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Locus Technologies Announces Pocket PC Application for Environmental Health and Safety Audits and Inspection

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SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 16 April 2001 — Locus Technologies (Locus), a global leader in environmental information management, announced today that it has completed work on an electronic system for conducting and managing Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) audits and inspections. This system, named eSurvey, was developed for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) using the Pocket PC operating system. Information recorded on the PDAs can be transferred to a company’s Intranet or to LocusFocus™, Locus’s award-winning environmental web portal. eSurvey brings Locus one step closer to its long-term goal of offering LocusFocus™ to clients, providing them with the tools and information they need to manage all EH&S aspects of their businesses over the Internet.

The use of Pocket PCs allows audits to be performed in facilities without Internet or Intranet connectivity, and in secure areas where a wireless device would not be allowed. The application consists of a set of screens, each with pull-down menus, data entry fields, and hyperlinks to other screens and information. After an inspection or audit is complete, all data that an auditor has entered into a Pocket PC can be uploaded to the main database. eSurvey has already been rigorously tested and successfully deployed and used by a major aerospace manufacturer in Southern California.

“eSurvey puts a valuable and cost-effective tool into the hands of EH&S inspectors,” said Neno Duplancic, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “It provides access to inspection lists and pre-audit questionnaires that traditionally could not be hauled onto the audit floor. No longer do inspectors have to record findings once in the field and, again, enter these same findings into a database or spreadsheet back in the office. Moreover, with a local copy of their EH&S database on their Pocket PCs, auditors have access to historical information they may need when entering a finding. As a result, eSurvey streamlines the compliance process, decreases audit time, reduces resources and dramatically minimizes errors.”

The LocusFocus™ portal—Locus’s Environmental Information Management (EIM™) system, eWell (a wireless application for recording field data using hand-held Palm® Pilots), and automation and document management and collaboration capabilities—also includes tools to remotely control and monitor treatment systems. Locus’s web portal is hosted by Intel Online Services (IOS), which uses integrated technologies and proven processes to deliver optimal reliability, scalability, and performance at the highest levels of security to LocusFocus™ subscribers.