Facility data lie at the core of all environmental regulatory processes. Linked to other critical environmental data such as hazardous waste, air, and water quality, well-managed facility data have the capacity to provide a comprehensive picture of environmental sites that enables co-regulators to better understand potential environmental impacts.
The E-Enterprise Facility Integration Project developed shared services that can connect various sources of regulated facility information to streamline reporting and yield more accurate, timely facility information.
CHALLENGE
As federal, state, and tribal environmental programs have evolved over the years, separate and mostly unconnected facility data management systems have been developed to meet the needs of individual programs. The result is that any one data system has only partial information about all the environmental interests at a given facility site; across these systems information about the facility name, owner, location, boundaries, address, and site activities can be different, out-of-date, unsynchronized, and redundant. This situation can exist even within a single program office.
This makes it extremely difficult for the regulated community and consumers of this information to obtain an accurate picture of environmental issues and regulatory actions without having to contact multiple program offices. The E-Enterprise Facility Team aims to efficiently integrate the information in these disconnected systems to generate and maintain a complete, up-to-date picture of facility sites that users can find in one place, without disrupting existing data collection and management systems.
BENEFITS
An integrated facility identification approach supports regulatory burden reduction, cross-program coordination, and the ability to correct data as it is reported. It can also:
- Streamline processes for regulators.
- Facilitate broader agency and public understanding of facilities.
- Reduce the duplicative reporting burden for the regulated community.
- Streamline regulated community data collection and reporting.
- Provide the regulated community, regulators, and the public more accurate and timely facility data.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The E-Enterprise Facility Integration Project has launched a suite of shared facility services available for broader adoption by co-regulatory partners. The services will enable partners to “push” (submit) facility data from their systems into a program record within the EPA facility system, Facility Registry Service (FRS), and to query facility data in real time from FRS. The facility services can enable real-time sharing of facility information between partners’ systems and FRS.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Project leads will continue to coordinate with states, tribes, and local governments looking to implement new facility shared services through Exchange Network grants. Interested states, tribes, local governments, and EPA program offices should contact the project leads. States or local governments can also contact ECOS.
RESOURCES
- Fact Sheet
- Link to Shared Services
- Implementation Guide
- Implementing Real-Time Facility Data Management between Partners: Impacts to Facility Data and Pilot Lessons Learned
- Facility Business Rules (version 1.0)
- Facility User Stories
- Facility Data Integration Discovery and Analysis
PROJECT HISTORY
Phase III (2018-2020): Facility Shared Services Development, Scoping Requirements for Unified “Facility Operational Status” Microservice
In Phase III, the Facility team launched a suite of shared facility services that are now available for broader adoption by co-regulatory partners. The facility services will enable real-time sharing of facility information between partners’ systems and the EPA facility system, the Facility Registry Service (FRS).
The Facility team updated the Implementation Guide to reflect the new shared service development and incorporate feedback received from facility stakeholders.
In parallel, the team worked in collaboration with federal, state, local, and tribal environmental programs to scope the requirements for a potential unified “facility operational status” microservice to be leveraged by all environmental programs. Environmental programs have different definitions and uses for “facility status,” and this effort aimed to explore ways to build a microservice flexible enough to accommodate the unique requirements of all environmental programs.
Phase II (2016-2018): Facility User Stories, Facility Business Rules, and Initial Pilot of Facility Services
In Phase II, the Facility team conducted a State Master Data Management (MDM) Pilot with Rhode Island. The pilot implemented shared facility services in a test environment that enables joint facility data management between EPA and Rhode Island’s MDM systems.
The Facility team developed a draft Implementation Guide to assist with additional testing of the facility shared services. The Implementation Guide provides information that other partners need to test the services with their systems and will be refined based on input from subsequent testing.
The team developed another living document, Facility Business Rules to Support Integration of Facility Information (1.0). These business rules will continue to be refined as the facility services incorporate additional fields, such as sub-facility data, and serve as the basis of scoping facility governance requirements. The Facility Integration Phase II Summary Report offers a high-level overview of Phase II accomplishments of the Facility Team.
Phase I (2015-2016): Analysis and Discovery
In Phase I, the Facility Team gathered stakeholder input to explore, identify, and test possible approaches for integrating or sharing facility information across programs and agencies. The IPT developed an understanding of current EPA, State, Territorial, and Tribal efforts to integrate facility data, identify a shared set of goals for supporting more comprehensive facility integration, and identify and test options for achieving those shared goals. The Exchange Network website includes more information about Phase I.