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An electric utility's challenge: Creating an integrated chemical management information system
Author(s) -
Guggenheim David E.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
environmental quality management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.249
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1520-6483
pISSN - 1088-1913
DOI - 10.1002/tqem.3310040208
Subject(s) - procurement , computer science , process management , risk analysis (engineering) , knowledge management , systems engineering , engineering management , business , engineering , marketing
This article examines a research effort undertaken by a large electric utility to integrate a broad range of chemical management information in order to improve regulatory compliance, facilitate chemical management, identify opportunities for waste reduction, and support research applications. The chemical management system (CMS) integrated data from pre‐existing MSDS and procurement databases. While CMS generally proved useful for a range of research applications, using CMS highlighted numerous problems in the underlying data and brought into question the feasibility of the CMS approach. In various ways this project highlighted many issues common to many electric utilities that must be resolved in order to achieve a successful integration of chemical management functions. The problems encountered, particularly those related to procurement data, were related to corporate policy and procedures, not to technical limitations of integrating these databases. This article shows how (as with any TQEM effort) the key to the success of a chemical management system is not to design such a system as a peripheral appendage, but rather as a primary component of mainstream business functions.