How BELCO achieved ISO 14001 certification

BELCO achieved the prestigious ISO 14001:2004 certification for environmental management, in part because of the data collection and reporting capabilities of the Wonderware Historian and Wonderware IntelaTrac.

The leadership team at BELCO set their sights on ISO 14001:2004 certification

"ISO 14001 is an internationally recognized environmental management standard", says  Denton Williams, BELCO's VP of Energy Supplies, "Fundamentally, you identify what impacts your organization has on the environment, develop methods for mitigating them, then you continuously improve and move forward.  It’s a mechanism for you to maintain focus on minimizing your environmental footprint."

How did they do it?

The ISO 14001 implementation was a multi-year project. BELCO started off with several internal versions and iterations of what they were trying to accomplish with their environmental management system. From there they proceeded to the point where they could pursue registration. Once they were successful with gaining registration, they have to submit to surveillance audits and compliance audits. This proves that BELCO is doing what they say they are doing and also that the company is complying with existing laws.

 

Wonderware helps in the ISO 14001 compliance

Audits and extensive reporting are required as part of the ISO 14001 compliance process. The Wonderware Historian and the Wonderware IntelaTrac® mobile application were used to collect the plant data and prepare the reports used for auditing as well as for submission to the regulatory agencies.

"In our plants, there’s quite a bit of visual checks for things that don’t have instrumentation that need to be checked by the operators. We used to do that through a paper log system that didn’t give us ready access to the data we needed. IntelaTrac is a nice mobile device that our people could use that was tied to a database that gives us a record of what’s been checked, what the parameters were when they checked it. We’ve got a record that we can go back and look into and it gives us the ability to send special messages or special requests out to operators."

John Blizman

Vice President, Plant Management

Data is collected, aggregated and organized with ease

Using Wonderware Historian and IntelaTrac, operational data is collected, aggregated and organized with ease. The products’ advanced reporting capabilities helped BELCO show auditors their plan and new environmental management policies as well as demonstrate real-time results with speed and transparency.

“The IntelaTrac product really helped us with implementing ISO 14001 because the results were so transparent, we could readily produce reports for auditors.  For external parties, we could show the regulators anything that was needed that was associated with options with operations and It was just very wide open and very easy for people to use. There was no great increase in the amount of work we had to do because it was all part of what we do.”

Denton Williams VP of Energy Supply, Belco

A typical example of how IntelaTrac is used

"A good example of how we used the IntelaTrac data to prepare reports is our water treatment plant. It’s a continuous operating plant and we take the readings during the operators rounds. The collected information is then automatically sent off to our internal environmental group They then take that information, compile their relevant reports to show how much clean water was discharged, and so on and so forth, and that’s sent to our external government regulator."

Denton Williams VP of Energy Supply, Belco

 

ISO 14001 Compliance is achieved!

According to BELCO's operations and engineering personnel, the best feature of IntelaTrac besides the obvious mobility of the solution, is the database behind it. It allows BELCO to retain knowledge, and it also allows them that they execute and operate with consistency using their standard operation procedures.

In July 2010, Bermuda Electric was officially ISO 14001 registered for its state-of-the-art production, transmission and distribution of electricity – the first organization in the territory to achieve this prestigious milestone!

More information

In my next post, I will be talking about how BELCO used Wonderware and Triconex to modernize an existing plant.

 

In the meantime, visit the following interesting links:

1. The new InTouch page where you'll learn about how to get more out of your HMI through a Wonderware Historian
2. The Wonderware Historian videos where you'll find out how it provides greater insight into your processes
3. The Wonderware IntelaTrac product page

Ciao!
Jay