After a long day on site, determining plans and assembling structures, all the while managing your team and contractors, one thing on your mind, and often the last thing you want to think about, is the mountain of paperwork that needs your attention throughout the day.
Following industry regulations mean completing this paperwork is essential for the safety and compliance of your site and project. However, staying on top of it can be difficult and time consuming.
There is a way of streamlining the process to make it easier, cost-effective, time efficient, and most importantly, keep you compliant.
Workflow automation can help you stay ahead of the curve by digitalising processes that would once have taken hours. Being such a heavily-regulated industry, it’s important to keep information and documents up to date at all times and, through automation, this is possible even when the team is busy working on-site.
Four ways automating processes can help
eForms
eForms are electronic versions of paperwork, which include business processes, daily or weekly job sheets, tool or plant equipment safety checklists and compliance requirements. They are customisable and let you include your specific business rules and application integration into the forms.
Digititising forms means that you can remove the manual, repetitive data entry for mandatory compliance by pre-populating relevant information. By selecting a project all relevant site information is automatically filled in including job details, date and who is onsite, leaving only necessary fields to complete. eForms can be completed digitally by workers in the field without the hassle of having to physically bring papers back to the office. With eForms, you no longer need to worry about losing paperwork or deciphering handwriting, and information can be accessed and shared with the people who need to see it in a timely manner.
HR processes
Historically, administration processes have needed manual-handling and been paper-based.
On a job site, ensuring the right people with the right capabilities, credentials and licenses are on the project can be a nightmare. With a digital solution, you can streamline the process to automatically match staff with the skills required, saving time and money and making certain compliance requirements are met.
Documents and information can be accessed faster on a digital platform, and it eliminates the storage needed for filing physical paperwork. Automated processing also reduces double handling, skipping steps and missing information, and instead speeds up administration processes.
On-site compliance for visitors and contractors
When you’re the site manager of a project it’s crucial you’re aware of who is on-site, why they’re there and what they’re doing. With a process in place that captures each contractor or visitor on-site at all times and knows their location, you can manage risks and compliance accordingly. Verifying contractor credentials, insurance and licences using an automated system also saves time and lets workers continue with their job. It also lets you display induction videos or customise site conditions for visitor entry.
Safety management
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the highest industry for work-related injury or illness between 2017 to 2018 was construction, with 59 workers out of every 1,000 employees noting a personal injury or illness.[1] Having automated safety processes in place benefits both your business and your workers. These processes can ensure you’re following compliance and audit protocols and checks to meet industry regulations.
An automated process can also manage licences, credentials and certifications, notifying you when these are about to expire. They also let you see which staff are certified for particular jobs, which minimises the risk of breaching safety regulations by ensuring only certified people are on-site or doing certain tasks.
Benefits of automated processes
Automating processes can benefit your building or construction firm by:
- providing visibility of project documents and forms
- creating audit trails and version control for unexpected audits
- optimising workflows, such as docket matching and invoice approval reducing costs and errors of manual processing
- effectively managing time with accessible data and remote working
- notifying managers of staff competencies to ensure workplace health and safety compliance.
By using automated processes, you can save your business
money, time and mistakes, and ensure you comply with industry regulations. To
find out more about integrating this process into your business, talk to
Upstream today.
[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics, Work-Related Injuries, Australia, Jul 2017 to Jun 2018, https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/7EBF2FCCABAB02C3CA256AE2007DBCEF?Opendocument