Improve your environmental management information system through requirements engineering
An Environmental Management Information System (EMIS) uses information technology to help automate, streamline, and improve a corporation's environmental information processes. A computer-based EMIS is usually one component or subset of an organization's overall Environmental Management System (EMS). Companies use EMIS as a tool to enhance environmental performance while reducing compliance costs and business liabilities. Requirements engineering (RE) is a relatively new term that has been invented to describe the processes of discovering, documenting, and managing requirements for a computer-based system. The goal of RE is to produce a set of requirements that are complete, consistent, and relevant, and that reflect the business needs of the end user. A formal RE process usually results in detailed and complete software requirements specification while satisfying budgetary and scheduling constraints. System requirements are defined during early stages of system development as a specification of what should be implemented. For example, whether the system is intended to perform environmental compliance audits, model air emissions, track permits, or generate hazardous waste manifests, should be defined as system attributes at the outset. A good RE process includes requirements elicitation/discovery, analysis and negotiation, and validation. RE is iterative rather than linear. The details of the RE process are application-specific. The EMIS should be able to meet the internal needs of an organization (e.g., integrate environmental requirements into core business process) and external needs (e.g., regulatory reporting requirements under environmental permits). In order to be sustainable, the EMIS should be designed to be flexible enough to accommodate new developments, such as new or modified environmental statutes. The system requirements determined through the formal process of RE are eventually implemented through an off-the-shelf software product or a custom-developed software application or a combination of these two options.
- Research Organization:
- Trinity Consultants, Dallas, TX (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20003293
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-990608-; TRN: IM200003%%128
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Air and Waste 92nd Annual Meeting and Exhibition, St. Louis, MO (US), 06/20/1999--06/24/1999; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating Systems: Windows 3.1, '95, '98 and NT; Macintosh; and UNIX; PBD: 1999; Related Information: In: Air and Waste 92nd annual meeting and exhibition proceedings, [9500] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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