CA2476636A1 - Automated permit-to-work system - Google Patents

Abstract

The automated Work Permit system is an electronic process allowing computerized Work Permit application, reviews prior to issuance, issuance, tracking, closure, and archiving. It is rules based, with reactive templates generating algorithms requiring related fields to be addressed before various stages of the Work Permit process can be completed. It provides automatic checks against networks or databases to determine if Permit Receivers have security clearances and safety training, and automatically generates appropriate safety requirements to be taken prior to issuance, and during the activity. Work Permits are automatically graphically displayed on an electronic plot p[an, with different symbols indicating the types of Work Permit issued. Work is tracked and areas of congestion and conflicting activities are visually displayed. The Work Permits are automatically archived when activities are electronically closed, with any outstanding closures at the end of work period sending alarm notices to the issuer.

Description

Automated Permit-To-York System Submission Permits Are Submitted 24 Hours in Advance Under the proposed system, permits are submitted foir approval 24 hours in advance. Automated conditional approval is then issued instantly, and the Issuer grants final approval. This has several advantages.
If the Issuer chooses, he can view the permits before his next shift to have a better idea of what work are planned to be going on under his watch. This is a benefit because the reliance on memory tends to be less significant. This also allows the Issuer to flag important, integral or critical work, ensuring that less important work does not interfere with key permits.
Another advantage of 24-hour notice is the ability of key players to view permits and plan their work accordingly. Because of the size of projects, not all the players can have in-depth knowledge of others work. The capability to view other permits allows these managers and supervisors to have a greater grasp of the organic nature of commissioning operations.
Not only does this increase efficiency, but also has a side effect of reducing stress and improving interpersonal relations within the project's sphere. This stress is caused by a lack of knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of different departments. For example, there quite often is friction between Operations, l~Iaintenance, Construction and Commissioning departments. The cause of this friction is often an incorrect assumption that other departments are intentionally causing delays; when, in fact, extra time is needed to perform functions that other stakeholders do not understand.
Anecdotally, it is common for managers in meetings to become irate and even hostile because they perceive other managers of deliberately slowing their work. The proposed permitting system would thus serve as an educational tool, allowing other departments to learn what is required to perform other tasks, and hopefully this will improve interpersonal relationships and create a greater atmosphere of teamwork.

Key Players and Planners Keep Informed of All Progress and Plan in Advance to Prevent Scheduling Conflicts One of the greatest strengths of this system is to allow all the key players and planners to have a real time view of ongoing work and work that is scheduled to take place in the next 24 hours.
This allows planners to plan in detail, and to react more quickly to problems and delays. Currently, planners must wait until an end-of day or end-of week meetings, or conversely, to track department mangers, superintendents and supervisors to find out exactly what is happening at a specific time. These methods are inefficient because of sheer volume and still do not always give an accurate picture of ongoing tasks.
Elimination of Time Wastage of Crew Manpower Another great waste that tends to occur in the commissioning process is the inactivity of work crews. Crews are planned and booked according to schedule, but if an event takes place that hampers the ability of the crews to work, (such as a critical job not succeeding, delays, or equipment failure); these crews must wait, while being paid for their,time. This is a gross misuse of resources that could perhaps be abated by a greater grasp on current processes and the scheduled tasks of the immediate future.
There are several costs associated with the inactivity of crews. Contracting crews generally result in the overall labor costs; however in an environment with a labor shortage (especially in skilled trades), these costs can skyrocket. Crew personnel have several costs attached, including wages, employee maintenance (such as housing, travel etc.), and the overall cost-benefit result of non-work.
Non-work is an issue in regards to both contracting and in-house: crews because it has the double negative result of costing money in terms of labor, and pushing the schedule back. The greater cost is effect on the schedule because much of the work in the commissioning process is organic. If one critical path task is delayed, typically many other tasks are also delayed in a chain reaction style.
Advance Submission for Permits Allows the Commissioning Supervisor to Plan for Work Day The advance submission allows the Issuer to plan his workday arid sort any potential work conflicts. When a permit is submitted, quite often the work requires other small jobs to occur before the main task can be started. Sometimes these tasks conflict with each other.
Quite often, safety is impacted by work conflicts. As an example, air blowing is used to clean impurities from piping. This is a very important and dangerous task, and because of the interconnected nature of piping systems, many plant sections rnay be affected. Depending on the size of the pipe and the required pressure, there may be a great risk to workers near flanges and valves, or whose work requires the intrusive opening of piping. An exhaustive process involving the Operations or CoW
missioning Departments must take place, including blinding, monitoring for excess pressure, valve lock outs and tag outs, barncading of area and system walk downs. Because it usually takes several months to complete air blowing, some workers develop a laissez faire attitude regarding the task, which can result in serious injuries or fatalities. If the Issuer does not recognize that requested work is going to be done on a system that is live or under pressure, fatalities can result. When the Issuer has an opportunity to view permits in advance, he can see if any work is going to be done on an affected system and postpone the work or specify that extra precautions need to be taken before the job can be done. 1 s Issuance Commissioning Supervisor Electronically Authorizes Majority of Permits Using the proposed system, the Commissioning Supervisor is able to authorize the bulk of permits electronically, when the permits have satisfied all conditions.
In the new system, a supervisor creates a new permit and fills out all the appropriate information electronically. When the applicant is satisfied that all the information is complete, he forwards the permit to his departments designated foreman responsible for permit vetting. If the department's foreman responsible for obtaining the permit feels that more information is needed, he sends the permit back to the supervisor.
Once the supervisor and foreman concur, the permit is forwarded to the Issuer.
When the Issuer receives the permit, he evaluates it for completeness. If information is lacking, the permit is returned to the applicant with an explanation. If the permit is complete, the Issuer then evaluates the need for any additional special conditions or restrictions. The Issuer may choose to use an electronic signature and electronically authorize the permit, or alternatively opt for a handwritten signature if he deems a pre job tailgate meeting with the crew foreman or department supervisors is required.

The bulk of permit appli<rations in Commissioning can most likely be instantly approved. It is difficult to have an accurate estimate of the amount of permits can be issued this way, but a conservative estimate is at least 60% of total permits.
Most of these permits can be approved before the regular shift begins, resulting in massive manpower savings. Jobs in congested areas, areas where sensitive or critical work is taking place, or inherently dangerous jobs will require face-to-face approval or a meeting to ensure the workers understand any risks or dangers.
Maintenance Supervisor TJ'iat Receives Electronic Permit Must Acknowledge Any Conditions, Limitations and Instructions After the Issuer authorizes the permit, the Maintenance Supervisor who receives the electronic permit must then acknowledge any conditions, limitation s and instructions sent by the Issuer. If the Issuer requires it, the recipient may have to send a form back, or check some boxes signifying that the conditions are understood and will be followed.
This step ensures that the recipient follows all conditions and place responsibility for conformity to standards and procedures on the recipient.
Compliance is consistently regarded as one of the biggest problems surrounding Permit-To-Work systems. Most industrial accidents occur because of non-compliance.
Forcing individuals to formally acknowledge and accept all important conditions and exceptions helps to guarantee compliance. Only when all requirements have been met will the permit be officially issued.l~
Under this system, verbal conditions are limited; therefore, any confusion that may result is reduced. Bad authorizations are alsa sometimes issued; they allow work to go forward that violate company policy or safety standards with an implicit understanding that the violation will take place, but will be tolerated.
Because of the written nature and the instant and permanent record kept of the documentation, this lessens the likelihood that any Work that violates standards and policy would be authorized and takes place.
Permits That Require Tete-u-Tete Consultation Can Be Processed and Ready For Issuance at the Permit Desk After most of the permits are electronically authorized, some permit applications will still be outstanding. These include Hot Work, Open Flame, Confined Space Entry, work for systems under pressure, critical systems work, and work in congested areas.
The Issuer can specify that applicants seeking these permits must meet the Issuer for special instructions, limitations or conditions. These meetings usually consist of a Crew Foreman, Departmental Supervisor, and the Commissioning Supervisor.
_, However, before the meeting takes place, the Issuer may treat these permits as all other permits, following the same vetting and control formulae, but can then specify handwritten authorization andlor a face-to-face meeting. This still significantly reduces the permit preparation time, and the Issuer knows why will be meeting him at the Permit Desk and what kind of work they want to perform.
This process also has an added benefit in that it allows the Issuer to flag higher risk types of work or congested areas in which it is important for special precautions to be taken.
All of these benefits combine to increase safety and to help increase efficiency for permits in which the Issuer deems that it is important for the key players to meet.
V~ork Tracking Graphical Representation ef Open Permits On Site The new system has an integrated electronic graphical representation of all open permits on-site. This new development will allow the Issuer and other l~ey players to see all open permits with color-coded flags that differentiate between types of work.
The graphical representation is a rnap of the plant site that is displayed on a large screen in the permit office and available on the company intranet. Operations personnel, project and department managers, sub-contractor supervisors and the Issuer can then quickly see what work is being carried out in the plant, where the work is taking place, and if the permit is still valid.
When a permit application is sent, it includes the grid axis area of the plant plot plan that drills down to specific equipment numbers or piping codes and categories of work.
Once a permit is approved, the Issuer assigns a level of risk associated with the type of work that the permit authorizes. Certain types of work that carry a high level of inherent risk, (Hot Work, Open Flame, Confined Space Entry), are flagged with a red marker and appear on a map of the plant site. In most cases, this happens automatically;
a request for a Hot Work Permit automatically creates a red flag, and upon authorization, the red flag permit appears on the map in the area in which the work was requested.
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Accurate Head Count Ability Along with the graphical representation system, the proposed Permit-To-Work system includes a work tracking system. Because of the size of the project and vast amounts of labor that are needed for these projects, the tracking of workers becomes an issue. The work tracking system is a simple yet effective way to keep a head count in case of muster drills, fires, explosions or other incidents in which it is important to evacuate the plant site.
When a permit application is made, included in the information should be a list of workers. At a minimum, the number of workers should be included; but ideally would included name and/or employee ID number. This would give the Issuer, Operations staff and the Project Management Team the working location and muster list for every person on the plant site.
An added benefit is the fact that this system can add in tracking of hours charged for payroll. This system can be utilized to cross reference hours charged for work against the work permit tracking system. This helps to prevent billing abuses and will give a more accurate picture in terms of labor cost associated with the project Work Breakdown System.
~.2econeiliation and Confirmation Open Permits Are Cancelled At the End of Specif ed Time Period and Must Be Returned To Office When work is completed or the shift ends, all permits are to be returned to the permit office for reconciliation and filing. This is an important feature of any Permit-To-Work system for several reasons.
At the end of work, the return of permits signifies the status of the work;
that the work is complete and that the equipment or systems on which the work was performed has finished and the systems are ready for inspection or are ready to be brought into service; or the work is still in progress. When this occurs, the workers leave the job site, __ ~
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Thus, it is very important for permits to be returned upon the completion of the workday.
If work has not been completed by the time of shift change, there are two options.
The Crew Foreman may re-apply electronically for a new permit or permit extension.
This has to happen because a new shift will include new safety personnel and a new Permit Issuer. When the shift ends, there will be a set amount of time in which all permits must be returned by the Crew Foremen, in order for reconciliation and filing to occur. If the permit does not return within this period, an alarm will sound at the permit office and control room. At this 'time the Issuer or Safety and Operations personnel will seek out the crew in violation and demand that work stop until a new permit is issued.
The Issuer may also choose to recommend recertification to the next shift if the work is sensitive, to expedite renewal of the permit.
This system prevents work from occurring or continuing that the Issuer has no knowledge of, and which may create a dangerous situation for workers.
Permits Are Cross Referenced With Associated Work Docu~cents One of the major hurdles of the EPC Commissioning process is the location of documents and filing procedures. There are literally tens of thousands of documents that need to be retained and presented to the client at the time of hand over. .An asset of the proposed Permit-To-Work system is the integrated on line document repository.
When a permit is reconciled at the permit office, relevant work documents such as quality control and assurance forms, P&ID, commissioning and start-up procedures can be entered into the document repository. All these forms can then be found by various key words or codes, including the unit name and number, the work permit number or corresponding P&ID.
The online repository can also sort documents filed in chronological order, so retrieving work documents is much easier than current filing systems, and the reliance on hard copy filing systems will be reduced. l $

. rt Advantages of Proposed ~.S'ystem Scheduling Contractor Supervisors Can See Proposed and Current Tasks and Any Possible Conflicts Not all work crews working onsite belong to the client or the EPC. Most of the general labor crews and highly specialized crews belong to third party contractors or vendors. These organizations are contacted and hired by Procurement Supervisors.
In the traditional permitting system, ideally, the Procurement Supervisor would discuss hiring contract crews with the Commissioning Manager, to ensure that it would be possible for the crews that would be hired will be allowed to perform the intended work. However, quite often, discipline managers would call the Procurement Supervisor and request that third party contractors be sent. The discipline managers rarely have an accurate, complete picture of all work taking place or when it will be happening.
This sometimes results in crews and equipment, which are being paid, sitting and waiting for other work to complete. The Procurement Supervisor will have the ability under the proposed system to view all ongoing wark and to be able to see if proposed tasks will result in any possible canflicts with ongoing work or work permits that have been applied for in the previous 24. hours.
This will reduce some of the wasteful spending regard third party contractors that, until now, has been considered impossible to lessen.
Management from Other Departments Can See Proposed and Current Tasks and Any Conflicts An attractive feature of the proposed system is that managers from different disciplines can view work from different departments.
Any organization has issues with different departments. These issues are manifested in different ways, with resulting problems such as insularity and groupthink.
The fact that different disciplines may view issues in a different light is a~z attractive quality. Slightly hackneyed phrases like "Think outside the box" have become cliche;
g_ however, there can be great advantages to having fresh eyes and a fresh prospective on how things are done.
Under the new permitting system, managers can view the work that different departments are undertaking, creating benefits in two ways. First, conflicts may be avoided if managers see that work their department is scheduled to perf°orm cannot take place because of other ongoing or scheduled work. This increases work efficiency and economical allocation of resources. Secondly, different managers with a different a perspective may see a better or more effective way to accomplish tasks. The free flow of information sparks creative and new ways of accomplishing tasks that previously have been done in the same manner for years.
Control Planners and Project Management Can Track Progress in Real Time and Make Revisions Utilizing the work tracking features that are integrated into the proposed Permit-To-Work system, planners and members of the Project Management Team can view ongoing work, track available labor and create new plans or revise existing plans.
Planners and Project Managers currently have the mandate to maintain and/or revise the project schedule. However, the time gap between incidences that affect the project schedule and revision of the project schedule can be very short (if the ineident is significant) or can be up to a week in some cases. This happens principally because planners and project managers do not have access to real time information.
Unless an incident is deemed sufficiently important enough to notify the Proj ect Management Team immediately, quite often the incident is not reported until and end-of day or end-of week meeting; sometimes, small incidents are totally forgotten until they become larger issues.
Allowing the Project Management Team and Planners access to real time work data can be considered akin to preventative medicine; an ounce of prevention can be worth a pound of cure.i~
Commissioning Supervisor Can Easily See .Proposed and Current Tasks for Exact Areas in Real Time Control via real time updates and work tracking allows the commissioning supervisor to schedule and permit tasks as he sees fit. This allows critical path tasks to be prioritized, ensuring that the most important jabs will be finished in an appropriate order.
This addresses one of the largest drawbacks of the current Permit-To-Work system. In passing, a suggestion to track work was to use a map and push pins to track on-going activities. The result was a board full of pins, which had no useful informational value. This meant that an audit of ongoing work was only available in two ways: asking the Commissioning Supervisor, who was forced to recall from memory, or manually read all the issued permits. Quite often, a true assessment of what was happening in any given day had to wait until the end-of day meeting occurred.
Another issue the new system addresses is that the Issuer's ability to instantly recognize, and halt in an ad hoc fashion any possible conflicts. If it becomes evident that a job needs to be done that has not been scheduled, the Issuer can instantly assess which job may need to halted in order for the unscheduled work to take place.
Management and Other Key Players Stay Better Informed, increasing Information Flow and Holistic O~~ganizational Knowledge The notion of free and open information flow is now receiving greater notice and praise in the academic world of strategic management. Cisco, which has abundantly embraced the idea of open information flows, has had enormous success recently, and their employees, management and vendors all agree that the experience has been greatly beneficial.
This permitting system hopes to capitalize on free information in much the same way. When all players have a greater understanding of the day-to-day operations of the project, they can plan accordingly, and understand the underlying causes of issues. This has a dynamic impact on inter-personal relationships and allows all the participants to gain a sense of control over the project.2o Nevertheless, management gains even more control over the day-to-day operations of the project, simply because they know more about what is happening regarding tasks in a real time basis. A manager who understands exactly what is happening on his job site can make better-informed decisions.21 This also gives people who normally have little input into the direction of a project a voice, and allov~rs them to comment on systems or procedures which they work with everyday, and perhaps have a different autlook or insight than managers.za Conclusion The Permit-To Work system may be greatly improved through some simple changes in the way that permits are issued. The changes that have been suggested throughout the body of this paper may be implemented for an increase in safety and efficiency.
Following the approach outlined, the layers of the permit system that have been implemented over time to control. safety, still remain in place; in some cases these layers and mechanisms have actually been strengthened. However, some of the inefficiencies that accompany these safety instruments will be decreased.
Work tracking and control features, strengthened individual worker responsibility and greater project managerial controls give added safety to the project. The result of these additions will likely mean that the safety record of projects that implement this kind of system will increase.
Inefficiencies that are inherent due to paper controls will largely disappear, which will influence the project's bottom line. Increased actual work time, fewer scheduling conflicts and greater control of project scope will all contribute to a more positive project outcome. The expectation is that this type of permit system will aid projects to completion on schedule, with a greater chance of remaining within the set budget.
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Claims

THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION IN WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTY OR PRIVILEGE IS CLAIMED ARE DEFINED AS FOLLOWS:

1. An automated permit-to-work process comprising the steps of accepting an application for a work permit, reviewing the application prior to issuance of a permit, issuing the permit, tracking the permit, closing of the permit and archiving the permit.