Automating the Permit Process

Bryan Gay, CHAMPS Software/CMMS Division

Still relying on paper-based permitting? Why not let compliance-savvy software bring you out of the dark ages?

Industrial environments inherently possess serious threats to workforce safety and health. Around the world, government agencies establish occupational safety and health standards expressly designed to eliminate or mitigate potential threats.

Enterprises that must comply with national or industry safety standards expend great time and energy establishing in-house positions, policies and procedures to meet or exceed such standards. Seeking to achieve world-class safety and health goals, many also take the extra step to automate all safety processes—which, for some businesses, is a quantum leap. That’s because automation brings an oftentimes slow, blind, archaic, manually driven, paper-based process into the new millennium with compliance-savvy software that instantly enforces the latest standards and is fully integrated with real-time operations and work-control activities.

One area where automation brings immediate measurable benefits to any organization is permitting. Whether you use the term “Permit to Work” or simply “permit,” there are software solutions to automate your process.

Typically, plant safety-permitting processes consist of standard forms filled out in ink; three-ring binders to hold them for some period of time; and someone who knows which permit to use for each job. Even though a plant may be running sophisticated operations and work-control software, the closest that software may get to the permitting process is a gratuitous checkbox on a work document. For true automation, an operation needs more. It needs a software solution that factors safety into the equation of world-class enterprise operations and work control.

CHAMPS Permit allows your plant equipment to tell the next work order that it may need one or more specific permit types for the job to be performed safely and in compliance with government regulations. Using this software tool, a standard operating procedure is triggered by calendar frequencies, run-time meter values and/or events. The software automatically initiates all permitting processes, and e-mails all appropriate parties for electronic signature approvals or FYI notifications. In support of compliance audits and complete backup when accidents happen, CHAMPS Permit provides a complete audit trail of change and historical relationships between permits, equipment, work documents and personnel.

Still wondering How Electronic Systems can Improve Workplace Safety?

How can Electronic Systems Improve Work Safety?

Waiting for Godot?

Too Small for a CMMS? Think Again

Many smaller companies feel maintenance management software is overkill for their organizations. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, even a one-person maintenance department can reap the benefits of maintenance management software. The same benefits realized by the maintenance crew in larger companies are there for smaller maintenance departments also.

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Information technologies (IT), in the context of this paper, include all computer systems and networks, plant automation systems such as distributed control systems and programmable logic controllers, design drawing databases, procedures databases, and diagnostic monitoring systems. The role of information technology is critical for maintenance optimization because it relies on the ability of the plant personnel to bring all data together in a coherent fashion for optimum analysis and decision-making.

The Future of CMMS

We now have the ability to automate many of our standard maintenance processes, analyse in detail various parts of our businesses, and the performance of our equipment. We are able to plan shutdowns, technical change projects and operational maintenance procedures down to a very fine level of detail. As maintenance management generally makes up around 40 - 50 % of operational budgets, the savings made possible from increased efficiency and reduction of waste are staggering.

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Facility management personnel in all industries have waited a long time for computer technology to become applicable and affordable enough to implement in their respective maintenance efforts. In recent years, flexible, dependable and economical computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) have become available to help fight the never-ending struggle to operate and maintain buildings of all shapes, sizes and functions.

Automating the Permit Process