Automation of High-Risk Work in Metallurgy

Digital Transformation of High-Risk Work Management

Metallurgy is one of the most complex industries in terms of occupational risks. The implementation of digital tools to control hazardous work is becoming not just a trend, but a necessity to ensure safety and efficiency. In his presentation, Alexey Ivanov, Commercial Director of Brealit, analyzes EVRAZ's experience in creating an end-to-end digital system for managing high-risk work. The speaker demonstrates by example how the automation of processes, from issuing electronic permits-to-work to mobile photo recording, is changing the approach to industrial safety.

Prerequisites and Problems of Paper Document Flow

Before implementing the system, the company faced a number of significant problems in the process of issuing permits-to-work. The speaker examined the key ones in detail:

• High workload on issuers: one specialist had to issue permits for several teams simultaneously, which reduced the quality of control.
• Labor-intensive processing: a paper permit-to-work is a voluminous document. Preparing for the work could take up to 3-4 hours, while the actual execution took only 2 hours.
• Low detail in planning: due to haste, tasks were set in "broad strokes," which led to free interpretation of safety requirements by workers and increased risks.

Economic Effect and Implementation Stages

The automation of permits-to-work is one of the few solutions in the field of occupational safety that has a direct, easily calculable economic effect. The presentation details the ROI calculation: saving 30-40 minutes on processing a single permit, with volumes of tens of thousands of documents per year, provides a significant reduction in labor costs. Projects of this kind pay off in 1-1.5 years.

The implementation at EVRAZ was divided into stages, each taking about a year. At the first stage, high-risk work, standard hot work, and specific hot work for coke chemical production were automated. Subsequent stages covered gas-hazardous work and work in electrical installations. In total, the system covers seven types of permits-to-work, each representing a separate complex business process.

Key Barriers in the Digitalization of Permits-to-Work

The speaker analyzes five main problems companies face when transitioning to electronic permits-to-work:

• Unification of business processes: agreeing on a unified workflow between different divisions of a holding can take up to six months, even if everyone works within the same legislative framework.
• Infrastructure and communication: prompt approval of permits on-site requires a stable network. Mobile applications with offline mode only partially solve the problem.
• Accounting for contractors: the system must contain an up-to-date database of all contractors and subcontractors, otherwise issuing permits to third-party workers will be impossible.
• Testing updates: errors during system updates can lead to the shutdown of entire workshops. A strict testing procedure on pre-production environments is necessary.
• Legislative restrictions: the requirement for a handwritten signature for briefings (according to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation) forces the retention of partial paper document flow, requiring the printing and subsequent scanning of familiarization sheets.

System Functionality and Safety Improvement

The digital system offers a number of tools that significantly simplify work and increase the level of safety:

• Templating and duplication: creating a permit based on a successful template takes 8-12 minutes instead of 30-40.
• Remote approval: signing time has been reduced from 60 to 5-10 minutes thanks to a mobile application.
• Photo recording of measures: confirming compliance with safety requirements using photographs reduces the need for physical site inspections.
• Automatic blocks: the system contains more than 100 algorithms that prevent violations (for example, prohibiting the combination of the functions of the issuer and the work executor, or warning about conflicting work in the same area).

What You Will Learn from This Webinar:

• How to calculate the economic effect of implementing electronic permits-to-work?
• What stages must be completed for the successful automation of seven different types of hazardous work?
• How to solve the problem of collecting "live" signatures for briefings in a digital system environment?
• What automatic blocks help eliminate the human factor when issuing permits?
• How to organize the operation of the system in workshops with unstable communication?