Work to Permit

When safety at the workplace gets compromised, the results are often a series of unavoidable problems for organisations. The most common (read: frustrating) is the “blame-game” and since humans have a natural tendency to passing the buck, they either accuse each other involved in the system, blame the system itself, or seldom own-up to the inescapable human fault.

Thankfully, there exists a solution that can ensure true accountability or even modify the system for a safer work environment. An e-permit to work system allows companies to keep a tab on everyone’s activities, ensuring that all are amply trained and prepared when they take up any work at a particular location and time.

A paper-based permit to work (PTW) system worked well for quite a long time, but only until the loopholes became too hard to ignore. With an electronic permit to work software, organisations now have the most comprehensive system that warrants a connected, responsible, safer and more productive workplace.

If you are planning to switch from a manual permit to work system to a digitised one, or looking to introduce an e-permit to work system into your company, here a few major advantages of e-PTW over its manual counterpart.

 Saves Time, Speeds Up PTW Procedures

Time is of great importance in high-stakes activities. In an attempt to achieve higher operational efficiency, companies often try to push their limits – even if that include compromising on safety with extended permits and re-issuance of permits. An e-permit to work system perfectly fills such a gap between adhering to the safety standards and becoming time-efficient – by creating a collaborative environment, where professionals involved can easily update workflows and status in real-time, which can reduce the response time by up to 70%.

 Saves Money, Ensures Better Productivity

When it comes to adopting any new system, companies always aim to have a system that can optimise the cost while bringing more value to the business. An electronic permit to work system facilitates the same as it makes use of a cloud-based core repository, where professionals can effortlessly update, store, retrieve, and create permits online while additionally getting quick approvals at any time and from anywhere. This helps save cost by cutting down the energy and resources invested in carrying out trivial tasks and focussing solely on crucial aspects.

 Prevents Human Errors, Ensures Full Visibility of PTW Activities

Human errors are the reason behind the bulk of workplace accidents, which is nearly impossible to be controlled by paper-based, manual permit to work processes. However, a software-based PTW system lets you have an analytical view of the entire permit framework in one window in real-time – which encompasses issuance, site schedules, authorisations, permit modifications and so on. This makes it one of the most exhaustive solutions for controlling human errors while ensuring true accountability.

 Saves from Becoming Obsolete, Makes the PTW System Future-Proof

Digitalisation has dramatically transformed almost every aspect of businesses and the dynamics of supply and demand is no exception. In the age of disruptive technology, any manual PTW system would likely fail to keeping up with the ever-changing requirements of modern organisations. An e-permit to work system can effortlessly be upgraded to meet the needs from as and when required and may also be integrated with more advanced and intelligent systems to ensure a zero-incident workplace of the future.

 To Conclude

Permit to work is an important element of control of work. It includes permit to work, hazard identification, risk assessment and isolation management. Reducing unsafe activities is amongst the major facets of risk assessment. In a workplace, risk management entails five key steps: identifying the risk, determining which individuals can be harmed and how, analysing the risk, recording the findings, and tracking and reviewing the results.

Moreover, proper communication of the identified hazardous working environment and the outcomes of regular safety checks throughout the workplace is necessary, which requires a formal management system. The work to permit system itself helps to distinguish roles and responsibilities while defining a stepwise guide to ensure complete safety and security.

Advanced e-permit to work systems are designed to control work and prevent major accidents within the workplace by detecting and avoiding them well before time. These systems are suitable for a host of sectors and industries to manage high-risk activities, ranging from construction work permits and commercial premises work permits to pharmaceutical and health sector permits.

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.

Industrial work sites are risky places with numerous hazards, such as sparks from welding, energised electrical conductors, corrosive chemicals, loose valves and so forth. Oftentimes, seemingly trivial incidents can turn into major accidents if not addressed properly on time.

These hazardous situations pose critical risks to the health and safety of the environment, assets and workers involved. This is where Permit to Work systems comes in, serving as a crucial element of the all-inclusive Control of Work strategy for any business. It helps identify, mitigate, communicate and manage hazards in risky areas, nonstandard circumstances and possibly hazardous situations, like shutdowns, to prevent accidents.

Permit to Work systems are critical to the safety of employees, especially frontline workers. It restricts the effect of human errors, which ensures there are no unanticipated on-site hazards and helps manage risks across the whole site, ultimately creating barriers to prevent hazards, such as welding sparks near flammable items. 

What is Permit to Work?

A permit to work is basically a document that details the work to be done, hazards involved, precautions to be taken, any requisite authorizations, and other relevant information, specific to the job or project.

It is a record in writing, which authorises a particular work at a particular site, for a particular time. It is used to ensure that critical safety information is defined, communicated and well understood by individuals involved. A great example of the kind of task requiring permits is confined space entry. 

Key Features of a Good Permit to Work System

A good permit to work systems should be comprehensive enough to be used in virtually all sectors, including: 

• Construction

• Commercial Premises

• Airports

• Data Centres

• Industrial sites

• Military & Defence Estates

• Pharmaceuticals

• Transportation

• Public and Private Health Sectors

A good work to permit system should have the following features:

• Cloud-based

• Accessible by anyone with a user account and internet connectivity

• Easy to submit and approve method statements and risk assessments

• Easy to apply for permits ahead of work to lower the need for excess duplication 

• Simple to review and approve permits

• Easy to review and approve permits, directly to the user’s inbox

• Real-time reporting via a simple and intuitive dashboard

• Complete technical and operational backup

• Reporting functionality

• Live chat 

Main Objectives of a Permit to Work System

Initially, permit to work systems arose from risky industries as a best practice to manage hazardous activities like hot jobs or confined space entry. The system is designed to ensure that risks are determined for every activity and the authorisation process offers a way to coordinate the activities in order to avert risks associated with simultaneous operations. With permit to work systems, companies aim to meet the following objectives:

• Develop a process to handle hazardous tasks safely.

• Develop a process that involves risk assessment, permit coordination and hazardous energy isolations (tagout/lockout).

• Ensure work is defined and risk is assessed.

• Get real-time clarity to coordinate activities.

• Get data to investigative work and optimise processes. 

Opportunities and Challenges Specific to Permit to Work Systems

Organisations that deploy electronic permit to work systems must ensure that the process does not end up being just another back-office activity, which companies often establish and forget. Safety managers not just experience the challenge of bringing continuous improvements to workplace safety, but they also need to ensure that they don’t underestimate operational efficiency. It is for this reason, environmental health and safety (EHS) managers should use safe systems of work template, and seek intelligent and simple solutions to often complex problems.