Risk Management Tools

Project Description and Significance

Project and facility managers have a difficult task keeping informed of and implementing evolving ES&H and environmental requirements. The stakes are high because the Price/Anderson Act amendment, OSHA, National Environmental Policy Act, and Federal Facilities Act place the burden of risk management on project managers. This creates a need for expert ES&H and environmental help at the point of decision without lengthy coordination delays. Sandia National Laboratories has a project to support this need.

This tool is the Integrated Safety, Environmental, and Emergency Management System (ISEEMS). The objective of ISEEMS is to develop an environment, safety, and health (ES&H) management software tool that will support the line manager's need to know, understand, manage and document their hazards in accordance with our philosophy that "Those Who Own the Risk Must Manage It." By adopting a necessary and sufficient (graded) approach to compliance, ISEEMS will enable Sandia to identify and manage hazards at a level of effort commensurate with the hazards themselves. All ES&H information contained within ISEEMS is location-based and is readily identified on maps and building floor plans. This visual representation provides for quick assimilation and analysis of ES&H information.

ISEEMS provides a unique hazard data-collection capability not currently available to ES&H professionals, other corporate entities, and the Department of Energy (DOE). By completing an on-line Environmental Checklist/Action Description Memorandum (ECL/ADM) and performing a Preliminary Hazard Screening (PHS), ISEEMS will categorize a facility into one of four hazard classifications: Standard industrial hazard (SIH), Low, Moderate, or High. The level of rigor required for ES&H documentation is determined by the facility classification. An SIH classification requires a PHS, Low requires Hazard Analysis (HA), Moderate requires Safety Assessment (SA), and High or Nuclear requires a Safety Analysis Report (SAR). ISEEMS addresses information on chemical, radiological and other industrial hazards and National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) concerns. ISEEMS provides a comprehensive overview of the workplace for workers, ES&H professionals, emergency response personnel, Sandia managers and DOE.

ISEEMS is a combined geographic information system (GIS), database management system (DBMS), expert system, and report generator. ISEEMS integrates two commercially available products (Emergency Information Management System from EIS International and Exsys from Exsys, Inc.) with Sandia-specific custom coding. Through ISEEMS, users have the capability of analyzing data from disparate data bases according to regulatory guidance. The results of the analysis are then displayed in a graphic and narrative summary. The graphical output is a hazard unique icon displayed upon the facility map in its representative location. The power of ISEEMS lies in the geo-referenced icon. This allows immediate, visual integration of hazard information across geographic boundaries resulting in significant information compression. Additionally, a user can plot a plume model on the same map using software (ALOHA) available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This information is useful in the area of emergency response during actual incidents. ISEEMS runs in a MS-Windows environment on standard (desktop or laptop) PC hardware.

For further information, contact:

Al Bendure
Sandia National Laboratories, MS-0369
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0369
Phone: (505) 844-8518
e-mail: aobendu@sandia.gov

or

Rick Silver
Sandia National Laboratories, MS-0369
Albuquerque, NM 87185-0369
Phone: (505) 845-9796
e-mail: rcsilve@sandia.gov

Submitted October 1996
Layout design by Wanda Mar.