Topic 8 - Highly Commended
Getting operators to reliably fill out and send in the reports of their daily safety checks was problematic. Operators were not handing in paper-based sheets to the weighbridge or site supervisor until the end of each week. These then had to be sent to head office for filling with hours and faults manually transferred onto several spreadsheets for the plant manager to review and organise servicing and repairs.
The resultant delay meant faults might not be rectified for several weeks due to delays in the notification, ordering parts, and arranging the servicing and repairs. These delays potentially increased the operator's and other workers' risk or meant that a machine could be out of action for far longer than it need be.
By improving reporting and resolving of faults the apps have improved maintenance of the mobile plant and reduced the likelihood of (FATAL 1 -) Contact with moving machinery and isolation.
Discussions and meetings were held between the H&S manager, Plant manager, quarry managers and key plant operators as to the solution's requirements.
The ideal solution for plant operators was instant reporting of daily safety checks that can be submitted on their phone. It should not need good internet to work, not use a lot of data and should work on older devices and OS such as Android or IOS or Windows mobile.
The plant manager needed automatic updating of the plant service database and entry of all faults onto a maintenance planner, allowing the ordering of parts mid-morning and, in some cases, fitting them the same day. Tracking of repair faults digitally also allowed reporting back to manufacturers of common faults and manufacturing defects of machines with evidence to back them up.
Quarry managers needed notification of machine faults to be able to plan work properly and manage staff.
Please see additional pdf to read more about the APP based solution they implemented