09/02/2010 - BMT Help MoD to Eliminate Hazardous Materials
The Challenge
The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) has rigorous procedures in place to manage the elimination of hazardous materials in the platforms and equipment under its authority. Each Project Team is responsible for the managing and reporting on the types of materials within their area. Historically, each Project Team has stored this information in various formats and at different levels of detail.
The Safety & Environment Protection (S&EP) Group, previously Acquisition Safety and Environment Group (ASEG), is required to collate this data across all of the Project Teams and report on the materials such as asbestos, halon and radioactive materials. The challenge for S&EP was to manage the collection of this data from each Project Team, to get all the data to the same level of detail and deliver their material reports within the required time.
S&EP has worked with BMT on information management systems for a number of years and chose BMT to develop a new web-based software application to meet its requirements.
“BMT understands the challenges in working with disparate information stores across the MOD. We were able to design an effective solution not only to meet S&EP’s requirements but to produce a system that is easy to use and an effective management tool for each individual Project Team” said Simon Luck, a Principal Systems Analyst at BMT.
BMT’s response
BMT has considerable experience in developing information management software for both the MOD and commercial organisations. This includes systems such as the Submarine Materials Toxicity Database, Naval Authority System and OMEIAS, a system to manage ordnance, munitions and explosives and their safety information on board vessels.
In response to the MOD’s requirements, BMT has developed the Hazardous Materials Database - HazMat. HazMat is managed by S&EP and is designed to allow each Project Team to manage its own inventory of platforms, equipment and components and to identify the materials that are present in these, all within a central web-based repository.
S&EP is able to set elimination targets for Project Teams, monitor the progress of these and produce a number of reports.
Solution and benefits
HazMat is a web-based system, accessed over the Restricted LAN Interconnect (RLI) through a standard web browser. The system makes use of the latest web technologies to give the users a rich desktop-like application experience.
The HazMat web system provides two different views for users to update their information:
The first allows a user to navigate to one record of interest and view all the details, including a full audit history of changes made to that record.
The second method is an innovative bulk update utility that provides users with a spreadsheet-like view of all their data. This allows them to edit their information off-line and then update the HazMat web system with any changes within just a few clicks.
Some MOD Project Teams currently manage their inventory within spreadsheets, such as Microsoft Excel. They can easily upload their spreadsheet to the HazMat database so S&EP has their latest information set for reporting purposes. They can even download their inventory from HazMat into spreadsheets for local queries or reports, providing a familiar environment for users and adhering to the MOD principle of write once, use many times.
BMT also recognised that each Project Team may need to store different information against their inventory items such as equipment or platforms. Therefore, HazMat allows users to add custom fields to their records to store this data. The extra fields are made available in the bulk update and in the reports, so complete flexibility is handed over to the users.
HazMat has played a central role in helping S&EP to achieve its objectives in providing a centralised repository for the management and reporting of hazardous materials. This has been achieved through a close working relationship with the BMT team to ensure a cost effective solution that meets the needs of several user groups.
