The energy sector, and closely related industries such as chemicals and metals and mining, are asset-intensive industries. This means that revenue is generated from assets and a significant amount of costs come from these assets.
Being asset intensive also means that these industries are machine intensive. Rotating machinery, industrial instrumentation and meters, automated control valves, and other critical machinery and the data they generate help produce energy and other critical commodities the world relies on.
These machines produce a significant amount of data. According to OpenText CEO & CTO Mark Barrenechea, machines now generate one million times more information in one day than all humans on the planet do in an entire year. Not only are these machines more critical than ever but so are the people that install, operate, maintain, inspect, repair, and service them to deploy more of them and to keep them running safely. Operational checklists and safety forms are key content formats that can be better automated and governed to help those that execute this work do it safely and more efficiently.
Data produced by inspection checklist activity is often shared through email, file shares, or paper, which leads to data siloes and content duplication. This critical information is needed throughout the asset lifecycle—operations, maintenance, supply and purchasing. It is also critical to ensure the productivity and safety of the people that execute this work such as field and plant engineers, technicians, equipment operators, inspectors, and field service personnel.
The importance of operational checklists and HSE Forms
There are several different types of checklists and forms used to safely keep critical equipment running. Some checklists are used to ensure work on machinery and equipment is done correctly and safely. When I worked as a field engineer, some of the checklists I used included pre-job, pre-trip, operation, and post-job checklists. Other examples include operator rounds and mechanical integrity checklists.
There are also many health, safety and environmental (HSE) forms that I used in my former role, including job safety analysis, risk identification reports, HAZMAT, hot work permits, cold work permits and more. These forms are used to identify risk and communicate that risk to others. They are important documents for any robust HSE, risk and/or compliance program.
Unintentionally skipping a simple step on a checklist can result in significant damage to equipment, the facility, and even put lives in danger. I’ve personally experienced this. Luckily in my case, no significant damage was done and no injuries occurred. ‘Near misses’ like this happen every single day across utilities, oil and gas, chemicals, and metals and mining, resulting in operational risk that can be prevented.
The importance of automation
However, most checklists and forms today are in either hard copy or are in a static electronic format like .pdf, .doc, or .xls and are manual in nature. Also, many are not able to be completed on a mobile device.
The manual nature of these documents is an obstacle to any company’s journey toward zero HSE incidents. First, these documents are often located in different siloed systems and it takes employees significant time to access and consolidate documents for the specific job at hand. In fact, it is estimated that employees spend up to 80% of their time searching through unstructured information to complete their work.
Second, the completion of these documents represents key milestones in any work order. In manual form, there are no notifications of those milestones to internal and external stakeholders.
Third, upon completion, these documents often go ungoverned and are not centrally managed, making HSE, risk, and compliance management departments inefficient and less effective. In addition, the information contained in these manual documents doesn’t automatically feed into other key applications, such as Asset Performance Management (APM) and Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and don’t contribute to predictive maintenance strategies.
Working smarter with Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy
With Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy, a key component within Asset Information Management for Energy, energy companies can work smarter and keep people, equipment and the environment safe. Templates of forms and checklists are centrally managed in a modern content management system utilizing business workspaces.
Business workspace capabilities enable the appropriate checklists and forms to be delivered for the right operation and for the right role, thereby improving productivity. Business workspaces also automatically enable notifications to managers and other stakeholders when these documents have been started and completed, representing key milestones in any operation. Business workspaces also allow these documents to be easily accessible to ensure robust HSE and compliance programs.
Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy can automatically send information to APM and EAM systems to protect and predict machine reliability, improving predictive maintenance strategies. Additionally, Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy can be completed on any mobile device with iOS or Android operating systems in an online or offline environment.
Combining information and automation with checklists and forms will help energy and other companies in the industrial process sector make significant steps in their journey toward zero HSE incidents and keep critical equipment running.
Learn more about Smart Checklists and Safety Forms for Energy and visit Asset Information Management for Energy.
