Sphera > Case Studies > Chemical Industry Excellence Award Winner Dow Chemical

Chemical Industry Excellence Award Winner Dow Chemical

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Sphera Essential Suite™

Tech Stack

Database Management
Data Integration

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

Applicable Industries

Chemicals

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing
Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Process Control & Optimization
Predictive Maintenance

Services

System Integration
Data Science Services

About The Customer

The Dow Chemical Company is one of the world’s leading producers of plastics, chemicals, and agricultural products. With 46,000 employees, the company operates in more than 175 countries. Dow is widely recognized as a model of corporate citizenship and best practices in business sustainability. In 2007, the company celebrated the success of its landmark Environmental Reporting Project – the largest emissions management program of its kind. The project was a powerful example of the results that can be achieved by expert managers who unify and streamline information processes enterprise-wide using Sphera software.

The Challenge

Dow Chemical, a leading producer of plastics, chemicals, and agricultural products, was faced with the challenge of managing its environmental reporting across hundreds of facilities in the United States. The company had been using multiple legacy systems for regulatory reporting, but these systems were no longer sustainable, varied between sites, and required duplicate resources for support. The need for regulatory reporting compliance and technology replacement led to the initiation of the Dow Environmental Reporting Project in 2004. The project aimed to provide a cost-effective, high-quality, multi-media environmental reporting solution.

The Solution

The Dow Environmental Reporting Project team first engaged stakeholders, received leadership endorsement, and then proceeded with the selection of a unified software platform. After an internal review and third-party validation of several commercially available software solutions, they chose Sphera Essential Suite™, which had already been used successfully at selected Dow facilities since 1999. A joint Dow EHS, Dow IS, CH2M Hill, and Sphera team was assembled to implement the system company-wide due to the breadth and complexity of the project. The team designed and built interfaces, templates, uploaders, ad hoc query tools, and reports to meet the needs of the project. The new environmental reporting work processes defined roles and responsibilities consistently across U.S. sites and created a centralized support structure.

Operational Impact

The single instance of a common Sphera Essential Suite database eliminated the need for repetitive support roles and reduced structural costs at the multiple sites.
Sustainable work processes, training documentation, and videos were developed to make information easily accessible on Dow's intranet.
The project established common environmental reporting work processes, standardization of roles and responsibilities, and a standard enterprise configuration – all from one instance of the Sphera Essential Suite database.
To safeguard Dow's investment, a centralized support organization has been institutionalized. Leveraging centralized resources eliminates the need for a support organization at each site.
Use of the global Management of Change process across all reporting sites ensures that the standard configuration is maintained and adapted consistently.

Quantitative Benefit

Eliminated over $2 Million in redundant legacy reporting systems
Dow’s single system has the potential to save an additional $2 Million over time
Improved reporting efficiency and accuracy by allowing all the US sites to use a common reporting process