Eliminate Travel Time Required for EHS Inspections

Many inspections required for environmental (RCRA Tanks, SPCC Inspections, etc) or safety (eyewash, Emergency Lights, etc) compliance require very little time, maybe a minute or two, to complete.


Often, the bulk of the time committed to these inspections is the travel time to and from the individual inspected devices. These devices are typically scattered around the plant or campus. The technician performing these inspections may spend 5 to 10 minutes getting to each device, only to spend 1 minute to perform the actual test or inspection.

FieldDataPro has developed a way to eliminate the travel time required for these inspections. We have integrated mini barcode scanners, the size of automobile keyless entry devices, into our solution.

One scan of these devices, along with our Smart Barcoding System, can capture detailed inspection results that include:

• Inspection Result (Pass / Fail)
• Name of Person Completing Inspection
• Date and Time of Inspection
• Measured Value (Numerical)

Our miniscan devices cost less that $150, so it does not  break the bank to outfit each of your staff members with one.

Here's How Our System Works

As the EHS staff travels around the plant carrying out their normal duties, they perform inspections on devices at locations they pass by.

Lets say your technician has to meet a customer in the Chemical Storage Building. Why not have her inspect the satellite waste storage location in that area. She can record her results with her mini scanner.

Have a meeting in the Physical Science Building? Go ahead and test the emergency lights in the stairwell. Record your results with your mini scanner.

Using the mini scanner eliminates the need to go back to the office to get the clipboard. With it you are prepared to record your inspections at any time.

When you get back to your desk, simply plug the mini scanner in to the charging cable and your inspection results are automatically uploaded to our easy to use web application.

Each week a report can be run detailing which devices have been inspected, which devices failed inspection and any devices that have not been inspected.

A schedule report can also be run periodically, detailing for each device:

• Last Inspection Date
• Next Due Date
• Days Past Due

Use our detailed reports to actively manage your inspections.

Towards the end of each period(week, month, quarter) our reports help identify which devices were not inspected over the course of the period.

The FieldData Pro system greatly reduces the time required to complete your regulatory inspections. And by using our system you will do a much better job of managing and documenting your inspections. 

Every organization I come in to contact with is facing the same challenges, more regulatory requirements, less people to do the work. At FieldData Pro, we help organizations do a better job managing their environmental and safety inspections while using less resources.

Send Safety Home with Your Employees

As a manager do you encourage your employees to take personal protective equipment home for personal use?

Do you even allow it?

I beleive  that encouraging employees to use company issued PPE at home can help improve safety performance at work. It accomplishes this by helping instill a safety mindset in your employees.
Reinforce Positive Behavior

A safety conscious employee gives thought before each endeavour and considers the safety risks associated with the job. This employee breaks the job down into it's steps, identifies the hazards associated with the step, identifies the precautions to mitigate the hazard and ensures these precautions are taken before proceeding.

Consider the potential hazards associated with household tasks:

• Lawn mowing - Hearing Damage, Eye Injury
• Cleaning Gutters - Fall Hazard
• Painting - Inhalation hazards

This is just a fraction of the potentially hazardous tasks your employees can perform at home. By encouraging employees to use their safety glasses or ear plugs at home your will help make safe work practices habits that they will take to work with them.

Minimize Negative Reinforcement

The flip side of the previous example is to minimize the reinforcement of negative behaviour. One of the biggest impediments to safe work practices is the confidence some employees have in their ability to perform tasks without being injured even without following safe work practices. How many electricians do you know who are comfortable working 120 V or 480 V hot, without gloves, glasses and arc resistant clothing because they have done it hundreds of times before without incident.

Every time they "get away" with doing it the wrong way, their confidence in those methods grows. Interrupt this cycle by make it easier for them to do it the "right" way whether they are working at home or at work.

Create a Safety Conscious Family Environment

My kids wont let me or my wife drive a car without a seat belt on. They start hollering the instant we try to do it. That is because riding in a vehicle with a belt on has been the only way they have ever known. They don't know that seat belts were optional when we were growing up. And we are better off for that.

Develop that same safety conscious attitude in them towards household work. If your children see you wearing safety glasses and ear plugs when mowing the lawn, they will adopt that practice when it it their turn to mow the lawn. If they see you put a lockout device on the light switch when you are changing a light ballast, they will ask you why. Explain to them that you don't want Uncle Billy to accidentally electrocute them when he stops by unexpectedly and throws the light switch. Make it easy for your employees to create a safety conscious family environment by encouraging to use their company issued PPE at home.
Guidelines and Expectations

Of course you will have to set guidelines and expectations. The expectation should be that the equipment come back to the workplace and be in good condition. Guidelines should include notification to the supervisor that they will be borrowing the equipment. A simple email to the supervisor on a Friday afternoon letting them know that the employee will be using their electrical gloves at home over the weekend protects the employee from being accused of theft and helps the employer keep up with the equipment it provides.
In the end both the employer, the employee and their family will be safer and better off.

How to Keep Your Emergency Exits Free of Obstructions

Both OSHA regulations and the NFPA Life Safety Code require unobstructed egress from buildings. The Life Safety Code states that "means of egress shall be free of obstructions that would prevent its use"; while the OSHA requirements of 29 CFR 1910.36 (b)(4) require exits to be "...maintained so as to provide free and unobstructed egress from all parts of the building or structure at all times when it is occupied."

One of the most common discrepancies found during safety inspections of facilities is emergency exits obstructed by stored materials. Emergency exits are often times located in quiet alcoves that seem ideal locations to "temporarily" store boxes or furniture.

Vigilance is required to keep emergency exits free of obstructions. One method is to make it inspections of emergency exits a part of security officers daily rounds. It is common for security guards to perform inspections of exterior doors to ensure they are locked. By asking the security guards to also verify that the exits are free from obstructions you can increase the safety of your facility with little to no added expense.

By using an inexpensive barcode scanner your employees can easily record the results of their inspections.

Results are automatically uploaded to our easy to use web application. If any blocked emergency exits are found, messages can be sent automatically to the appropriate people for corrective action.

By adding these inspections to existing facilities inspections you avoid the burden of creating a new inspection route. By using  barcode scanners you will eliminate unnecessary paperwork related to tracking completed inspections and identifying missed inspections.

For a more detailed description of how FieldDataPro can help you manage Safety Inspection data, see this blog post (How it all works).

Call us at (919) 323-3703 to set up a demonstration.

For more information, email us at info@fielddatapro.com.

http://www.fielddatapro.com/

Train Security Guards to Perform Safety Inspections

A client of ours was struggling to get their required safety inspections completed. They simply had too much work to do and not enough people in the maintenance department to get it all done. They came up with a unique solution to the problem – integrating safety device inspections into the security guards’ rounds. 

The periodic safety device inspections that the maintenance department is responsible for include:

• Weekly eyewash safety shower testing
• Monthly emergency light test
• Quarterly automatic electronic defibrillator inspections
• Monthly lighted exit sign test
• First-aid kit inspections
• Satellite waste collection weekly inspections
• Monthly SPCC inspections

The client maintains a 250,000 square foot manufacturing facility. These inspections were taking over 60 man-hours per month to complete. Meanwhile, the maintenance department was being squeezed for resources. Vacant positions were not being filled; new positions were not being considered. 

At the same time, the company was putting a strong emphasis on staying compliant with regulatory inspection requirements.

This customer came up with a neat solution, by training their security guards to complete many of the safety inspection tasks and integrating the safety inspections into their security rounds.

Security Guard Rounds

As is common in many facilities, the security guards at our client’s facility perform rounds each shift. These rounds include roving the facility and verifying that all exterior doors are secure and all important offices are locked. The fact that the security guards already travel throughout the facility makes them ideal candidates for performing these inspections.

Most of the inspections listed above take about one minute per device to complete. However, the average travel time to each device is 3-5 minutes. So up to 85% of the time devoted to safety inspections is travel time to and from each device. By adding these inspections to the security guards’ rounds, the travel time is eliminated, since the guards would be traveling to these areas to perform their security functions anyway.

Buy-in from Security

Any time you shift responsibilities from one group to another, it is important to get buy-in from the folks who will be assuming the new responsibilities. Oftentimes the receiver may feel the new responsibilities are being dumped on them without consideration for the responsibilities they already have. To get buy-in from the security group, the maintenance department presented a plan that included:

• Maintenance acknowledged that they were asking security to operate outside their traditional scope of work and expressed appreciation for security’s assistance.
• Security would be provided with training to perform the inspection tasks.
• Oversight for the safety inspection program would remain with the maintenance department. The purpose here was to take advantage of the elimination of travel time, not to eliminate the administrative responsibility.
• The new responsibilities would require security to perform little to no added paperwork. The inspection results would be collected via easy-to-use “key fob” barcode scanners. 
• The maintenance department would serve as the “sweeper” at the end of each month. They would identify the inspections that may have fallen through the cracks and commit resources to complete the inspections.
• The two departments would meet after three months to assess the program. Assumptions made at the outset of the program (that the added responsibilities would be absorbed by security with no additional labor requirements, etc.) would be reviewed to see if they were valid or if adjustments needed to be made.

Advantages for Security

The primary advantage for the security guards was career development. Security guards would be trained in a new field, namely safety. They were receiving both training and hands-on experience in conducting a variety of OSHA- and NFPA-required safety topics. This could possibly open up career paths for them as facilities technicians, EHS technicians, or fire protection inspectors.

Another advantage for the security guards was adding variety to a job that could at times be mundane.

Inspection Selection

Selecting the right inspections for the security guards to conduct was important. Care was taken to select tasks that would minimize the labor time requirements added to the guards.

Emergency light and lighted exit sign testing were a natural fit, because most were located in areas the guards were already traveling through.

Eyewash and safety shower testing was not included, because these tests often require equipment (buckets and hoses) and time to deal with the flushed water.

AED inspections were included because they were quick and easy to do.

First-aid kit inspections were not included, because inventorying the kits could take a significant amount of time.

Dividing up the Inspections

The security guards work 12-hour shifts. Security requested that the safety inspections be assigned to the night shifts only, since the day shift spent more time each day dealing with customer requests (office lockouts, HR terminations, etc.). There are two night shifts, front-end nights and back-end nights. There are four weeks in a typical month. The list of required safety device inspections was divided into eight distinct routes:

• Front-End Week 1
• Back-End Week 1
• Front-End Week 2
• Etc.

Each shift would receive a list each week detailing which safety device inspections would be completed that week. Each list included 10-12 emergency lights, 6-8 exit signs. and 1-2 AEDs.

Training

Short training presentations were created for each inspection task. The presentations were created in PowerPoint and included background information about what function the device that is being inspected performs, frequency of required tests, and detailed instructions with pictures showing how to perform the test. The presentations concluded with a short quiz that the employee could print out and hand in as proof that they had successfully completed the training.

The PowerPoint presentations were then published as PDF documents and posted on the company intranet site so that they were easily available to the guards day or night.

The training was self-directed. Guards were asked to complete training when it was convenient for them. This eliminated the need to schedule the off-shift guards to come in for training classes on overtime.

Managing the Inspection Completion

Small “key fob” barcode scanners were used by the security guards to track the inspection results.

Barcode labels were posted at each inspection location.

When the scanner was connected to a desktop computer at the end of the shift, the inspection results were automatically uploaded to the web application, FDP Plant. FDP Plant is an easy-to-use web application that is used to set up the inspection points, create schedules, and manage the inspection results.

At the beginning of each week, the guards receive an automatic report via email that details the inspections to be completed that week. At the end of the week they receive another report detailing which inspections were not completed, and any discrepancies found during completed inspections.

Success

This is a unique solution to a common problem. The solution was made possible by the adaption of barcode technology to safety inspections and by the willingness of the two departments to work together.

The client is in the early stages of implementation, so we will report back with any lessons learned.