Client: The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) is the lead agency in state government for environmental management and stewardship. The department administers regulatory programs and issues permits for air, water, and waste management.

The Annual Operating Report (AOR) is used by all Title V sources, all synthetic non-Title V sources, and all facilities for which an annual operating report is required by rule or permit. Over 1,000 facilities statewide must submit AOR’s.

Challenge: Reduce the time, cost, and processes related to environmental management and regulation by creating an electronic version of the AOR. Cost-effectively and quickly deploy this application to a thousand different sites, without the benefit of individual site configuration information.

Solution: Developed by Matrix and FDEP, The Electronic Annual Operating Report (EAOR) is a knowledge-based system for automating emission inventory reports submitted by regulated facilities. The system provides FDEP a fast, accurate, and easy mechanism for electronic review and tracking of emission inventories.

Key Features:

• Provides FDEP and the regulated facilities synchronized, side-by-side comparisons of prior and current submittals. A knowledge-based engine visually alerts the user to potential errors and areas of noncompliance.
• Standardized and routine submittal data verifications provide consistency and integrity of information while the amount of paper required for submittal of annual operating reports is greatly reduced.
• Distributed through an internet URL and installed via “No Hands Deployment”, the EAOR is deployed to desktops without the expense of traditional on-site client-server application installation techniques.
• Interface-based programming architecture allows for various tiers of the application to interact with the interface of the component rather than the implementation of the component. This isolates and contains upgrades or fixes to just one aspect of the application and prevents cascading errors to other modules.
• Reflection-based rules engine allows for rules to be altered, added or deleted without recompiling the main application.
• Provides FDEP and the regulated facilities with a common, standard knowledge base from which to submit, review, and track EAOR submittals.