Carrie Bettinger, CSP, CHMM presented at AIHce 2010

Carrie Bettinger, CSP, CHMM, presented with Mike Censurato of Technidata (www.technidata.com) a session entitled "Successful EAS Management: From Paper to Business Integrated EHS Software Solution" on May 25th at the 2010 American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Expo (AIHce) in Denver. The presentation summary is below. Situation/Problem: Establishing and implementing a standardized approach for exposure assessment in a diverse product company using an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software solution not well known by industrial hygienists presented a challenge. This comprehensive exposure assessment strategy (EAS) needed to be defined through consensus while the software application was customized for the developed approach. Resolution: A multi-discipline team was convened to design the strategy based on the AIHA - A Strategy for Assessing and Managing Occupational Exposures, customize the software solution; and integrate the EAS application with the core business process applications. This team consisted of representatives from industrial hygiene, safety, operations, toxicology, product stewardship, information technology, and the software solution experts. Planning sessions were utilized to both design the EAS process and requirements while identifying the software application customization needs. An application manual and training course was developed by team members. After a pilot training and rollout out at representative sites additional application features were introduced based on requirements defined during the pilot phase of the project. The EAS was then incrementally rollouted to operating sites with the assistance of focused training and application support. Results: The EAS concept and software application training was well received by the operational sites even though the approach and software were new to the users. Establishing similar exposure groups that are integrated as part of a human resource information system, exposure measurements, and a PPE assessment met the prospective and retrospective assessment goals of the project. The generation of a wide variety of reports met the needs of the site health and safety professionals as well as site and corporate management. Lesson Learned: The team approach with technical experts developed a well received application. The piloting process allowed for fine-tuning of the application prior to broad site rollout.