Provides an Automated, Compliant "Management of Change" (MOC) Process to Coordinate, Document Major Plant Changes

Helps Increase Safety and Reliability, and Minimize Environmental Impact

CHICAGO, IL, - Open Text(TM) Corporation announced a new software solution that helps energy and chemical companies manage critical changes in processes at oil refineries and chemical plants. Management of Change (MOC) programs are a major challenge for plants, in terms of time, resources, and risks of fines, lawsuits or shutdowns if initiatives fail. Open Text's solution automates the content and processes for MOC, so that companies can cut down on the administrative burden, minimize risk and reduce costs.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Process Safety Management regulation states that any time a critical component in an oil or chemical plant changes, a formal MOC program is required to ensure that the proposed change is made safely.

Open Text's new Livelink ECM - Management of Change solution uses core content management and business process automation capabilities to simplify the MOC process. The solution manages all stages of the lifecycle of an MOC program, and ensures that every event in the system is auditable and reportable, providing transparency throughout the system. All documents and data are accessible via a single Livelink ECM repository to help ensure compliance, simplify the management of information and improve responsiveness to regulators.

Open Text designed the solution based on the best practices research of Gateway Consulting Group (http://www.gatewaygroup.com/), an Open Text partner and innovator in the design and implementation of ECM solutions for chemical and petrochemical plant environments. Dr. Rainer Hoff, president of Gateway, analyzed MOC processes at over a dozen chemical and petrochemical facilities in the United States. The resulting Gateway Group MOC Best Practices eliminates bottlenecks and identifies areas for improvements that provide facilities with real business benefits and savings.

"Fundamentally, an owner of a chemical plant or petroleum refinery must know the configuration of the plant at all times. If the operators do not know what is in the plant, then it is impossible to operate the plant safely, and sometimes fatal accidents can occur," said Hoff. "The plant owner receives excellent drawings and documentation when the plant is built. But that documentation and those drawings must be updated with every change made to a plant. This isn't just a good idea-it's the law. To really excel at MOCs, a company needs an ECM system with an MOC application. Livelink ECM with the Plant Compliance Module fits the bill." Hoff and Chris Vassalotti, Director of Business Solutions at Open Text, released a podcast (http://podcast.opentext.com/public/channel/rss/ot-ecm-news/item/12-OT_MOC-pod cast-v1.mp3) today where they discussed the OSHA requirements for MOC and the advantages of an electronic MOC system.