Convenience Store Chain Harnesses the Power of ARTEMIS® Technology

A $12B chain of over 750 convenience retail stores across the Eastern US needed a solution to inventory and manage its field assets. Water management infrastructure components at over 600 of its sites included stormceptors, underground filtration basins, etc.

With a limited team of five professionals, the client found itself habitually reactive and unsure if contractors (e.g. septic and grease trap pumpers, pest control vendors) were completing critical compliance and maintenance work.

With no reliable way to pinpoint which stores required routine water treatment maintenance, and an inability to allocate maintenance and repair costs, the client also found itself challenged with regards to storing its state and local regulatory documents.

The current systems and processes did not communicate effectively, and hundreds of users were submitting disparate data; each associate or vendor was working with a different database and report format.

The retailer recognized that they needed a centralized system that was mobile responsive, comprehensive, and consistent with real-time reporting capabilities.

To move from a reactive approach to a proactive one, our client selected ARTEMIS®, Apex Companies’ web‑based environmental management information system (EMIS), to manage and track the details of their environmental program including:

• Spills and releases
• Stormwater asset audits, inspections, operations, and maintenance repairs
• Drinking water systems
• Wastewater treatment plants and grease trap inspections, operations, and maintenance repairs
• Due diligence for new locations with oversight and environmental sampling
• Emergency prevention and response preparation
• Facilities management including store inspections and pest control

With ARTEMIS®, data is uploaded from environmental field assessments (e.g. stormwater system evaluations) via a mobile app directly to a cloud-based client dashboard. It provides a central, scalable platform with transparency, consistency, and efficiency across over 750 locations.

Our client now has control over the quality of the water, air, and soil of their sites. While many companies react to ever‑evolving regulatory requirements, with a digital 24/7 access of all their site assets, our client can instantly see what’s working and what’s not while accurately forecasting their compliance needs from store to store.

They gain critical insight that goes far beyond traditional EMIS capability to meet the project lifecycle needs of the facilities department as well as their quality assurance and construction departments.

With immediate notification of any issues through ARTEMIS®, replete with visual details such as real-time photo uploads, they can take swift and decisive action to dispatch teams to resolve any maintenance issues before a spill or other environmental emergency develops. And when emergencies do occur, ARTEMIS® enables their personnel to make informed decisions immediately and allows its response contractors to coordinate quickly, respond more effectively, and submit accurate release notifications and reports to regulators—all of which further improves coordination and collaboration with state regulators and generates significant savings. In addition, with a centralized and standardized view into their vendors’ activities across their geography, they can track operational performance and make adjustments accordingly to ensure the right steps are taken at the right time to improve environmental conditions across their stores simultaneously.

Using ARTEMIS®, they also implemented an aggressive maintenance program of their stormwater conveyance systems that improves treatment efficiencies of their existing infrastructure and identifies any systems requiring repairs or improvement. As a result, within two years, the generation of wasted solids and liquids from their stormwater systems has decreased by over 30%.

Currently there are over 200 ARTEMIS® users (both employees and contractors) collecting over 10K environmental records annually.