Increased safety and cost savings through mobile application for hot work permit management
Together with Meyer Turku we started to work on a solution to enhance the whole hot work permit process. As a result, a mobile application saving both time and money and most importantly increasing safety was developed. The solution makes life easier and safer at the dockyard in many ways.
“The idea of a mobile solution came originally from our Occupational Safety Manager inspired by Gate Apps’s application for making observations. We had high expectations of the pilot”, says Harri Koivisto, Fire Manager at Meyer Turku.
The daily number of hot work permits assigned varies strongly depending on the stage of shipbuilding project with even hundreds of permits assigned on busiest days.
“The permit process is now faster as the application is quick to use and it remembers the prior permits. Meyer Turku reports that the employees are satisfied as even at the busiest times they do not have to wait long for obtaining a permit. This is a win-win situation, because everybody benefits as the work can be started more quickly”, says Koivisto.
Increased safety
Safety has high priority at the shipyard and the mobile application has made control of hot works easier.
“The management of permits used to be manual: the permits were printed out and pinned to walls and pillars on site. This made it difficult to have a good overview of the whole situation. Now the application offers a view of ship profile indicating deck and the exact details on location where hot work is performed”, says Harri Koivisto.
Besides being available in mobile use, the real-time situational view is open to all both in intranet and information screens.
“This means that when observing somebody performing hot work and no permit is to be found through the application, we know immediately that work is currently being conducted without a permit.”
Simple permit process and ease of control has made it possible to allow trusted sub-contractors assign permits for less hazardous hot works.
“Also sub-contractors work faster; previously obtaining the permit took 30-60 minutes and now only couple of minutes. We have been able to try this now that the control is so easy – who granted the permit and to which location – we notice quickly if somebody is not playing by the rules.” states Koivisto.
Positive feedback from users underlines success
The digital solution also helps in meeting the requirements for offshore industry to archive hot work permits for at least five years.
“The amount of permits accumulated in five years is huge which means a lot of paper to be stored. Now all permits are stored digitally and available in mobile format for even the most demanding customers’ needs.” says Koivisto.
The mobile app was launched one year after the initial idea. Koivisto is satisfied with flexible team work and appreciates also that the application is simple enough to use.
“Systems Garden people are very nice to work with and have heard all our wishes. The employees have embraced the solution positively which is the best possible feedback; those are the ones using the app daily. I believe services like this get more and more common as everybody already has a smart phone and the apps are easy to use.”
