Industrial Transformation Blog

In this weekly Roundup, LNS Research explores recent announcements and events, such as Velocity and Enhesa announces a strategic partnership; Emerson sells Network Power Leroy-Somer business for $5.2 billion; Tesla is set to acquire SolarCity; and Biogen may have a possible buyout on the horizon.

A big step in the logical evolution of the environment, health, and safety (EHS) software market occurred when regulatory and legal information powerhouse, Wolters Kluwers announced that it will acquire EHS, risk and sustainability software vendor, Enablon.

Avoiding 'Hoverboard' Mishaps with Operational Architecture and Standards

If the recent holiday craze over hoverboards has proved anything, it’s that not all "great ideas" are actually great ideas...

As I start my new career adventure as the lead EHS Analyst at LNS Research, I’m charged with developing new frameworks for thinking about and analyzing environmental, health, and safety and sustainability issues and solutions. The vocabulary we use to describe problems and develop solutions is important, so naturally my mind wanders often onto how we talk about the EHS business function.

Since it commenced this past Monday, the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21, also known as the 21^st Conference of the Parties) has been all over international news.

It’s no secret that, in the oil & gas industry, employee safety has long been an important issue. Not only are oil & gas companies dealing with increasingly stringent regulatory requirements and customer demands, recent negative events have contributed to public scrutiny of health and safety standards across the industry.

May was a month of both progress and setbacks on the conflict minerals front. Just as one region established a commitment to support mandatory reporting on conflict minerals, on the other side of the globe another region found the success of existing commitments, well, lacklustre at best. In the face of these developments, it’s a valid question for affected manufacturers to ask whether efforts to combat the conflict minerals trade are beginning a long journey toward eventual success or simply dead in the water.

On Tuesday, March 24 I participated in a webinar at Panoramic Power entitled “Enabling Operational Excellence with Energy Intelligence.” As is often the case, there were too many questions to address from the audience in the time allotted, which I’ll address below.

Once upon a time, product stewardship entered the corporate lexicon as a term that essentially asked producers to take responsibility for the complete lifecycle of their products, particularly from an environment, health and safety (EHS) perspective. But somewhere in the process, "product stewardship" got lost as an all-encompassing term describing how we approach the cradle-to-grave impacts of the things we generate. No longer should this be the case.

With increasing energy prices, increasing pressure for operational cost reduction, and major demographic shifts impacting the political and policy sphere, the focus on effective energy management is only increasing. Industrial companies today are being forced to address this trend and focus on cutting energy consumption wherever possible.