Compliance & Quality Assurance

Brian works as Emergency Response Administrator at a uranium refinery in Canada, where he is responsible for all safety equipment maintenance and inspections, as well as health and safety training.

“We are regulated by the federal government. That means we not only adhere to regulations other refineries follow, we have additional, stricter codes,” explains Brian. “For instance, when working at 8 feet high, our crew is required to use fall protection, which is not necessarily the case at other facilities.”

When Brian first began working in the health safety department in 2006, he took a “train the trainer” course offered by an outside training organisation. There, the instructor suggested attendees look into using the Pervidi system, an electronic system from Techs4Biz, that supports inspection tracking, consistent compliance and safety management and risk mitigation.  Because equipment safety tracking was being done manually when Brian came onboard – and lacked consistency – Brian believed his company could benefit from Pervidi. There were other problems that came up related to their overall tracking system, too, some that resulted in increased costs. For instance, sometimes crew members borrowed other employees’ equipment. If they lost it or forgot to return it, there was no way to track the item, and likely a new piece of equipment would need to be purchased.

“Pervidi offers incredibly tight tracking and because of that we noticed many improvements, including reduced purchasing costs,” he says. “Plus, it’s easy to use and saves time. Once a week, my inspector goes out with the Pervidi hand-held scanner and scans RFID tags attached to equipment, then brings it back to me and I sync it up to my computer.”

As they were getting the new system up and running, Brian says he was impressed with how Pervidi staff were able to work with him to quickly customise the program so it fit not only their company, but their specific industry and regulatory reporting needs. He says the training was also excellent.  Now that the system is fully operational, Brian is able to more fully understand the benefits. When asked what it has brought to his team and organisation, West cites that Pervidi:

• Reduces equipment costs: “It tracks so tightly, we don’t have to repurchase missing equipment.”
• Reduces administration time: “I have one inspector who scans tags once a week. Then it only takes me a few minutes to download the data from the scanner.”
• Simplifies the auditing process: “I never have to search for what auditors want. When they arrive, all I do is hand them a printout. The auditors have been very impressed with the level of detail on my reports.”

But the best benefit, he says, is the ability to easily produce quality reports. “Knowing that good, complete records are available is a huge benefit, especially since we are so heavily regulated,” he says. “It’s great not to have to worry about that, so I can focus on other aspects of my job.”

Barrick Gold Corporation is the largest gold mining company in the world, with operations in Australia, Africa, North America and South America. At their Elko, Nevada location, Fall Protection Coordinator, Vince, coordinates fall protection for more than 200 employees in their transportation division. There, mechanics do much of the repair work or preventive maintenance on Barrick’s truck fleet while suspended over 10- to 20-foot high vehicles. In addition to training staff on fall protection, one of Vince’s other responsibilities is conducting equipment inspections. Up until 2011, Barrick tracked all their fall safety equipment data manually—what Vince describes as a laborious process.

“I would fill out a separate sheet for each piece of equipment I inspected—and we have close to 800 pieces,” he explains. “This usually resulted in a stack of paperwork about 3-4 inches high. I would then take that paperwork to my office and enter the data manually onto my computer”. Then he heard of the Pervidi system – an electronic system that supports inspection tracking, consistent compliance and safety management and risk mitigation. He immediately recognised its potential and was eager to give it a try, but first knew he had to get buy-in from his supervisors.

So, he presented them with estimated cost and time savings, then walked them through the manual record keeping process, so they could see firsthand how slow it was—and how potentially inaccurate it could be. He also discussed how he would be able to devote more time to other critical aspects of his role, such as researching new ways to keep employees even safer. Although his bosses were impressed, they asked him to talk to another company that was already using Pervidi to find out how it was performing for them.

“So, I called a former colleague who is now working for a different company that uses Pervidi,” he says. “He told me, ‘Vince, it’s absolutely worth it. You’ll never have problems with recordkeeping again.’ So I told this to my boss, and they approved the purchase.”

In January 2012, Barrick purchased the Pervidi Network solution. To get more familiar with the system, Vince says Pervidi support specialists worked with him about once a week, for several weeks. Now, if he has a question, he just calls support and says that they are highly responsive. Today, to do an inspection, Vince simply grabs the Pervidi scanner, scans RFID tags on the equipment, answers questions when prompted, and provides his signature. When he returns to his desk, he puts the scanner in a cradle which synchs the data up with the system. (Note: Barrick uses the ‘Network Edition’, where their data resides on their own computer systems. Customers can also choose a Pervidi hosted system as well.)

Pervidi has helped Barrick in other ways. For instance, if someone retrieves a piece of equipment but doesn’t know who it belongs to, all Vince has to do is scan the tag and he can locate the owner, versus the past process, which involved going through stacks of paperwork and checking serial numbers. “Pervidi has cut my inspection time in half—I’m very impressed with it,” he says. “If someone is considering Pervidi, I would tell them, that they can’t go wrong. And even though it takes some time to get familiar with it, you begin benefitting right away.”