Recently, we requested one of our customers in Oil and Gas, a drilling contractor, to share the benefits they have generated by moving away from a paper-based Safe Work Permit process to a digital one.  This customer has deployed digital forms at their rigs to convert paper-based Work Permits for Hot Work, Cold Work, Confined Space, and associated forms like Lock Out-Tag Out.  Here is what they told us in their own words:

• Reduction of Costs
  • Approximately around $50,000 to $75,000 a year in savings from ordering paper forms (the custom carbon copies)
  • Also requires less administrative work leading to a reduction in Safety Admin Staff
  • Time savings and increased productivity for the HSE field teams as they use digital reports and analytics.
• Increased Productivity
  • Switching from a paper form to a digital format will increase productivity by eliminating all the manual processes that begin with manually completing the form, collecting the forms, data extraction for reporting, and then storage for retention requirements.
• Decreased errors
  • Always a decrease in errors when moving from paper to electronic. With the added functionality of prepopulating common data pulled from SAP, it makes the process move smoother for users and easier for leadership to analyze compliance.
• Greater Safety
  • Ability to monitor for basic HSE compliance.
  • Better visibility into compliance metrics.
• Better Compliance
  • Through more real-time and more accurate reporting, it’s much easier to identify opportunities for improvement. Previously, we had very limited data available to report on compliance within safety forms. Prior to Unvired Digital Forms, we only had a count of completed forms performed by administrative staff.
  • We are driving compliance through exception reporting and acting on any opportunities for improved compliance to include customer and regulatory compliance improvements.
• Better Reporting
  • Better reporting is probably one of the biggest benefits gained by electronic forms as mentioned above.
  • From a technical standpoint, reporting was straightforward with the use of a structured SQL database. Reports were quicker to create and relied less on IT resources like a DBA or Developer.
• Other benefits
  • Users have more of a voice for making improvements to the Forms as minor changes or improvements can be made quickly. This added empowerment to effect change aids in compliance and can be a morale booster for the users.
  • Driving consistency across North American rig fleet.