Modeling of a Corporate Environmental Management Information System (CEMIS) for Production Processes

Abstract

Corporate environmental protection has developed into an elementary building block of corporate policy in recent years and has now become necessity and opportunity for companies. It is not longer a question of simply protecting the environment. It is increasingly becoming a matter of social and economic aspects as well, of companies’ global responsibility for future generations; to put it briefly, a matter of sustainable development.

Against this background, companies have to meet two sets of demands. They have to satisfy the ecological and economic efficiency of the products and production processes. In addition to this, they contribute towards conserving resources.

In order for an environmentally oriented management to be able to gain influence in time, problems and mistakes must be recognized quickly. However, it is problematic that the variety and complexity of the existing environmental data and information are relatively high. To the recording, analysis and treatment of these data and information, efficient and extensive information systems have an essential importance.

Corporate environmental management information system (CEMIS) as an organizationally technical system offers the possibility of systematically covering, analyzing, processing and appraising as well as to archiving environmentally relevant information [cp. Page and Hilty 1995]. These information systems support strategic and operative management with planning, control and transaction of environmental-issue measures [cp. Rautenstrauch 1999].