Reasons Why Many Electronic Permit to Work Projects Fail

 

Today, almost everyone owns a camera (at least the one which comes with smartphones) and we all like taking pictures. Still, you can immediately observe the quality difference in between a random click and a professional photo. The photography rules and tips are the same for everyone and technology does bring about some difference in the outcome. However, the actual point of differentiation is the experience and knowledge of the photographer. This applies to everywhere, and industrial safety and management is no exception!

 

Need for Permit to Work System

Permit to Work (PtW) is basically a management system, which ensures that employees work safely in a risky environment. Used particularly for activities involving high risk, this system lets an individual or a group of individuals to perform tasks under strict conditions. Permit to Work procedure is an integral element of Control of Work (CoW), which is the integrated management of critical maintenance processes.

Control of Work includes Isolation Management (IM), Hazard Identification (JHA), Permit to Work, Risk Assessment (RA) and others to create the Operational Risk Management (ORM) system in an industrial setting.

Most companies consider Permit to Work as a must-follow procedure, instead of using a valuable system for managing health and safety at work. The Permit to Work is fundamentally a written piece of document that authorises specific individuals to perform specific tasks at a particular time. It describes the work-associated risks as well as the precautions to be taken to avert those hazards. It also aids in increasing safety-specific awareness among employees in relation to the possible risks while offering specific instructions, related to the precautions to be taken at work.

The Permit to Work procedure can be complicated as it requires co-ordination among all the necessary conditions, activities, precautions and tools – which often becomes a paper-heavy exercise. This becomes more complex when other types of paperwork like certificates are further included into the permit.

When paperwork predominates, safety is at risk, causing the system to become more bureaucratic. If the site itself is not safe, the real intent to create the safest possible environment becomes non-primary to the permitting paper process management. This results in process paperwork experts instead of process safety experts!

 

Electronic Permit to Work

In the last few years, there has been a growing trend of replacing paperwork with electronic Permit to Work system and there are some great reasons for this shift:

•       Saves time and money
•       Improved compliance
•       Better audit trail
•       Enhanced communication and coordination

You may think that “increased safety” should be there on the list above. But, the fact is that simply replacing paperwork with electronic Permit to Work will not enhance safety remarkably. This is evident with the experiences shared by many companies in relation to their own Permit to Work activities. So, now the question arises: “Why does it not increase safety?

Replacing paper with electronic Permit to Work is analogous to purchasing a high-end digital camera. Your new device can do more, have more advanced features and capture better shots, but your pics from the new camera may not be comparable with the ones from a semi-professional camera. The reason behind this is simple – one can never buy experience!

So, what type of experience does a PtW system requires to boost safety? It requires an exhaustive analysis and deep understanding of the task-specific risks as well as the precautions to cut down the risk to an allowable level. All these should ideally be communicated in a manner which is easy for employees to understand.

An electronic Permit to Work that simply replaces the conventional paper system – when the process of Risk Assessment remains unchanged – is quite similar to purchasing a new camera without having the required experience to take great photographs. This happens quite often. Permits are usually submitted without conducting an exhaustive Risk Assessment for different tasks. Eventually, the new electronic system puts the plant in the same dangerous situation – this time, in a more efficient manner!

 

Do You Just Need the Right Technology?

Do you need a professional “expert” for Permit to Work and Risk Assessment? The answer is “yes.” Safety is all about experience, knowledge and leadership. Having said that, it is a risk in itself to rely solely on experts, so it is recommended to take help from the system as well.

When an individual, particularly a specialist in a specific area, leaves an organisation with all the safety-specific knowledge with them, it is important to have a record of that knowledge somewhere else in the company for future use. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to have this information within the Control of Work system. With that knowledge, any new professional, who will further become the expert, would be able to take charge of the role without compromising on safety.

Now, we address the question, “Why do many electronic Permit to Work projects eventually fail?” Just replacing paperwork with an electronic Permit to Work system will not boost safety in reality – even when many companies consider “enhanced safety” as a critical factor to justify their purchase and use of electronic Permit to Work. To be true, without proper safety knowledge within the system, this will never deliver the desirable benefits and will simply end up digitalising the mountainous paperwork. Consequently, an electronic Permit to Work system eventually becomes a bureaucratic system.

For managing health and safety at work, a holistic approach is the key to Control of Work, which should include the right selection of the electronic system. It also has to be simple to use, easy to understand and with the ability to withstand all audit processes. After all, it is safety that matters most at the end of the day.