Regulatory and Compliance Management Process

The process starts with the creation of the regulatory content. The compliance requirements can be created manually or retrieved using content provider integration.

The applicable requirements based on regulations can be imported from external content providers using the Import Compliance Requirement app. Automatic updates to requirements are also made available when applicable regulations change.

The compliance requirements contain the following:

• Environment Limits

  Limit checks are important to demonstrate the compliance. Limit definitions are flexible and easy to define. An icon indicator shows the limit check result at a glance.

  To define environmental limits, provide a name, a type such as 'upper, lower, or range limit,' the subject, and unit of measurement. It is possible to define a limit value and a warning value.

• Regulatory Lists

  You maintain regulatory list data, such as emission factors, which can be used for emission calculation at a later stage. You have to provide the applicable emission factor, which depends on the substance and / or the pollutant used.

• Equations

  Equations can be defined within the compliance requirement and can be used for calculating emissions for multiple locations by referencing a Compliance Scenario.

  Each equation has associated header data (Name and Description), a results table, and input variables.

  The equation result can have multiple intermediate and final results. In addition, each equation can be reused with different types of data (which are used in calculation or in aggregation).

In the process step, the EHS regulatory expert can monitor the compliance requirements and make further changes if required. The existing content can also be copied to accelerate the creation of the compliance requirements. An import from a spreadsheet is also possible.

Based on external or internal guidelines, a corporate EHS Regulatory Expert maintains the so-called compliance requirements in the system. This is how the regal repository can be established in the system and how it can be used as a source for other processes in environment management.

Three types of requirements can be maintained, which are as follows:

• Regulations

• Permits

• Policies (defined company internally)

The regulatory content imported from internal sources can be used as an example. Using the copy function of the compliance requirement, you can further enhance the content with the company-specific data.

In the process step, Assign Compliance Requirements to locations, the local EHS Managers maintain the compliance scenarios by assigning the compliance requirement to actual locations in the company.

The foundation of the overall environmental compliance of your company includes the environmental compliance of all pieces of equipment (or locations) across the company. Therefore, to control and monitor the compliance on a global company level, you have to plan and carry out environmentally relevant activities for the various locations at the company.

To organize all these environmental activities at a given location in the company, you can use an object known as a compliance scenario. Using a compliance scenario, you can plan and carry out as many instances of these activities as the specific business case requires. The compliance scenario represents the applicable regulatory requirements in the context of a location or facility, and all its activities and tasks.

By assigning the compliance requirement to the compliance scenario, you can directly reference all predefined compliance data such as environmental limits, equations, and regulatory lists.

Similarly to the tasks in the other components, you can use tasks in the environment management to schedule and assign the work required to perform an environmentally related action. A task, for example, a maintenance task, is a reactive or proactive step or activity that relates either to an entire compliance scenario or to a specific aspect of a compliance scenario (for example, affected equipment or assigned compliance requirement).

As a responsible manager, you can add the task and start the corresponding process directly in the compliance scenario. Then, the system communicates the task to the inbox of the assigned implementer. SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management uses workflows to provide the sequence of steps that either a person or the system processes.

In the process step, the related compliance tasks can be defined and scheduled from the compliance requirement.

The local EHS Manager defines the activities and tasks that need to be implemented ensure compliance of the requirements from regulations, permits, or policies. To be able to schedule the task, the manager creates a definition of the task. It defines the information needed for the execution of the task, such as priority, scheduling and recurrence, responsibilities, and additional pieces of information, for example, attachments or links. Later, the task process can be started from the created task definition.

In the process step, Execute Compliance Tasks, the EHS manager triggers the process for execution of the task.

Depending on the assigned responsibility the EHS Manager, the supervisor (field operator) or technician receives the work item in My Inbox. The Task can be completed, forwarded, or suspended. Comments, attachments, and links can be displayed and opened if required.

In the process step, the EHS Manager can monitor the execution of the tasks related to compliance activities in the system using the so-called Task Calendar app. With this app, the tasks for the team in a calendar view can be planned. It provides an overview of existing task instances in a time schedule. Based on the overall schedule, the status of the tasks, and the workload of the team members, the plan by reassigning and rescheduling the tasks between assignees can be adjusted.

The responsible EHS Manager can complete the following tasks in the application:

• Get an overview of planned tasks based on the filtering criteria of your view.

• Add and remove contacts in your calendar to manage the task plan for one or multiple teams.

• Save lists of contacts, with the applied filter settings, as view variants to easily switch between teams and view their tasks.

• View contact and task details directly in your calendar.

• Navigate to the Display Task Instance app for detailed task management.

• Navigate to the Manage Task Definition app to view task definition details.

Tasks can be filtered based on Location, Status, and Type. Managers can reassign tasks by dragging and dropping them between individual users. Managers can change start or end date by stretching or shrinking tasks.

Daily or Monthly views are available for monitoring team Compliance Tasks.

In the process step, the EHS Manager can perform the required analysis and monitor the execution of the tasks using the monitoring apps in the system.

The various monitoring applications in the environment management component enable the monitoring of the environmentally relevant data that is available in the system. The Task Processes Explorer application enables you to find and monitor environmentally relevant tasks (actions) that are created in the compliance scenarios. Using the application, tasks can be filtered out based on various criteria, such as start or implementation dates, priority, compliance scenario, compliance requirement paragraph, person responsible, or implementer. Furthermore, in the application, the task can be processed directly in terms of its implementation or perform further task-related operations.

The Monitor Tasks app supports the EHS manager in monitoring the tasks corresponding to one or many locations. The tasks can be filtered by the following:

• Start Date (From / To)

• Implementation Date (From / To)

• Overdue Tasks Only

• Completed Tasks

• Priority

• Responsible

• Implementer

• Location

The data can be exported in a spreadsheet format and shared with external experts without providing access to them.

Regulatory and permit compliance solutions consist of three main functional components:

• Compliance Requirement

• Compliance Scenario

• Task Management

To be environmentally compliant, a given location (or a piece of equipment) must adhere to certain requirements - these may be part of the documents (regulations or permits) issued by the global environmental agencies or of the policies issued by the companies. These documents consist of conditions and requirements that are relevant for various industries or businesses, and are organized into a given order (such as chapters, subchapters, parts, subparts, paragraphs). The functional components related to the compliance requirement support the environment manager in creating the compliance registry in the system.

The Compliance Scenario consists of components that mainly support the organization of all the environmental activities at a given location in the company. The solution provides the possibility of the assignment of compliance requirements to the respective locations. Additionally, it supports the data collation process and helps you to organize the sampling process. The environment manager also supports the scheduling of identified compliance tasks.

Using the common process for managing tasks in SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management on SAP S/4HANA, the environment manager is supported with specific My Inbox notifications for completing compliance tasks, for example, monitoring the execution of tasks using the Task Calendar app.

Regulatory and Permit Compliance support different ways of representing the data. Using the Monitor Tasks app, the environment manager can monitor the execution of the tasks and organize the follow-up activities. The system fully supports the completion of these activities on time by providing ad-hoc data outputs.

The environmentally related data can also be exported to spreadsheets.