ProntoForms & iOS – a three-part article series based on new white papers from ProntoForms
ProntoForms is a long-standing member of the Apple MPP partnership, and we recently published three new white papers focusing on improving your business by pairing ProntoForms and iOS in the field. The second white paper in our series, ProntoForms and iOS ensure environmental, health & safety compliance, discusses how mobile forms can affect a team’s EHS compliance. Workplace accidents can be disastrous both to workers and businesses. In 2014, over 12 workers were killed every day in U.S. workplace accidents. Over the years, improved health & safety regulations have had a dramatic impact on worker safety. Worker deaths in the U.S. are down from about 38 deaths per day in 1970 to 12 per day today, but efforts to improve conditions, processes, and workflows are ongoing.
Diligent companies create business processes designed to identify risk areas and take the appropriate measures to mitigate risk. Even modest, incremental improvements in health & safety practices are likely to save lives, which is why it’s so important for businesses to collect, analyze, and distribute vital safety information in a seamless and timely manner.
According to a recent study by independent research firm BLR, nearly half of EHS professionals still use paper-based forms to collect and share environmental, health & safety data. A majority of respondents still use spreadsheets to report on and aggregate monthly safety trends. Considering the magnitude of the risks in terms of environmental repercussions, liabilities, and impacts to the brands of the companies involved, the results of this survey are quite astonishing.
Case study
Crosstown Transit Constructors is a joint venture of four Canadian and American construction firms. Its goal is to complete the western contract for the Eglinton Crosstown Extension Light Rail Train (LRT) for the city of Toronto, to expand the city’s subway system. This extensive construction project is one with high health and safety requirements, including the undertaking of regular construction audits and adherence to stringent regulations. Featuring close to 300 employees (including subcontractors), Crosstown Transit Constructors has over a dozen types of critical forms that field workers must fill out. The communication of information was for them a key challenge, as form processing took up to five days.
Through research and due diligence, Crosstown decided on mobile forms from ProntoForms running on iOS devices to speed up business processes and increase productivity. “We tested out ProntoForms and liked it right away,” says Christina Lindstrom, Crosstown Transit Constructor’s Health and Safety Manager. “It was easy to see the value in mobilizing our forms in the field.”
Mobility is better for EHS compliance
A clean compliance record means efficiently collecting, analyzing, and sharing accurate EHS data. U.S.-based market research firm Aberdeen Group recommends in a recent report that businesses adopt a mobile solution to make reporting more effective and less cumbersome. Mobilizing compliance reporting dramatically increases the efficiency of the process, which in turn reduces — and in many cases, eliminates — the risk of unreported issues. Many organizations are quickly realizing how mobile technology can be used to improve environmental, health & safety reporting.
Environmental, health & safety incidents can have devastating consequences – both for business and for individuals. No organization can afford to use a data collection system that leaves them vulnerable to accidents, lawsuits, or terminated operations. ProntoForms, a proven data collection and analytics platform, offers a sophisticated and easy-to-use mobile solution that is transforming the way companies manage their health & safety processes today.
In next week’s final installment of this three-part article series, we’ll look at how analytics tools can help businesses create dashboards and real-time reports that uncover hidden business trends.
