Diligent inspections and routine maintenance are essential for safety and compliance in the workplace. To avoid legal and financial penalties, reputational damage, and other adverse effects, businesses must comply with a range of regulations, policies, and standards. Compliance processes are complex and often involve a considerable amount of paperwork, which can be challenging to manage and maintain. One solution to these challenges is a paperless compliance solution, which provides a range of benefits over paper-based compliance processes.
Safety inspectors and other compliance professionals may find paper-based tools for data collection and compliance checks cumbersome and inconvenient in the field. The traditional clipboard or notebook and pencil are not always conducive to detailed note-taking, or to the safe storage of recorded findings. This form of documentation also renders picture-taking, an invaluable resource when escalation is necessary, effectively unavailable.
Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets facilitate the accurate identification of compliance targets so that findings, results, recommendations, notes, and any other related media are consistently attributed to the correct entry every time. The mobile devices are lightweight, widely available, and easy to operate and pre-programmed with configured electronic compliance checklists. They accommodate traditional written notes as well as the integral use of mobile device features, including the camera and barcode scanning capabilities, Near Field Communication (NFC) for accommodation of RFID tags (mainly HF RFID tags), speech-to-text translation, and automatic capture of date/time/GPS. Results recorded using the mobile devices are transmitted electronically and stored either in secure data centres or locally in-house on local network.
The intangible benefits of paperless compliance solution are numerous. Paperless compliance solutions promote efficiency by providing highly organized records and improving employee accountability and personal ownership. They facilitate trend charting and forecasts by maintaining easy access to work histories and have the ability to independently produce logs, certificates, corrective actions, reminders and alerts. Paperless compliance applications enhance data security. Paper forms, documents, and reports are easily lost, damaged, or otherwise compromised. Digital records, however, can be secured with access controls and available to stakeholders. Paperless compliance applications provide a centralized platform (Cloud-based or On-premise) for managing compliance data in real-time and ensuring that information is protected and accessible 24X7 to authorized personnel. Moreover, digital records are easier to search, retrieve, and manage, reducing the time and effort required to locate specific documents.
Paperless compliance applications reduce costs. Manual compliance processes are costly to manage, as they require the printing and storage of numerous documents. Paperless compliance applications eliminate these costs by reducing paper usage, storage, and printing.
Paperless compliance applications enable remote work. Many companies today have employees who work remotely, making it challenging to manage compliance processes that rely on paper documents. Paperless compliance applications make it possible for employees to access compliance information from anywhere with an internet connection. This ensures that compliance tasks can be completed even if employees are not physically present in the workplace.
Paperless compliance solutions are easy to use, diverse, and completely eliminate the need for a paper-based system.
Finally, paperless compliance applications improve compliance reporting. Compliance reporting is an essential aspect of any compliance program. Compliance reports must be accurate, comprehensive, and timely. Paperless compliance applications provide real-time data that can be used to generate compliance reports quickly and accurately. Compliance teams can also use this data to identify compliance trends and areas for improvement.
By embracing paperless compliance applications, companies can streamline their compliance processes, save money, and reduce the risk of non-compliance.
