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The CompanyGeneral Motors (GM) is the world's largest automobile manufacturing company as well as the world's third largest company. GM has maufacturing operations in 32 countries and employs about 325,000 people.
The ChallengeThe large size and complexity of processes in GM's operations meant that the environmental staff was faced with massive quantities of data to track and report. The company determined that a system was needed to enable more efficient and effective management of environmental information both for internal reporting and also for reporting to stakeholders and regulatory agencies. They wanted a solution that would enable headquarters environmental staff to oversee, manage and report on environmental data across the organization, but which also offered enough detail and flexibility to be suitable for facility-level use. In addition, they needed a solution with a strong enterprise orientation and the potential for possible global adoption.
The SolutionGM staff reviewed a variety of software packages against a set of criteria including: functionality in compliance tracking and task management; ability to easily manage emissions calculations, emissions factors, etc. across the organization; configurability, transparency and adaptability; customer satisfaction and company track record. On the basis of these criteria, opsEnvironmental was selected as the best fit for GM’s needs. In late 2004, with the help of specialists from Tetra Tech, an environmental consulting firm and ESP implementation partner, software deployment began across all of GM’s North American operations, consisting of approximately 136 facilities. In its first year of use, opsEnvironmental has brought significant benefits to GM, including:
Centralized System. "In the old days," explains Vickie Mecsey, Staff Environmental Engineer, Chemical Risk Management at GM, "each facility was responsible for its own environmental reporting." In this decentralized framework, most facilities were using individually developed spreadsheets. A few were utilizing a corporate environmental information management system that wasn’t designed to accommodate individual plant needs. In both cases, lack of centralized data storage meant that information was not accessible outside the plants. This led to lots of redundancy in data collection. "Now," says Mecsey, "we have a centralized, standardized mechanism for data collection across the organization. This gives the headquarters environmental staff access to the information they need, and it also gives us a lot more consistency and a lot less redundancy." Flexible, Usable Solution. "We have a lot of diverse operations at GM, and we also have very specific ways of doing things" says Mecsey. "opsEnvironmental gives us the flexibility to accommodate the GM way without having to do a lot of customization or change our business process to fit the software." Mecsey also notes that it was important to GM staff to have a system that was understandable and configurable by ordinary people. Mecsey explains that opsEnvironmental provides the ease of use that staff required. "with opsEnvironmental, we have a system that is not only super flexible, but also makes sense, and can be understood by people who are not IT experts. We really appreciate that our staff can go in and look at how the models are set up and see how the calculations are being built." Time Savings on Air Emissions Reporting. An immediate benefit of the new system is the ability it has given environmental staff to streamline the production of air-related reports. GM’s headquarters environmental department oversees the preparation of regulatory reports using data submitted from the facilities. opsEnvironmental’s centralized database, standardized data collection and streamlined calculations translated to immediate and very tangible benefits for GM in this area. Though the project is less than a year old, the company has realized a level of effort reduction of 35% on the preparation of air-related compliance reports and a 45% reduction in the level of effort required to prepare the SARA 313 reports for U.S. facilities. Savings are expected to be significantly higher during the second year as GM reaps the benefit of a complete year’s use of the software. Regulatory Risk Management. opsEnvironmental has been configured to load data pertaining to more than 170,000 materials from GM’s MSDS system into the opsEnvironmental materials database. Mecsey points out that having the information in opsEnvironmental makes it much easier for her to access the data she needs. "Every time the government proposes a change in regulations, the people in our organization want to know what impact that would have on GM," says Mecsey. "In the past, I didn’t have direct access to all the relevant data, so I could only get a rough idea. Now I can go in and query the database and get not just my MSDS data but also my usage activity. This gives me the exact information I need." The increased access to data allows GM staff to better understand and prepare for the impact of impending regulatory changes.
Centralized System. "In the old days," explains Vickie Mecsey, Staff Environmental Engineer, Chemical Risk Management at GM, "each facility was responsible for its own environmental reporting." In this decentralized framework, most facilities were using individually developed spreadsheets. A few were utilizing a corporate environmental information management system that wasn’t designed to accommodate individual plant needs. In both cases, lack of centralized data storage meant that information was not accessible outside the plants. This led to lots of redundancy in data collection. "Now," says Mecsey, "we have a centralized, standardized mechanism for data collection across the organization. This gives the headquarters environmental staff access to the information they need, and it also gives us a lot more consistency and a lot less redundancy." Flexible, Usable Solution. "We have a lot of diverse operations at GM, and we also have very specific ways of doing things" says Mecsey. "opsEnvironmental gives us the flexibility to accommodate the GM way without having to do a lot of customization or change our business process to fit the software." Mecsey also notes that it was important to GM staff to have a system that was understandable and configurable by ordinary people. Mecsey explains that opsEnvironmental provides the ease of use that staff required. "with opsEnvironmental, we have a system that is not only super flexible, but also makes sense, and can be understood by people who are not IT experts. We really appreciate that our staff can go in and look at how the models are set up and see how the calculations are being built."
Time Savings on Air Emissions Reporting. An immediate benefit of the new system is the ability it has given environmental staff to streamline the production of air-related reports. GM’s headquarters environmental department oversees the preparation of regulatory reports using data submitted from the facilities. opsEnvironmental’s centralized database, standardized data collection and streamlined calculations translated to immediate and very tangible benefits for GM in this area. Though the project is less than a year old, the company has realized a level of effort reduction of 35% on the preparation of air-related compliance reports and a 45% reduction in the level of effort required to prepare the SARA 313 reports for U.S. facilities. Savings are expected to be significantly higher during the second year as GM reaps the benefit of a complete year’s use of the software.
Regulatory Risk Management.
In addition to its use for U.S. regulatory reporting, the software has also been put to use gathering waste metrics information from GM’s Mexican and Canadian operations, with plans for much more extensive use on the way. "One of our next projects is to implement the software to manage NPRI reporting in Canada," says Mecsey. "opsEnvironmental gives us the flexibility we will need to expand to other areas of our global operations."
