A couple of years into the journey of deeply researching the HSE practice at Ports and Container Terminals brought about significant learning, which then became the foundation to Quantum BSO's HSE software, the QAVACH.
What we found universally was:
1. The reporting of unsafe practices and incidents (except critical ones) was largely manual, had multiple hand-offs, subjective filtering, and a very large part never made it to HSE.
2. Secondly, an overworked HSE in turn filtered out the non-critical, and the transfer of action to inspection, investigations and action was e-mail driven. This added a huge burden to the overworked HSE team in follow-up for closure and reporting. As a result, the Turn-Around Time (TAT) was excruciatingly long with many incidences failing to be adequately investigated and preventive action being undertaken.
3. There was also a near complete absence of analysing patterns and seeing where risk was being drawn in to the work place. Broken Windows went unchallenged, and minor unsafe practices progressively became more serious leading to more severe critical incidences, injuries and damage. Essentially breaking what should have been the Risk Barriers.
4. Lastly, reporting and insightful analytics were almost always missing, or rudimentary excel based. the terminals that has a reporting requirement to management, needed HSE to spend hour after laborious hour in making reports that did not have system audit to draw the data or be verified.
The QAVACH dealt with this by taking the reporting via its APP to each and every terminal worker, and promoted a practice of SEE SOMETHING - SAY SOMETHING.
Along with that, the integration of the APP to the ERP meant that the time lag was cut to near zero, and each posting came with a GPS location, images, involved people and the severity. HSE now had base data to review and system integration pushed the event to witnesses for statements, to inspectors and to investigators with system-audited Risk and proposed CAPA.
Lastly, the system managed the process of ensuring all steps were taken as scheduled, that each step of the inspections and checklists were complete, that the Root Cause Analysis was thorough, and above all, Action Management was focused on Risk Mitigation with goals of Preventive and Preventive Safety.
A recent workshop with a large terminal showed that just people and process ROI topped US$100K a month, and TAT was cut down to just 5% of the current cycle. The results in cutting damages, injury, lost time and claims is still to be added to the benefits.
Visit the QAVACH website and see what benefits your terminal can draw from this truly All-Inclusive, Automated, Integrated and Real-Time System.
Safety is and will always be a fundamental right of your team. Quantum BSO and Qavach has their back - Always.
