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The Challenge
The Tulsa facility is a Title V facility subject to multiple NESHAPs, including the aerospace, halogenated solvent cleaners, and chrome electroplating NESHAPs. In addition, the facility must also meet other Federal, State, and local air emissions reporting requirements.

With numerous employees responsible for environmental compliance and no centralized data management system, EHS compliance management was extremely labor intensive. It was determined that an environmental management information system (EMIS) was needed in order to integrate data sources, improve data management, assure compliance, and provide a vehicle for tracking success of environmental initiatives.

The Solution
After considering the available options, American Airlines selected opsEnvironmental to form the core of its environmental data management system. opsEnvironmental appealed to Tulsa environmental staff because it offered tools which would help streamline and assure compliance for their facility, without increasing compliance costs. It also appealed to American Airlines corporate environmental staff because its enterprise orientation enabled easy roll-up and corporate reporting.

Some of the benefits American Airlines realized after implementing opsEnvironmental include:

Compliance assurance. opsEnvironmental enables staff to remotely monitor compliance parameters. Additionally, through the software's automatic e-mail feature, staff is notified if such parameters are approaching non-compliance. The automated e-mail notifications help the Tulsa facility stay compliant without having to devote excessive time and resources to oversee this process. "The opsEnvironmental e-mail tickler feature is a great proactive tool that helps our staff to keep on top of their many compliance-related tasks and also helps us to identify compliance trends before limits are approached," says Thelma Norman, Environmental Engineer at American Airlines' Tulsa facility. "This helps us assure compliance with all our environmental requirements."

Increased efficiency. The American Airlines environmental staff faces numerous other federal, state and local reporting requirements. One challenge facing the Tulsa facility was the need to break down chemical formulas into their base components and then report on properties and quantities of those base components. This task was tedious and time consuming, notes Thelma Norman. "Before we started using opsEnvironmental, we had to gather purchasing data from one database and then manually merge that data with the material safety database. Now, thanks to the software's powerful data-linking capabilities, we have automated the process, thereby, reducing man-hours and creating reports with great accuracy. These convenient reports have also enabled American Airlines staff to identify and minimize waste."

Through the implementation of opsEnvironmental, American Airlines has achieved significant improvements in both the compliance assurance and the efficiency of its environmental management program.