CASE STUDY

Advanced Proteins adopt Permit to Work System

Summary

Advanced Proteins provides waste disposal, recycling and environmental solutions for animal by-products and food waste. We’re proud to welcome them as the latest users of our Permit to Work system for managing Working at Height, Hot Work, Confined Space Entry and some Excavations.

Background

Advanced Proteins is one of the UK’s largest providers of animal by product collection solutions.

Formerly operating as John Pointon and Sons Ltd, they have been operating in the UK for over 40 years

Challenge

The company faced several challenges with its existing manual paper-based system
  • High volumes of PTWs created across several large facilities.

‘The existing system was buckling under the number of permits being issued’ said Nick Pellington, HSE manager,’Our sites are busy and there are a lot of hazardous materials and machinery so we’re issuing and handing back a lot of permits’

  • Each PTW managed in isolation – required an overview of all ongoing Permits at the entire facility or across facilities.

‘We couldn’t easily get a view of what was happening across an entire site, so there was always the risk of jobs interfering with one another’ said Nick

  • High volumes of approvals, workflows and closeouts to manage using paper-based system.

‘Handling paper carries a significant overhead – mainly the time it takes to manually complete permit forms, then move them around the business to get approval and handback etc.’

  • The need to maintain a paper audit trail for maintaining  ISO and OHSAS accreditations

Solution

The existing paper-based system was replaced by Pisys PTW Permit to Work Software, which covers the whole workflow of PTW creation, approvals, closeout and retrieval.
‘Pisys provided Help with setup and customisation by Pisys, using existing Permit to Work Questions and workflows to allow a
seamless transition to the new system, they also trained our key staff and they continue to support us in our operations’ said Nick,’ Being able to use our existing questions and workflows made it much easier to get adoption by the workforce because they were already familiar with the process’

Results

The system has had very tangible positive impact within the business:

  • Simplified management and administration of large numbers of permits
  • Automated workflow – from creation to handback of permits
  • Clear overview of all ongoing jobs at all facilities, helps manage concurrent PTW activities
  • Reduction in paper admin and time saving
  • Easy compliance and audit trail for ISO14001 and 18001
  • Detailed knowledge of each Permit without having to visit the work site
  • Overview of which contractor works at which site
  • Better communication with contractors & easier agreement of work scope

‘We reached a point where large numbers of Permits were created at our facilities every day by staff and a pool of contractors. We had a good PTW system in place already – it was based on filling in forms and signing these off before the work started’

The company wanted to know which permits were open,and which ones had been completed and closed out. And we wanted to get an overview of all the ongoing work in our facilities, without having to physically be there.
In addition, we wanted to ease the admin burden of filing of the paper permits and occasional retrieval. We needed to be able to go back and look at past permits during audits and inspections, as we are ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 accredited.
We were looking for a system to simplify the management and administration of permits, possibly go electronic while still using people’s own signatures, and without losing any good parts of our PTW system that we had built up over the years.

‘Pisys came along at just the right time and provided a great solution’

They provided a simple, workable solution for the electronic management and administration of Permits to Work.

‘They went out of their way to get it right for us’

We were able to transfer our existing Permit to Work questions from the paper forms to the PTW system, so the questions and terminology were already familiar to our users. This is one of the
reasons why the software was so easy to learn, and we were able to deploy it across our sites within a couple of weeks.
We are getting very good feedback from contractors and staff, and everyone who has seen the software wants to use it.
One great result is the way the digital signatures work on iPads, tablets and even iPhones – wherever there’s access to WiFi or mobile phone reception.
Using the system has helped us streamline and unify our own PTW creation process – and we find that the system is a great tool for making agreements between John Pointon Supervisors and the contractors that are performing the job.”

 

CONTRACTOR

Management

SIMPLE

Operation

CONFIGURABLE

Questions and Workflows

Testimonial

Pisys went out of their way to get it right for us - they provided a great solution

Nick Pellington HSE Manager, Advanced Proteins

Pisys Permit to work system is fully customisable and supports compliance with HSE/ISO/OHSAS Standards

It can be adapted to support your existing Control of Work or HSE Management System and is compatible with HSE Guidance on Electronic Permit to Work Systems, as per HSG250 and because existing control of work systems can be transferred onto PTW, set-up & training times are kept to a minimum. Our Permit to Work system integrates with the Action Tracker and Task Risk Manager modules of the Pisys 360 Suite.

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