Safety audit is all in hand

The result is E-SAFE, an auditing and reporting system which runs on PDAs. The software has been such a success that it is now in its fourth version and is used by some of Pettifer’s competitors including Pearce, Midas and Morris & Spottiswood.

‘We couldn’t source anything like it in the market,’ recalls Pettifer’s marketing director Bob Macpherson. ‘We knew what we wanted on site so it made sense for us to develop it. There was never going to be an off-the-shelf solution.’ E-Safe also allows firms to track trends and allows other audits such as snagging to be carried out.

Morris & Spottiswood’s six safety advisers have each saved 10 hours a week using E-Safe. That’s less time preparing and distributing reports and more time advising on site. ‘The first year we used it, our accident frequency rate dropped 40%,’ says Morrison & Spottiswood health and safety manager Martin McColl. ‘E-safe certainly played a part in that, probably the fact that it freed up time to do other things and focus on the high risk areas, which we identified from trend analysis.’

Pettifer Group subsidiary Knowledge Online translates clients’ paper inspection systems into the PDA-based system. The user goes through a checklist and drop-down menus allow them to log problems, add written comments or audio notes and take photos (using the PDAs). E-safe then automatically produces a report incorporating these comments and photos.

Previously, reports would be produced as Word documents, sometimes with photos embedded, or even as hand-written notes. There was no way for a firm’s managers to get an overview such as the top 10 non-conformances or the best-performing subcontractors.

The latest version E-Safe 100, launched in January, includes features such as the ability to add snagging inspections on the same device, the ability to record best practice and a way for parties to sign off reports at the end of an inspection.

Snagging is done as a project progresses and a report and photos sent to the relevant specialist. This contrasts with the traditional approach when all snagging is done at the end of a job, followed by a flurry of correspondence and sometimes failure to get the relevant firm back on site.

The flexibility of E-Safe’s software means that it can handle any audit system and two companies from the retail sector – Staples and Next – now use it for loss prevention inspections.