NLP is a sub-discipline of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that focuses on enabling computers to digest and understand human language, in order to leverage them to perform specific tasks much like a human would. By representing complex processes through data, computers that understand language can be taught to perform tasks including but not limited to categorization, entity recognition, and summarization in a fraction of the time a human could and with less subjectivity.
This advanced technology is being applied to regulatory documents, such as laws, regulations, permits, licenses, and others, to extract relevant information for operations to fulfill regulatory requirements. Furthermore, the same process can be applied to standards, plans, and procedures, facilitating access to and digestibility of information to optimize conformance with management systems. This reduces the time and cost and increases the accuracy of these administrative processes, simplifying the setup of EHS software and developing compliance self-assessment checklists, audit protocols, and compliance calendars.
