When it comes to environmental management software, experience goes far beyond the number of years working in the industry. Instead of just asking how long a potential provider has been in the environmental software business, ask the following questions to get the important measurements of experience:
• What was the most difficult compliance situation they’ve designed a solution for?
• Do they already have a client from the same industry using the software?
• Do they know what reports you’ll need just by looking at your processes and materials (or do you have to spoon feed them everything)?
• Do they have a background in environmental management, software development, or both?
Some providers have been in software development for years, but have only just recently moved into environmental management.
They Offer Realistic Implementation Timelines
Although there’s some wisdom to “slow and steady wins the race”, when it comes to environmental management that can be a costly strategy. Fact is, environmental management moves fast, and every day lost can increase your workload.
Depending on how complex your needs are, implementation lengths will vary. However, don’t let a potential software provider tell you their software will take a year or more to implement.
The reality is that an experienced provider should be able to get any EMS software in place within a matter of weeks or just a few months when they have all the data they need.
Here’s what can affect your implementation time:
• Will you need to transfer your data yourself, or will the software provider do it? There’s not a lot of value if you’re just buying an empty shell that you need to fill yourself.
• Does the software provide an electronic transfer of data using templates or data uploads, or will everything need to get typed in by hand?
• Will your software provider be passing off your data to an external consultant to complete the implementation? This will slow things down, could compromise your data security, and is a sign that your software provider doesn’t fully understand environmental management.
Negotiate the best deal
After you’ve done your homework, viewed the demos and narrowed down the field to one final vendor, there’s only one more hurdle to get over.
Make sure you don’t trip at this one, because failing to get the best deal possible for your software purchase could affect your ROI. That means you might have a harder time selling it to the person who holds the purse strings.
Remember, just about everything is negotiable – Price, number of licenses,
implementation process, duration, terms of payment, annual maintenance fees and anything else you’re being offered.
Be sure to write down what’s most important to your company and hammer away until you get the deal that you’re happy with.
~ Let’s recap on these final action steps ~
1. Talk to 2-3 references from each vendor on your shortlist. Have a good list of questions to ask them.
2. Schedule 3 demos or trials with vendors on your shortlist. Make sure to have scorecards made beforehand.
3. Using demo/trial data, reference responses, and the feature/price/support data you collected in your long list spreadsheet, eliminate all but one vendor.
Sealing the Deal
ROI & Justification
How to get the numbers to justify your decision
The final step in evaluating an EMS solution is to perform a cost-benefit analysis of your selected solution and determine exactly how much time and money you could
potentially save.
Doing a proper justification for your desired EMS software is actually one of the most crucial parts of the entire process. Getting this part wrong can undo all the time you’ve committed to the evaluation process.
Keep the following in mind when you’re working on this phase of the EMS software purchasing process:
• Executives are most interested in the bottom line, measured in dollars. Break down the time saving benefits into how much money will be saved.
• If you don’t have any experiences selling anything: work with the software
developer’s sales team to write your justification and proposal - they’ll have years of experience.
• Don’t shy away from graphics and illustrations: they are the easiest way to
communicate complex environmental data without overwhelming your audience.
Download our ROI Justification Kit
We’ve written a comprehensive downloadable kit, which is the best way to determine the ROI (return on investment) of any EMS software. It includes:
• A ROI calculator that can quantify how much money you stand to save, and show you where the biggest opportunities for cost reduction are.
• A 13 page guide that explains how to write a successful justification and proposal that will get the attention of company executives.
• A quick-reference template that walks you through the justification process step by step.
Comprehensive EMS Software from ERA’s Platform
ERA has been providing comprehensive EMS software to the manufacturing industry for nearly 2 decades.
We offer an All-in-One Environmental Management & Compliance Software that gives you the tools you need to effectively do your job, by eliminating redundancy and letting you focus on the Real Work of improving your environmental performance.
These essential tools form the four main modules of our software that you need to improve your environmental performance.
If you would like to find out more about ERA’s Environmental Management Software solutions and how they can help you manage your facilities more efficiently and with less frustration, call us (256) 232-4437 or visit www.era-environmental.com
