Ronin staff have provided rescue standby services on sites across the country. As part of this service we are frequently asked to perform other tasks such as confined space hole watch, safety officer duties and first aid. Our staff also conduct tail boards and create other documentation such as fall protection plans to ensure the safety of both our team and our clients staff. On even a short shut down, this can lead to a great deal of paperwork being created. The staff often need to refer to previous paperwork to ensure continuity and safety. As such keeping the paperwork clean, dry and returning it to our offices in a reasonable time frame become issues. Auditing this paperwork is also necessary to ensure that it is completed properly and to identify any training requirements. As we were sorting through literally bankers boxes full of paperwork for a standby rescue project the thought occurred to us – why don’t we digitize this?
In doing research on different platforms for digitization of paperwork, it became apparent that there we many solutions in place. Picking the one that worked best for us required a working group to review and trial different platforms. When it was all finished we choose a solution, called Pronto Forms, that allowed us to create our own forms. This way we could take documents that our staff were already trained and experienced in completing and simply make them digital. One major deciding factor in this decision was the reduction in training that would be required by using our own forms. This platform also used “skip logic”. This allowed us to ensure certain parts of the document had to be completed prior to other portions of the document becoming live. For instance, if you didn’t close your permit, you could not sign it. The platform allows our staff to sign documents on the iPad and sends them to a cloud based server for storage. This way we have the ability to search and find paperwork with ease. It also makes it hard to lose the paperwork.
We chose a platform that was compatible with Apple devices. We have acquired iPads for distribution across the country for the staff to utilize. With the addition of Lifeproof cases we are hoping this solves the wet paperwork problem also. One may look at this and think that the cost of this is too high to be useful. In reality, when we added up the time it took to audit the forms, follow up with staff, print forms, etc – we are actually saving money. Better yet, we are also more regulatory compliant and theoretically safer.
The use of the iPads also allows our staff to access our data management software, called D4H, on site. This software allows Ronin to track all of our members, their attendance, their qualifications and their training. As well D4H allows us to keep records of all of our projects, clients and the equipment we used on those projects.
So with these two platforms our members can access all information on a site that may be required by a safety officer, client or Ronin manager. This is not limited to current site documents however historical data and members qualifications. We will provide an update later after some field time to see how durable our solution really is.