How to Choose the Right Digital Permit to Work (PTW/EPTW) Module?

A reliable permit to work (PTW) or e-Permit-to-work (ePTW) module is the backbone of any effective safety management system. It provides documentation for auditability of high-risk activities. Given the complexity associated with a PTW/ePTW module, it is important to have an effective safety management system that can not only handle the multi-step approval and rejection process, but also digitise the multitude of paperwork. This provides accountability into monitoring the progress of the PTW/ePTW application and approval.

Here are the 7 most crucial questions to ask in your quest to find the perfect digital Permit-to-Work module to streamline and elevate your safety management workflow.

1. How can digital PTW streamline Safety Management for my project?

In managing risk and hazard on a site, precision and accountability is of paramount importance. With a comprehensive safety management system like Hubble’s, managing PTW/ePTW across projects is no longer shuffling of papers and waiting on individual documents to be sent over. Going digital reduces the administrative cost and time taken on each PTW/ePTW application, while also offering a trackable digital trail of any and all relevant documentation from a single centralised platform, increasing visibility for your projects and high-risk activities by reducing human error.

2. Does one have the ability to make amendments to or create their own checklist?

Beyond going digital, adopting a system that caters to your company’s specific needs will drastically improve safety and prevention. With the help of Hubble’s Customer Success Team who help ease the adoption of digitalisation and tailor the module to best suit your company, workflows can be customized to each project’s unique needs.  Hubble provides over a dozen different work type templates to help you get started quickly on your project. Recognising that no two projects are the same, Hubble allows users to edit or custom-build checklists and forms with its built-in editor tool to cater to each permit class, promoting clarity and structure while enhancing risk management in the PTW/ePTW process. This will prevent vendor dependency, resulting in no downtime and no additional costs.

Self-customisation of checklist with built-in editor 
 

3. In what ways will the digital Permit-to-Work module ensure that applications are processed without delay?

Beside the tedious application process, what makes the PTW/ePTW labor-intensive is the inability to keep track of various permit statuses and progress across multiple activities and projects. The ability to access and monitor all of your active, pending and permits requiring attention from your mobile cuts back on costly delays caused by the manual transfer of information in a physical permit application. Hubble’s ePTW module allows for remote approval and sends out real-time notifications to all parties involved, eliminating the need to verbally update workers and enabling contractors to begin work immediately upon approval or promptly revise and submit a new PTW/ePTW in the event of rejection.

A list of all notifications in the notification centre in real-time

The module is also able to geolocate and track each PTW/ePTW application, verification, assessment and approval, keeping all relevant parties accountable and every step of the PTW/ePTW process trackable. According to our calculations, using digital PTW modules, such as the Hubble Safety Management System, can save your company, conservatively, over 70% in PTW/ePTW application processing time.

In addition to keeping all parties in the know, the Hubble PTW module also mitigates the issue of a cumbersome paper trail, allowing you to download and access all relevant PTW/ePTW documents offline at a moment’s notice, regardless of mobile connectivity.

4. What can be done to ensure that only qualified workers and serviceable equipment are deployed at any given time?

With Hubble, workflows can be seamlessly connected across multiple modules and systems in an integrated construction management setting. In this way, Hubble platform enables toolbox meeting attendance and equipment inspection records to be synced via the module, allowing PTW/ePTW applicants to identify and add qualified workers and serviceable equipment to the relevant works.

Demonstrating how equipment inspection and toolbox meetings can easily be integrated with Permit-to-Work applications in order to identify the right worker and equipment

5. What kind of information can be incorporated into a digital Permit-to-Work?

A worksite is only as safe as its processes. The ability to provide information in greater detail to all parties involved ensures the greatest possible clarity and precision in safe execution of work onsite. Hubble’s PTW module encourages information-rich PTW/ePTW, allowing pinning of locations directly on uploaded floor plans with marked zones and attaching photographs to illustrate the scope of work. Timestamps and e-signatures also allow the team to be kept up-to-date on all developments on a project.

An uploaded floor plan with zone information

6. Are there any conflict detection capabilities in the digital Permit-to-Work module?

Most crucially, Hubble Safety Management System can intuitively map out exclusion zones onsite and detect incompatible and conflicting scheduled works in the PTW/ePTW application stage, minimising the risk of accidentally overlooking potential conflicts in the rigorous application and approval process and increasing safety. Should any conflicts arise, the module enables the dynamic relocation of conflicting works and requires parties to acknowledge and de-prioritise works to eliminate the conflict.

Permit-to-Work geospatial page showing all works & any conflicts 
 

A digital safety management system that encourages greater precision in information, actively monitors for error and drastically improves access to documentation helps reduce the danger of crucial information being lost in translation, reducing risk and increasing worksite safety.

7. How scalable is the digital permit to work module for my growing company?

Last but not least, a digital PTW module must be scalable. Adding more users and data storage to your module should be easy as your company grows. As opposed to the rest of the market, Hubble’s charging model is determined by project duration and not by headcount, data storage, or even sheet count, as these factors may affect scalability for users.

Find out more about how Hubble can build the perfect Safety Management System for safety and prevention on your worksite here. 

Read more: 

• Types of Construction Permit to Work (PTW)
• ePTW vs. Manual PTW: Transforming Safety in Construction
• Optimising Resource Planning with Permit-to-Work (PTW/ePTW) Module