Paper-based checklists can help you collect some of the data you need to enforce HSE policies. Unfortunately, they have severe limitations.
Paper checklists lead to version control problems. It’s easy for someone to miss the fact that they’re using an outdated form. They might print a PDF checklist that they had saved on their hard drive, not realizing that there’s a new one on the internal website.
Only data that can be written down on paper gets collected. Instead of taking pictures or video, they write down descriptions — sometimes not very clear ones — of a developing health and safety situation.
Paper isn’t good for accessibility. Audio recordings can be more accessible and faster for people who have a hard time writing. Electronic devices provide accessibility features that enable scaling, text-to-speech, and other assistance in maximizing everyone’s potential.
Friction in HSE reduces the development of safety culture. When non-safety personnel need to know how to get the paper forms mandated for their HSE practices, this friction slows them down and reduces their motivation.
Digitized mobile processes provide much more than a limited subset of the health and safety data you need. They create an environment in which anyone can pick up their phone or mobile device, collect data — including photos, audio, and video, if need be — and inject that data directly into a follow-on HSE-related workflow that may involve reports and data sharing as well as email, texts, and external applications.
Eliminating programming — what is sometimes called a "no-code" approach — is crucial. It’s the most important way you can modernize your mobile workforce to streamline HSE inspections.
If you need to hire a programmer to write your mobile app, you won’t have a version control problem like you do with paper — but it will take a long time to get your new versions out. If you have a new requirement or need a new data type, you’ll need to wait even longer and pay more. And if people upgrade their mobile devices, you’ll need to do compatibility testing across your user base.
But by using a no-code approach, you can create and modify your HSE inspection checklists without involving developers. No outside consultants, no IT developers on loan. It’s liberating.
All on your own, you can update a checklist with new safety requirements. You can add a new HSE manager to an automatically formatted and emailed inspection report. You can send a text to a remediation team when an inspector finds a serious health or safety issue so they can quickly prevent a situation from becoming an incident.
And you can do those things without writing a single line of code. Which means that your users just have to hit “sync” on their phones to have everything they need for their HSE inspections to be up to date.
The quickest way to see how simple it is to make your HSE inspections faster and more consistent — with rapid, rich data collection, automated workflows, and instant reports, without writing code — is to try the Fulcrum field inspection management platform today.
