Ahead of its time in 2002, Locus Platform (formerly ePortal) has seen a huge change over time from a simple portal at the beginning of the SaaS movement, to a fully configurable multi-tenant platform. Locus Platform (LP) houses any number of off-the-shelf and custom applications to meet EHS customer needs.
Is your organization still using multiple software systems for EHS&S when you can (and should) be using one robust and unified platform? Unify your compliance, sustainability, water, air, and environmental data with Locus’ cloud platform for EHS&S. It’s easier, cheaper, and more efficient.
With Locus Platform, you can easily and securely feed all of your different EHS data sources to the cloud via a wide array of import options. You will then be able to analyze and report to virtually any regulatory agency, meeting any specific requirements they may have. We believe in making EHS compliance simpler.
Neno Duplan is founder and CEO of Locus Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based environmental software company founded in 1997. Locus evolved from his work as a research associate at Carnegie Mellon in the 1980s, where he developed the first prototype system for environmental information management. This early work led to the development of numerous databases at some of the nation’s largest environmental sites, and ultimately, to the formation of Locus in 1997.
Mr. Duplan recently sat down with Environmental Business Journal to discuss a myriad of topics relating to technology in the environmental industry such as Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Multi-tenancy, IoT, and much more.
Click here to learn more and purchase the full EBJ Vol XXXIII No 5&6: Environmental Industry Outlook 2020-2021
At Locus, we understand the unique requirements of EHS managers. More than many, EHS managers are dealing with a wide range of duties instead of a few pointed ones. With so many responsibilities, it can be hard at times to stay on top of your organization’s EHS needs. In this blog we highlight a few common compliance-related issues that should resonate with most EHS managers and the steps we’ve taken to help you with them.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to keep up with your organization’s regulations. If you are dealing with compliance, then chances are you’ve not been the first to know about a regulatory change, or you’ve found out about one later than you would have liked.
When you’re getting notifications from OSHA and the DOT and you’re checking specific permits and getting letters and emails about changes, sometimes it can all be too much. With Locus, you have the added benefit of an extra set of eyes, well… multiple sets of eyes. Our team keeps up with every rule and regulation used in our applications to further assist you with the breadth of information you have to manage. Locus EHS software is also integrated with RegScan, giving users seamless real-time access to current EHS regulations. This will allow Locus users to customize a watchlist in RegScan to quickly and readily view EHS regulations relevant to them.
When you have to worry about ever-changing costs that touch several parts of your business, the last thing you need is a gated product update from your EHS software vendor. With Locus’ SaaS model, you see reduced implementation costs and no costly upgrades – everyone is on the same version. And since everything is in one place, you have a reduced amount of wasted time finding information and making it actionable.
EHS managers deal with sensitive data, ranging from social security numbers to workman’s comp issues. Not taking proper care of this information can be anything from a PR debacle to a legal battle. With Locus, you have the peace of mind in knowing that your data is stored in entirety on the most secure cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Not only that, but you have extensive security and admin access options, so you can have the relief in knowing only those with privileges can see certain information.
Whether you’re looking for purchase documentation of PPEs or you need to reference yesterday’s GHG numbers, you need access to that data without having to wade through multiple applications. And with all of your data stored in one secure repository, not only can it be accessed quickly, but it can be incorporated with other tools like automated reporting.
Are you still dealing with a different filing cabinet or file folder for each type of compliance? Not having your compliance data consolidated into one application means wasted time and time spent re-entering information (possibly incorrectly). Locus combines water, air, hazardous waste, DOT, PPE, workman’s comp, incidents, and more into one streamlined application to help with your organization and efficiency.
We are determined to support the needs of the user, you, first. By focusing on product development and customer service first, we feel that we have created a software as a service model that is both flexible and time-saving. If you are experiencing any of these issues with your current provider, we ask that you speak with a Locus representative today for a consultation or in-depth demo of what we can offer.
Regardless of the size of your organization or the industry you’re in, chances are that right now artificial intelligence can benefit your EHS&S initiatives in one way or another. And whether you are ready for it or not, the age of artificial intelligence is coming. Forward-thinking and adaptive businesses are already using artificial intelligence in EHS&S as a competitive advantage in the marketplace to great success.
With modern EHS&S software, immense amounts of computing power, and seemingly endless cloud storage, you now have the tools to achieve fully-realized AI for your EHS&S program. And while you may not be ready to take the plunge into AI just yet, there are some steps you can take to implement artificial intelligence into your EHS&S program in the future.
Perhaps the best aspect of preparing for AI implementation is that all of the steps you take to properly bring about an AI system will benefit your program even before the deployment phase. Accurate sources, validated data, and one system of record are all important factors for any EHS&S team.
Used alongside big data, AI can quickly draw inferences and conclusions about many aspects of life more efficiently than with human analysis, but only if your sources pull accurate data. Accurate sources data will help your organization regardless of your current AI usage level. That’s why the first step to implementing artificial intelligence is auditing your data sources.
Sources pulling accurate data can be achieved with some common best practices. First, separate your data repository from the process that analyzes the data. This allows you to repeat the same analysis on different sets of data without the fear of not being able to replicate the process of analysis. AI requires taking a step away from an Excel-based or in-house software, and moving to a modern EHS&S software, like Locus Platform that will audit your data as it is entered. This means that anything from SCADA to historical outputs, samples, and calculations can be entered and vetted. Further, consider checking your data against other sources and doing exploratory analysis to greater legitimize your data.
AI requires data, and a lot of it—aggregated from multiple sources. But no amount of predictive analysis or machine learning is going to be worth anything without proper data validation processes.
Collected data must be relevant to the problem you are trying to solve. Therefore, you need validated data, which is a truly difficult ask with Excel, in-house platforms, and other EHS&S software. Appropriate inputs, appropriate ranges, data consistency, range checks (to name a few)—are all aspects of data that is validated in a modern EHS&S software like Locus Platform. Without these checks inherent to a platform, you cannot be sure that your data, or your analyses are producing useful or accurate results.
Possibly the best reason to get started with AI is the waterfall effect. As your data uncovers hidden insights and starts to learn on its own, the more accurate your new data will be and the better your predictions will become.
A unified system of record and a central repository for all data means that you see an immediate increase in data quality. Starting with AI means the end of disconnected EHS&S systems. No more transferring data from one platform to another or from pen and paper, just fully-digitized and mobile-enabled data in one platform backed up in the cloud. You also gain the added benefit of being able to access your data in real-time, incorporate compliance/reporting on the fly, and save time and resources using a scalable solution instead of a web of spreadsheets and ad-hoc databases.
Whether you are ready for AI or not, investing in these otherwise useful steps are necessary for any program looking to harness the power of artificial intelligence. When you are ready to take that next step, you will be well on the path to AI implementation, with a solid data infrastructure in place for your efforts.
To learn more about artificial intelligence, view this NAEM-hosted webinar led by Locus experts, or read our study on predicting water quality using machine learning.
Software as a service (SaaS) databases offer several unique features that allow you to manage your environmental data more thoroughly and efficiently. This infographic highlights twelve key features of SaaS databases for environmental software. 
This infographic was created based on a four part series of blog posts on the same topic, which can be read here.
When choosing Locus, you can be confident that your EHS software is built and supported by the experts. Our team holds degrees and certifications in environmental engineering, mathematics, computer science, and beyond. We understand the challenges of EHS compliance and build our solutions with those in mind.
After reading about the IowaReporterApp used during the 2020 Iowa caucuses, it struck me how remarkably similar it is in intended function to the EHS&S software developed by my employer, Locus Technologies. Both their application and Locus’ mobile technology collect large quantities of sensitive data from several remote users at multiple facilities, allowing for instant calculation and reporting. What surprised me though, is just how vastly different their user implementation and data management methodology was from what is standard operating procedure at Locus.
In this blog, I will highlight some of the pitfalls of the IowaReporterApp, and compare it to Locus’ EHS&S software. Note, this article is not a political critique, but is an examination of data collection and data quality methods used during the caucuses.
Users were introduced to the IowaReporterApp just days before the caucuses and received no app-specific training. Many users were downloading the application on the night of the caucuses.
The Iowa caucuses have been held biennially for almost a half-century as the first major contest of the primaries. The date of the caucuses was a surprise to no one. As a result, app development deadlines should have given enough time for user implementation, through one-on-one training or presentations with appropriate support staff. If app deadlines were not met, there should have been a fallback to redundant reporting systems, like in the case of Nevada, who were also planning to use the app but have opted out after the debacle in Iowa.
When Locus introduces new users to our software, we take implementation seriously. Our customer support team is composed of domain experts who have actively built and used Locus software. We know the deadlines and the problems users typically face during the implementation process. From one-on-one and on-site training to quick turnaround, our support team does everything they can to ensure that users are comfortable with our product as soon as possible.
User implementation deadlines are all the more important given that the software had no real-world use to this point. While it is not advisable to go live with untested software, at the very least, having users stress test a product before field-use could have staved off a few issues.
This is something we see frequently with newer products and newer companies. Locus has over 20 years of experience creating EHS&S software used by U.S. government organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Our quality assurance team rigorously tests any update we bring to customers and doesn’t rush changes to sell a platform update, since every user is always on the same version of Locus software.
No one can question that Excel or Google Spreadsheets can perform math correctly, but what is frequently overlooked or not even considered, are the macros, custom functions, and calculations that are often added to spreadsheets when deployed for managing data and other tasks. If one fails, there need to be backups for reporting and storing data.
When the untested application predictably failed, users flocked to the phone lines as a redundancy. Manual data collection on such a scale created confusion and could not carry the load, and had no way of accounting for errors in data entry. At Locus, we understand the importance of EHS&S data, and maintain backups and full audit trails for all critical data, with quick restoration available so you can keep going if anything should happen.
The IowaReporterApp was not released in time to get approval in Apple’s app store, and it was sent out through beta testing platforms which required suspension of smartphone security settings.
ProPublica, a nonprofit organization who produces public interest investigative journalism, did a report on the security of the IowaReporterApp after the Iowa Caucuses. Shockingly, they found security problems to be “elementary” and that the app was so insecure that vote totals, passwords, and other sensitive information could have been intercepted or changed. Luckily, there seems to be no evidence of hacking or tampering with results.
Locus understands the need for security with sensitive data, and hosts our entire infrastructure in the most secure and reliable cloud, Amazon Web Services. AWS has an unmatched portfolio of cloud services that Locus fully utilizes to the benefit of their customers.
Overall, I think that the mishaps related to the IowaReporterApp show just how easy it is for a data collection and management application to fail if not properly implemented and ran by those with years of practical expertise. Subverted data quality will always be extremely costly to your organization, both financially and otherwise, and should be avoided unequivocally.
Locus Technologies was founded in 1997. Locus’ environmental data management software currently handles over a half billion sensitive records taken from over one million unique locations and is used hundreds of organizations including the government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. Aaron Edwards received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from UNC Asheville and is Marketing Associate for Locus Technologies. He is an active voter, and is unaffiliated with any political party.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 10 February 2020 —
Locus Technologies, leading provider of environmental management and EHS software, was awarded a 14th consecutive award from Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) for growth and innovation in the field of Information Technology.
EBJ is a business research publication providing strategic business intelligence to the environmental industry. Locus received the 2019 EBJ Award for Information Technology by expanding their software and services.
Among the key drivers for Locus in 2019 was the growth of key software applications for waste and sustainability, as well as the introduction of their facilities management app. Locus software also now further integrates with EPA compliance systems like CMDP, eManifest, and eGGRT. Finally, in terms of services, Locus achieved over 500 GHG verifications under the California AB32 program, being the first company to do so. They were also among the first independent bodies to become certified for the new California Low Carbon Fuel Standard verification.
“We would like to express our gratitude for receiving the EBJ Information Technology award for another year. We look forward to providing our customers with cutting-edge software and services as we seek to improve in the areas of artificial intelligence, IoT integration, and blockchain technology,” said Wes Hawthorne, President of Locus Technologies.
A recent NAEM study explored the main reasons EHS&S professionals look to replace their current software configuration. Among the most reported issues were overall performance, customer support, and software customization. The following infographic highlights both why EHS&S professionals are seeking new software, and wheat criteria are most important in shopping for a new software system.
