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GeroBieser
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
1,259
Last week I participated in a workshop with a long-term and very experienced SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) customer and we discussed quite a few detailed questions and topics. In the workshop we also included a short section about the SAP Environment Health and Safety (EH&S) portfolio. To my surprise this experienced customer only had a quite limited knowledge about the SAP offering in the EH&S area. The participants were however quite interested in some of the EH&S solutions to support the overall asset life-cycle. That said, I assume the same might be true for other customers and therefore I decided to dedicate this blog to SAP’s EH&S solutions.

SAP offers a portfolio of EH&S solutions. Not all of them are of high relevance for utilities, therefore I focus on the most important ones and bring them into context with the asset life-cycle and the SAP PM solution: While Work Clearance Management (1) is tightly integrated with SAP PM and Incident Management (2) can be a trigger for the PM work order process, the other three components are not directly linked to PM but support the emission of assets (3), safety at the workplace (4) and -  quite generic -  the implementation of operational changes (5):

  1. Work Clearance Management (WCM) is very tightly integrated with the work management process in SAP PM. It was initially developed more than 20 years ago based on the requirements from the nuclear industry. WCM provides a permit-to-work system to ensure that safety preparations are carried out. Thus dangerous areas in a nuclear power plant a high voltage zone or any other critical areas are safe, before a PM work order is released and maintenance activities start. In short, WCM provides a standard procedure to ensure that potentially hazardous work can be carried out safely.

  2. Incident Management supports handling of all kinds of incidents including injuries, environmental damage and asset damage. It includes the recording of observations, the investigations and finally the reporting. An incident can – for example - lead to a notification and thus trigger a work management process in SAP PM.

  3. Environment Management enables reporting of air emissions, water discharges, and waste generation. It supports tasks and processes to address environmental compliance, including management of compliance deviations. Thus it reduces financial and operational risk, improves brand image and reduces compliance risk by staying current with the latest legislation.

  4. Health and Safety Management allows to identify and manage health and safety risks in the workplace, supports regulatory compliance and the reduction of operational risks. It allows implementing an enterprise-wide, integrated EH&S platform based on ISO 45001 principles, that ensures occupational health and safety practices are being executed effectively.

  5. Management of Change supports safe implementation of operational changes by effectively mitigating potential risks. It is a solution for specific safety management requirements, but can also be applied to a wide range of operational changes of processes, equipment, materials, infrastructure, and procedures.


If you like to get more insights about these solutions this blog and the linked videos might be of interest for you.

And of course additional features are added to these solutions. You find these planned innovations - as always - in the SAP Roadmap Explorer. Here are just three example innovations that might be of interest for you:

Which of these EH&S solutions – if any - would you see of most relevant to support the asset life-cycle? Please feel free to comment below.

Kind regards,

Gero

 

On a side note I would like to mention that the Handbuch elektrische Energieversorgung (= compendium of electrical power supply) has just been published. In the chapter „Asset Management in der Energiewende – Anforderungen und Technologien“ (= Asset Management during the energy transition – Requirements and Technologies) I give an introduction into Asset Management in utilities.


 

Asset Management in Utilities – part 4: Extending the SAP Solution Landscape with Partner Solutions

Asset Management in Utilities – part 6: Are all your Construction Projects on Time and in Budget?