Reducing risk by improving hot work permitting and oversight

Safety leadership at a large pulp and paper manufacturing company wanted to reduce permit errors, ensure compliance with standard procedures, and reduce the administrative effort required to oversee and audit.

What's Hot Work?

Any work that may create an arc, spark, or open flame.

e.g., welding, grinding, or electrical work

Annual Averages

NFPA 2019, statistics reported by US fire depts. from 2013-17

4360

Hot work-related fires

$355 mil

in direct property damage

198

injuries

deaths

Challenge

One of the world’s largest pulp and paper manufacturing companies relied on a paper-based, manual process for tracking, recording, and auditing hot work.

Permit paperwork was sometimes incomplete.
Firewatch follow-up was manually assigned and tracked, with limited ability to validate that checks were completed.
Spot checks and auditing required supervisors and managers to find the actual paper permit in order to review or perform on-site checks while work is in progress; this was time-consuming and completely ineffective for missing permits.

Why do manual, paper-based safety processes need to be improved?

Paper is lost and difficult to track, resulting in data loss.
Manual processes need more time and resources, with higher staff requirements, as well as other risks and costs.
Humans make mistakes in manual processes, and mistakes mean increased risk to people and equipment.

Solution

Safety leadership wanted to reduce permit errors, ensure compliance with standard procedures, and reduce the administrative effort required to oversee and audit.

The pulp and paper manufacturer implemented Lightship to organize, coordinate, and automate its hot work management and audit activities.

For example, with Lightship, they were able to:

Use interactive mobile forms instead of paper to ensure data capture (and quality), and validate or mandate site-specific procedures.
Automate notifications and work assignments to clearly define roles and tasks, and mandate procedures at the points of creation, approval, activation, and firewatch follow-up.
Validate the proper completion of firewatch follow-up, including exact timelines, people involved, and their location at the time.
View active permits in real-time, including the exact location to enable and record random site-checks.
Generate high-level summaries for executive planning and insurance reporting.

Results

Lightship transformed the company’s hot work operations with substantial economic and human benefits.

20% reduction

in time to complete the initial permit

Internal processes

standardized, auto-implemented, and tracked

100%

of permits contain all required information.

100%

of hot works permits have automatic follow-up tasks assigned and completed.

Automated alerts

sent to supervisors if firewatch follow-up is not completed on time.

Spot checks

can be completed at will, both spontaneously or via targeted audit.

Transform the way you get work done.

Automate complex work, with seamless hand-off between people and automated processes across every area of your business: field, facility, and office.

Connect your enterprise systems, eliminate legacy tech, and fill gaps—with full oversight and monitoring.