EHS Software

What is "EHS Software"?

EHS is an acronym for Environment, Health and Safety.  The term "EHS Software" really refers to a database driven enterprise software application that covers data from the various broad fields of environment and waste management, occupational health and medical, safety and industrial hygiene.  For more info on EHS Software, see our EHS Software Guide.  Typically an EHS manager would be responsible for collecting and storing EHS data for their organization in an EHS software application.  That EHS manager will use data over long periods of time to do trending, risk analysis and data mining by utilizing EHS Information Management Software reporting tools.  EHS managers can play a large roll in compliance, minimization of risk and savings corporate wide with an EHS management software tool at their disposal.

A modular EHS software solution can deal with many areas ranging from occupational health and medical, environment and waste management to industrial hygiene and safety.  Some of the subcategories in these fields range from the collection of reparatory fit test data, MSDS management, health and safety, confined space entry permits, lock-out-tag-out (LOTO), ergonomics (Functional Capacity Evaluation), incident investigation, personal protective equipment (PPE), spill calculator, EHS-Emissions-Tracking or greenhouse gas emissions tracking and many many more (see our complete module list)

When discussing EHS software, you will often here terms like integrating information technology or enterprise information management or data management to describe these types of systems.  The main goal of these EHS software systems is to bring together large amounts of data from various disciplines into one centralized data management application (usually driven by a back end database such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle or DB2). In doing so, an organization can now start looking at their data over longer periods of time to see trends and act on them.  This leads to one of the most important aspects of any business which can be handled by EHS software - Risk Management.

Risk management can be stated simply as setting action plans in the face of uncertainty by first understanding and issues related to risk, loss or other incident that can negatively effect your business.  EHS software is critical to a successful risk management program.  Analysis of your organization's data in ways that have not been looked at before can lead to positive change.  This type of trending can only be accomplished with a software solution that can integrate all aspects of your EHS program into one centralized database.

When an organization rolls out an integrated enterprise EHS software solution they are incorporating many areas that until now, have most likely been independent of each other.  In some organizations this means that each department has its own excel, access or home built database.  Sometimes a few departments even incorporate and off-the-shelf (OTS) software solution.  But in the end, each system and each department still works independently of each other without sharing and analyzing data as a whole.

Implementation of "EHS Software"

Generally implementation of EHS software involves the following steps.

1. Consultation and preparation - understanding your needs and your network.

2. Installation and configuration

3. Legacy data transfer

4. Training and startup

5. Ongoing business analysis - changing and adapting the application to meet your changing business requirements.

All along the way, you will have the support of your EHS software provider to walk you through each step.

Integration of EHS Software:

A organization that realizes the importance of integration can maximize the ROI in many ways.  Rolling each department's systems into one integrated solution puts all the data in one centralized database and allows your organization to start running analytic trending. You can see where accidents occur.  You can determine company wide, where money is being spent and lost.  You can determine where and why employees are being injured. 

By going through the often tedious task of importing your legacy data from the last 5-10 years into an integrated EHS software solution, companies have been able to look at disturbing trends through analysis of that data and this prevent would could have been a tragic and costly accident.  This realization has saved companies millions of dollars and has maximized the return on investment many fold.

How expensive is EHS Software? Cost of EHS software?

The cost of EHS software depends on the modules you choose.  Since EHS software covers so many areas - occupational health and medical, environment and waste management, industrial hygiene and safety, plus compliance and risk management, having a modular solution is the smart way to go so you can pick and choose which areas of data you want to manage.

Want to Purchase EHS software?

The process for purchasing EHS software is simple however there are a few key points that you should be aware of.  Look for an EHS software package that doesn't lock you into one way of doing things.  In other words, you want to find a solution that is flexible to adapt over the years as your business rules change. Furthermore, find out how complicated it is for an EHS solution to adapt to your needs.  DataPipe has a built in Form Designer that lets you do simple point and click modifications to forms without having to go back to the vendor for costly customizations.  To find out how much it is to purchase EHS software will depend on a number of factors.  It will depend on the modules you choose and the number of concurrent users you license. DataPipe defines concurrent users as the number of users actually logged into the system at any one moment in time. Thus, you may have 500 people who can use DataPipe, however if at any one moment in time, if only 20 people are ever logged in, then you would get a 20 concurrent user system.  For more information on how to purchase EHS software, please contact Knorr Associates.

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DataPipe is a complete EH&S information management software solution.  If you are interested in taking a look at our modules or want to learn more about occupational health software and the various modules within that suite or if you want to look at industrial hygiene software and the various modules that make up that suite, please review our modules page.

Knorr Associates Inc. (KAI) is the leading US and Global provider of Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS) and Crisis Management software. The company, headquartered in Butler, new jersey was founded in 1979 as the first EHS Software developer on the scene, integrating EHS instruments long before PCs were on the market.  It wasn't until 1989 when the very fist windows based EHS software application - DataPipe - was released (and it really was one of the first windows based software applications - period).  Since then KAI has grown to be the premier EHS software provider with a global client base representing companies of all sizes from many major industry sectors.