1. There is now an option to convert uploaded Microsoft Word and Excel documents to PDF. This new feature is backwards compatible so you can convert both .doc and.docx file formats.
2. The ability to assign reviewer and approver privileges to specific employees and workgroups.
3. Configurable security so administrators can assign access levels to system users.
4. Related documents are now displayed and hyperlinked.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), over half a million holders of U.S commercial driver’s licenses also qualify for full federal disability payments due to health issues. Some suffer from ailments ranging from vision and hearing impairments to seizure disorders. The situation underscores recent calls on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to bolster regulations governing the operation of commercial vehicles. The FMCSA’s primary mission is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses. In carrying out this mandate, the FMCSA amongst other things, develops and enforces “data-driven” regulations that balance motor carrier safety with industry efficiency.
Intelex offers a Department of Transportation (DOT) compliance module that was developed to enable operators of commercial vehicles to easily abide by FMCSA regulations. The module stores driver information, tracks driver qualifications, generates real-time status reports, and sends automated escalating email reminders, and more.
1. Conservation of natural resources by minimization of paper usage.2. Reduction of operational costs. Filing cabinets take up precious floor space which can be costly. Also, retrieving and processing paper-based documents is time intensive.
3. Increased productivity.
4. Ensure compliance with laws and regulations which require companies to implement document tracking procedures.
5. Backup of critical files.
6. Security. Prevent unauthorized alteration or destruction of data.
7. Accountability. Provide audit trails as well as user logs and record activity.
8. Access control. Control and designate access levels to an organization’s documents.
9. Process consistency. Enforce strict adherence to filing, naming conventions, and workflow processes.
10. Universal accessibility. A web-based document management system enables employees to retrieve documents wherever they are.
Brooks Schuelke of InjuryBoard.com discusses fall-related injuries in a recent post. He covers various causes and highlights best practices to reduce incidences.
As of July 8, close to a thousand cases of salmonella poisoning have been reported in the United States and more than 130 people hospitalized throughout the country. Safety officials are uncertain as to the cause of the outbreak. The initial focus was on tomatoes but jalapeno peppers, cilantro, and even some brands of salsa have also been cited as potential culprits. The outbreak has brought attention to the role of the Food and Drug Administration in monitoring the nation’s food supply. The FDA Commissioner is being called upon to use his emergency powers to put in place a detailed tracking system to follow produce from the farm to the dinner table. Meanwhile, the FDA’s safety chief has urged corporate responsibility while lamenting that safety reports are still created using pen and paper.
The time has come for the agricultural sector to adopt widespread software tracking protocols in order to improve traceability. Some food producers already track their products. Most food producers place stickers on their fruits and vegetables. It might just be a question of adding additional information on the stickers to pinpoint where the produce originated and how it got to its ultimate destination. Every activity at every point in the supply chain needs to be captured electronically and stored in databases. This would make it a lot easier to create a clearer picture when safety issues arise.
An ideal situation would be similar to that of tracking parcels sent by couriers such as DHL or FedEx. You enter a tracking number on a website and can immediately see the history of a product from its origin to its final destination. This information should be made available not just to businesses and investigators but to the consumer as well.
Continuing the same theme as Lori’s previous post, here is the list of the most frequently cited standards by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration for the last fiscal year . 1. Scaffolding (construction)
2. Fall protection (construction)
3. Hazard communication
4. Control of hazardous energy
5. Respiratory protection
6. Powered industrial trucks
7. Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment
8. Ladders (construction)
9. Machines (general requirements)
10. Electrical systems design
During my first visit to Dallas I recall noticing a bumper sticker with the slogan “Don’t Mess with Texas”. I remember being amused and wondering what that was all about. It happens to be the name of the anti-highway litter campaign organized by the Texas Department of Transportation. Over the years, the lone star state has championed several similar initiatives and is recognized as a national leader in environmental sustainability. This week, the City of Dallas further boosted the state’s reputation by achieving ISO 14001:2004 certification for its Environmental Management System. EPA administrator Stephen Johnson commended the city for its commitment to reducing the impact of its activities on the environment. The city’s EMS covers all 11 municipal departments and 13,000 employees. It is the widest implementation of an EMS in the country. The city of Dallas was one of the first cities to purchase Intelex Environmental Management System software back in 2004 and is among a growing number of Intelex municipal clients.
The City of Kitchener’s fleet operations which run its vehicles and related equipment recently garnered an ISO 14001 certification. An organization is deemed to be certified after an audit performed by an independent body confirms that its EMS is up to snuff. This is a way to let the world know that it fully conforms to the requirements specified in the ISO standards.
The City of Kitchener is the largest municipality in the Region of Waterloo. The Region of Waterloo has had a lasting relationship with Intelex dating back to 1998 when they chose ISOsoft for their first Environmental Management System.
Let’s face it, the term environmental management system is not quite a household name – at least not yet. I’ve been interested in finding out whether more people have been consulting Google for anything related to “environmental management” ever since saving the planet became really fashionable so I did some research and have compiled the results in a chart. They reveal that while there has been an increase in queries for terms such as “green business” and “carbon footprint” the volume of searches for “environmental management” has not increased at all. In fact, it has declined steadily. Closer inspection of the chart shows that “carbon footprint” became a really hot search in late 2006. My guess for why this happened is media exposure. People tend to search for what they see or hear from the media. According to IMDB.com, the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth was released in August 2006. I’m pretty sure it’s partly responsible for why people started inundating Google with searches for “carbon footprint”. This begs the question: How does one get Al Gore to film a documentary about Environmental Management Systems?
Intelex now has well over 300 clients spread across 5 continents.
The map below shows countries where businesses are running Intelex software. If I’ve missed a country, post a comment letting me know which one or send me an e-mail.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer at a Bay Street firm recently asked me to guess how many sheets of paper were consumed at his firm’s Toronto headquarters in a year. The answer was quite astounding – 36 million. That is approximately equivalent to 4,320 trees according to estimates from Conserveatree.com.
The persistence of paper in modern life is something that has long puzzled me. Compared to other commodities that we are grudgingly dependent on, it seems to me that the use of paper is something that we can more readily reduce. A paperless office or school is not that far fetched of a proposition. The technology is already here. Clipboards can be jettisoned for Tablet PC’s and paper-based forms can be converted to iForms such as the ones that are so popular with Intelex clients. The use of banknotes is declining rapidly as more consumers choose to transact business using electronic means. Even public libraries are now accessible by the click of a mouse as companies like Google relentlessly digitize millions of volumes.
Examining the extent of the environmental impact of the paper industry makes a case for why drastic reduction of paper use should be given a higher priority than it is currently afforded.
- 42% percent of industrial wood harvested is used for paper
- The paper industry is the 4th largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States
- Paper accounts for 25% of landfill waste
- Forests store 50% of the earth’s terrestrial carbon. They are essential “carbon sinks” that hold carbon that would otherwise contribute to global warming
- More than 50% of the world’s forests have already been cleared or burned
- The paper industry contributes 9% of the US manufacturing sector’s carbon emissions
In the recent awakening to the planet’s environmental challenges, the focus of attention has largely been on the task of discovering alternative sources of energy. While this is an effort that deserves continued devotion, we may be overlooking other problems for which the solutions might be more readily attained.
Intelex is very proud to count the City of Edmonton among its growing list of clients. The City of Edmonton is a vibrant prairie city that is located near the centre of the province of Alberta in western Canada. They are currently utilizing Intelex's Environmental Management System, Quality Management Suite, Quality Nonconformance module and iForms system.
Last year, two members of the Intelex team had the exciting opportunity to visit the City of Edmonton to provide tailored training for their team. Angela Martin, Intelex Lead Project Consultant, and Nicky Jaine, Intelex Quality Assurance Team Lead, conducted iForms training and were happy to report it was a huge success! There were 8 people in the class and they learned all aspects of building their own custom forms in Intelex's iForms system, from the basic building of fields to creating inventory pages and routing. They converted several paper based forms into online forms and hoped to build many more over the next ensuing months. "We always enjoy working with our clients, and training them to use the system to best meet their needs. We also got some great suggestions that we plan to implement in a future release", Angela was quoted as saying.
A new web system has been implemented by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in order to increase the efficiency of permit applications, as well as increase the clarity of the process. Applicants are now able to track their applications in real time. "Permit applicants can now find out immediately if the review process is right on track, and that kind of real-time information should make a positive difference in their decision-making," says Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson. It also gives DEP employees more control over the processes involved in the application process, including assigning tasks and tracking the various stages of the application, as well as the dates each task is completed.
The EPA's implementation of a web system to track permit applications is a great example of how organizations are leveraging web technology to manage their environmental activities. As the environmental sector moves away from meeting minimum standards of compliance, towards driving continual improvement, web technology is becoming an increasingly important solution for effectively managing organizational activities. A web-based environmental management system can not only ensure extensive and fail proof compliance management, but also facilitate the flow of information, increase control, minimize risk and provide real time information. Learn more about the Intelex Environmental Management System.
One of the challenges faced by organizations is showing the value derived from the management systems they have implemented. It is often the case that an organization will implement a system such as ISO 9001:2000, OHSAS 18001 or ISO 14001 primarily to satisfy a client requirement. When this occurs, the organization may not realize the potential value of the management system and could be wasting time and resources simply achieving the status quo.
At Intelex, we believe it is very important that organizations realize the true value of their management system approach. Recently, Devon Ambrose, a key member of Intelex's Client Services Team, gave an informative presentation that highlighted the importance of maximizing the value of a management system by continually improving an organization. The purpose of Devon's presentation was to explore the benefits of applying the Process Approach to a management system, thereby creating a 'Value Added Management System'. A management system is the method in which an organization manages their processes and activities. Devon's presentation underlined the opportunity for an organization to leverage their management system to drive continual improvement. This opportunity is guided by the Process Approach that states that in order to facilitate meaningful decisions; a management system must consider all the variables involved in a process/activity. Furthermore, we must understand how the processes within an organization are interrelated (referred to as the process links).
Essentially, the Process Approach creates a foundation for a Value Added Management System, by allowing for managers to pinpoint the use of resources, the overlap and interrelationship between processes (process links), and measure the effectiveness of the various contributions that make up processes. This operational control over the processes that make up an organization's activities gives management and employees the necessary information to adjust and document activities to meet both operational and organizational objectives.
As Devon explained, this is the fundamental logic behind the Intelex system. Consider for example an effective Quality Management System (QMS). It must be able to track, analyze and report on all quality management initiatives from product defect tracking, to supplier management to document control. Each process or sub-process is linked to another through variables such as inputs/outputs, resources, material, time, location and staff. The Intelex QMS suite is structured so that interrelated processes are easily identified and accessible between modules. If, for example, a nonconformance arises as a result of an audit, when the auditor records that nonconformance, it is also linked back to the audit record where it resulted from. It is essential for a management solution to have continuity between its components that reflect the interrelationship between processes. Thus, the Value Added Management System, guided by the principles of the Process Approach ensures organizations go beyond compliance to drive continual improvement.
View Devon's presentation
Continual improvement. Is it an optimistic notion? Newest buzz words? Or is it a new wave in management function? I know I have blog’d about it before, but after reading an article on the City of Dallas and their commitment to environmental management I couldn’t resist sharing what I had read. The City of Dallas is a fantastic example of what an organization can accomplish when it sets out to go beyond compliance.
Several years ago, the City of Dallas selected Intelex’s Environmental Management System as the tool to support their goal towards an environmentally healthy city. This is by no means a small commitment. They are following through on their promise to not only comply with laws and regulations, but to “go beyond what’s minimally necessary and do the best work possible on behalf of the environment, the citizens and resources of Dallas.”
"Intelex's compliance and document management modules have allowed the City of Tempe to achieve a higher level of compliance confidence than previously thought possible. Tempe's vision of consolidating all task-tracking and record-keeping activities necessary to maintain compliance into one desktop application has become a reality", said David McNeil, Regulatory Compliance Manager at the City of Tempe.
Environmental management is a top priority for the City of Tempe. They, like many organizations that employ Intelex solutions, must adhere to a diverse array of goals and objectives, including government regulations, internal initiatives, and community commitments. Since implementing Intelex's Environmental Management System, the City of Tempe has been able to focus their activities to ensure they effectively measure and monitor their activities as well as make sound decisions to encourage continual improvement into the future.
To learn more about Intelex's relationship with the City of Tempe, read The City of Tempe Success Story.
The Intelex Exchange: EQHS Tools
The Intelex Exchange's EQHS Tools brings together reference materials, training courses and helpful tools for environmental, quality, health & safety and general business performance management industry professionals. It is a well organized and informative resource for accessing best practices, specific regulations, industry trends, tutorials, globally recognized management standards and much more!
Visit EQHS Tools
The Intelex Exchange is a forum designed specifically for Intelex clients and partners. The purpose of this forum is to create a convenient way for our clients and partners to share custom Forms, Modules, Dashboards, Charts and Reports. Also, it is a great way for clients, partners and the Intelex team to share best practices for using the Intelex System. In the news and updates section of the Intelex Exchange, clients and partners can access new training presentations, instructional videos, work flow diagrams and much more!
Overall, the Intelex Exchange is a great way to ensure our clients get all the benefits the Intelex System has to offer, while minimizing the amount of time required to do so. Visit the Intelex Exchange today. Be sure to bookmark the page!
As set out by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the ISO 14000 standard was developed to help an organization meet the goal of "sustainable development" and environmental friendliness, regardless of the organization or the country in which it operates.
Some of the benefits organizations can profit from include:
- Significant Marketing Advantage - Customers, investors and local communities recognize and appreciate organizations that make conscious efforts to operate within the best interest of all their stake holders.
- Conservation of Resources - Minimizing waste and operational inefficiencies can save your organization energy, man hours, cost of reprocessing, and other valuable resources.
- Continuous Improvement - Implementing the right Environmental Management System will help to support your organization and promote continual improvement as your organization grows.
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