We're driving efficiency in safe working practices throughout the gas network
Challenge:
- The North West Gas Alliance (NWGA) was tasked with a £380m reinstatement and replacement of 3,500km of gas mains in the North West of England. NWGA is an alliance of National Grid, who owns the gas network, and Balfour Beatty, the prime engineering contractor. Despite their efforts NWGA had failed demonstrate that they were correcting unsafe working practices. We were asked to deploy a solution to ensure safe working practices and effective site supervision across 500 sites where gas reinstatement and replacement operations are carried out.
Solution:
- We deployed a solution incorporating a digital pen to enable information captured during weekly safety inspections to be recorded and coaching to be delivered. The business process was reviewed and found that the following issues contributed to the main cause of the problem:
- Remote field working caused information to be reported ineffectively
- Time delays in information returned to the management
- There was no formal mechanism for on-site supervisors to record issues
- Issues were being found and rectified on site by supervisors, but not recorded – thereby hiding the true nature of the problem
Benefits:
- We were able to deliver near instant access to field data, better quality/relevant information to feedback to teams, increased accuracy and reduced administration costs. The user groups enjoyed using the technology.
