Waiting costs money. And in the utilities industry, costs pots of money. Workers kitted out and ready to graft are forced to stand – and wait – for a permit to work.
Why the permit process must change
Much of the permit process (and other processes just like it) is still carried out on paper, with eye-watering margins for human error and inefficiency. Some permits may need not one, but several signatures. Some permits may need revision. Others may need associated documents. You get the idea. On larger sites, often the fastest way to get all these bits of paper together, signed by the relevant people, and into the right hands, is to run around between portacabins, clutching grubby but vital paperwork.
Hang on, isn’t this 2019? Why are we running around with all these little crucial bits of dead trees?
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Why our Safe Work Systems save time and money
Safe work systems are an emerging class of safety-related technology solutions for industry that address this very question. They bundle related safe work processes into joined-up workflows. Ours, called Mineral Blue, is a fully electronic, cloud-based system, and we implemented it on a four-year gas infrastructure project in the UK, with startling results.
The numbers you want to see
Mineral Blue was deployed and produced permits for four years without downtime. In that four years, there were no reported software errors. Permit queues were reduced by 80%, with a reduction of 20% of all downtime. The total cost to the client over four years was around £120k, including hosting, hands-on support and bespoke development work. However, the project managers estimated that the total saving delivered by using our system was some £5 million.
Interesting?