Intelex Training Specialist Purdal Mya recently visited long-time client Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC) in Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands, to help the company reimplement a system they had purchased a few years ago but hadn’t been using to its full capabilities.

Purdal (pictured left with CUC employees) spent four days at the company’s main facility working with system administrators to configure the system and to set up user-security based homepages to make the system as user friendly as possible for CUC employees. Purdal also facilitated sessions to educate end users on the system and to train them on how to use it most effectively. Then, using data that employees had been entering in recent years, Purdal was able to create simple metrics for the entire company to see. These reports showed everyone what the system is capable of. Training was also provided for Intelex’s EHS Incident Management solution, which CUC is going to start using in place of the Standard Safety Incidents (SSI) application it had been using until now. The move from SSI to EHS Incident Management will allow the company to track more than safety incidents. Now they can track property, vehicles, and spills.

Upon his return, Purdal said the “training was very beneficial to all attendees as they were unaware of the capabilities of what Intelex could do. Showing them the system, especially the platform features, really excited everyone at the company.”

With help from Intelex Project Manager Yasemin Hassan, CUC is now working towards transitioning from Standard Safety Incidents to the EHS Incident Management and finalizing the company’s Worksite Observation iForm®.

One week after Purdal was in Grand Cayman, CUC EHS and Training Manager Joey Ebanks was in Toronto for business and dropped by the Intelex office to present the company's success for all Intelex employees. Congratulations to everyone at CUC for a successful implementation!

For the first time since it was created more than four decades ago, the legislation protecting America' workers is about to get a new set of teeth.

The Protecting America's Workers Act (PAWA), currently before Congress' Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, represents the single biggest expansion of workers' rights since the 1970 establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which has only seen minor amendments in the intervening years. Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), spoke before the subcommittee last month in strong support of the passing of the proposed bill, HR 2067.

"The workplaces of 2010 are not those of 1970," he said during his March 16 address, underscoring the urgency of updating the legislation. "The law must change as our workplaces have."

The proposed bill's many changes to the original act include significantly increased civil penalties and prison sentences for violators, more protection for whistleblowers and coverage for government employees currently without protection. The reforms proposed within PAWA would throw a lot of old conventions out the window and significantly transform the existing regulatory framework. And, as Michaels cautioned, employers will have to adapt.

"Because OSHA can visit only a limited number of workplaces each year we need a stronger OSH Act to leverage our resources to encourage compliance by employers," he said. "We need to make employers who ignore real hazards to their workers' safety and health think again."

PAWA's many changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act include the following:

More protection for whistleblowers: If an employee has a reasonable apprehension that performing a duty may result in injury or a serious impairment of the health of an employee, PAWA will ensure they are not discriminated against and will face no consequences, if their concerns are deemed warranted.

Expanded coverage: If enacted, PAWA would extend coverage to more than 10 million local, state and federal government employees not currently covered by the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Criminal conduct: PAWA would make it easier for employers to be criminally charged in the event of a violation. Some of the provisions include the following:

• Whereas a misdemeanor represents the most severe criminal charge applicable to an employer, under PAWA, an employer could be charged with a felony offense.
• Employers who can be charged would include "any responsible corporate officer."
• Maximum prison sentences would expand from six months to 10 years for a first offense and from one year to 20 years for additional convictions.
• The threshold of conduct required to trigger criminal liability would be lowered.
• The burden of proof in a criminal case would be broadened from "willfully" to "knowingly", making it easier for employees to make a case.

Increased civil penalties: The current $70,000 maximum penalty for willful and repeated violations would nearly double to $120,000 under PAWA. Also, penalties for willful or repeated violations resulting in an employee's death would fall within a minimum of $50,000 and a maximum of $250,000.

All indications—including President Barack Obama's outspoken support for strengthened health and safety legislation—suggest the reforms proposed in PAWA will be implemented. It is incumbent on proactive employers to begin a review of how these changes will affect their current workplace safety and health management programs, a process rendered headache-free with Intelex's health and safety management software solutions.

For more information, find the act here or read Michaels' remarks to the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections here.

Intelex Technologies is pleased to announce the FBI’s Aviation Section as one of our newest clients. The Aviation Section will be implementing both the Intelex Safety and Quality Management Systems which were selected for their high level of configurability, range of functionality, ease of use and implementation, as well as their capability to securely track and report confidential and sensitive data.  The Intelex systems will be implemented across all locations and will be accessible to employees bureau-wide.

In search of a solution that would foster the collection of all safety metrics from multiple locations into one central and easy-to-access platform, the FBI’s Aviation Section also required the capability to generate a 360-degree view of all safety-related incidents across the entire organization, permitting internal audits, increasing transparency into processes, and identifying problematic areas. Intelex’s web-based Safety Management System allowed for this functionality, giving each location the ability to independently log incidents which can then be tracked and reported on organization-wide. A flexible system with the ability to customize components (configurability) was another essential priority which Intelex’s custom iForm® application was able to address. Using the iForm® application the section was able to create an FBI specific hazard reporting iForm® to track all non-conformances related to flight operations, and from which problem reports can be generated from.

Intelex Executive Account Manager Bryden Waggott worked with the FBI - Aviation Section to identify the key requirements needed in their management systems and create an implementation plan that focused on safety in the first phase and quality in the second. “The main goal of the FBI – Aviation Section is to consolidate all aspects of safety, including incident reports, hazards reports, and training management into one central place,” said Waggott, “By implementing the Intelex system, the section will be able to significantly reduce the amount of time, effort, and resources that was previously required to produce safety-related reports and metrics. These are elements that will be critical to internal and external audit preparedness as well as gaining an overall visibility into areas for improvement. In Phase I, the primary focus will be on implementing Intelex’s safety management system while Phase II will address the capture and management of the metrics associated with the division’s quality management system.”

Intelex’s Kulbir Bal and Meghan Mann just got back from another successful trip to Crawley, England where they spent two weeks at the Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) training facilities. It was the fourth trip for Kulbir and Meghan, who have been working with VAA to implement the Intelex System, which includes a number of configured Intelex Modules and the unlimited iFormsÒ Builder.

Meghan, seen here with Miss Suiteness, says VAA is really fun to work with; “they have a ‘work hard, party hard’ attitude, which is always a delightful combination. The project has been challenging at times, but the end product is well worth it. I anticipate the company’s future projects will be just as fun and challenging to work on.”

When asked about what makes VAA's use of the Intelex System unique, Kulbir responded: “Users can virtually enter the system and begin capturing data without any formal training at all. Now that’s an intuitive system! The reports automatically expand and show fields, which only appear as certain selections are made. For example, if a user makes a selection from the dropdown menu, three distinct fields may become available based on their selection. This creates a smart-form environment that triggers fields to appear only as required, thus increasing data integrity and usability. We introduced some new colours when painting the VAA Intelex canvas but the one that stands out from the rest is the presentation of a very simple interface that is powered by dynamic and intelligent database configurations.”

Congratulations to everyone at Virgin Atlantic and Intelex for making this project a great success on both sides!

Industry safety standards and regulations are constantly under review and analysis in an effort to continually improve upon them. The chemical sector is no exception, as governments worldwide are working to put the whole area of accident prevention in hazardous industries under greater regulatory control, the chemical sector is specifically increasing its emphasis on process safety. In a recent article from ICIS.com author Sean Milmo takes a look at some of the issues revolving around this movement.

Entitled "Chemical firms grapple with new approach to process safety data," Mr. Milmo's article first addresses the considerable pressure mounting towards the chemical industry to increase the scale of safety data reporting as a recent series of major accidents within the industry have resulted in a significant number of injuries and fatalities. These incidents have prompted both regulatory authorities and the general public to expect the chemical industry to step up preventative measures for these types of catastrophes.

So what is being done? In both Europe and North America regulatory bodies are taking steps to improve the safety reporting landscape and implement a process safety approach. As Mr. Milmo notes, "The European Commission is reviewing the 13-year-old Seveso II directive on the control of major accident hazards with the objective of making more effective obligatory safety management systems in plants, including those covering process safety. In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been urged, particularly by the country's Chemical Safety Board (CSB) that investigates chemical accidents, to enforce existing legislation on process safety more effectively." Although both sides of the Atlantic are proactively seeking a common platform for chemical sector safety standards, there is still dispute from each party as to what process safety data should be monitored. The problematic issue has been the huge variety of data that can be categorized as being indicators. There are two types of indicators, lagging and lead, lagging indicators provide information on incidents after they have happened and lead indicators help to measure the effectiveness of procedures, operating disciplines and protections that work to prevent incidents, there are also near misses which are not serious but could lead to severe incidents. The choice between these indicators is causing much confusion among experts, as what some would classify as a lead indicator others would categorize as lagging.

Although there have been some disputes along the way, much progress has been made by both US and European organizations to establish a uniform model for the application of indicators. As Mr. Milmo explains, "A consensus has now emerged that the choice of lead indicators should be left to individual companies or even sites within companies because different lead indicators are required for different products and processes." Also, in late 2007, the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) in the US consulted with a variety of chemical and petroleum associations, regulatory bodies, trade unions and academics to create a list of process safety metrics which has gained support from North and South America as well as a few European countries. With the main priority to gain a consensus towards the metrics, the CCPS is leaving room for adjustments and continued improvements to their list. Although not perfect yet, the effort towards creating a global reporting culture is growing, which ultimately will create safer and more regulated conditions for all those working within the chemical sector across the globe.

Free Hazards & Risk Assessment content is now available on the Intelex-Exchange! View instructions on how to upload them directly into your Intelex System.

SCORECARDS
Number of Reviews by Reviewer
Upcoming Reviews This Year by Month and Location
Number of Activities Exceeding Significant Value by Location
Hazards & Risks Metric Scorecard
Number of Activities by Department
Hazards & Risks Reviews This Year vs. Last Year by Month
Number of Overdue Activities by Person Responsible

DASHBOARD
Hazards & Risks

REPORTS
Hazards & Risks Activities List
Hazards & Risks This Year by Location
Hazards & Risks by Department
Overdue Hazards & Risks by Person Responsible
Upcoming Reviews in the Next 30 Days
Activities and Related Potential Barriers
Hazards & Risks Reviews by Activity

Intelex Technologies has released its latest software innovation, the Intelex OpenPass API, a revolutionary application programming interface that will enable its users to sync and report data between multiple business management systems.

The Intelex OpenPass API functions as a conduit for seamlessly feeding data between multiple software programs. This means that Intelex’s environment, quality, and health & safety, and business management Software can now share data with pre-existing business software applications; thereby, saving time and resources while maintaining a degree of accuracy that’s difficult to achieve when data is transmitted manually.

The City of Calgary and St. Gobain are the first Intelex clients to take advantage of the OpenPass API.  The City of Calgary used our OpenPass API to import employee and location data from their pre-existing HR system into their Intelex System. They also used the OpenPass API to export employee injury data (i.e., incident number with date and time stamp) from Intelex’s Master Incidents Module into their HR program.

St. Gobain used the OpenPass API to import training courses, employee lists, and employee workgroup data from Lotus Notes into the Intelex System and Training Management Module. By using the OpenPass API St. Gobain was able to quickly populate their new Intelex System with historical data that will be a key factor in reporting accuracy and trending.

If you think that your organization could use the Intelex OpenPass API to import, export, and sync data between a pre-existing management program and your Intelex System, send an email to client.relations@intelex.com or call 416.599.6009 for more details.

If you're looking for timely, relevant, and accurate information to help better streamline your organization’s incident reporting, import our newly created EHS Dashboards, Scorecards, and Configurable Reports directly into your Intelex System.

DASHBOARDS
Incident Reporting Dashboard (1)
Incident Reporting Dashboard (2)

GRAPHICAL SCORECARDS
Incident Reporting - Number of Incidents by Month Current Year vs. Previous Year
Incident Reporting - Preventable Vehicle Incident Comparison
Incident Reporting - Current Year vs. Previous Year by Category
Incident Reporting - Total Overdue Incidents
Incident Reporting - Number of Vehicle Incidents by Weather Condition
Incident Reporting - Number of Injury/Illness Incidents by Employee Type
Incident Reporting - Injury/Illness Incidents by Incident Type and Location
Incident Reporting - Vehicle Incident Rate
Incident Reporting - Total Number of Days Away by Location
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Body Part
Incident Reporting - Vehicle Incident Cost Current Year vs. Previous Year 

OTHER SCORECARDS
Incident Reporting - OSHA Metrics
Incident Reporting - Related Reports

CONFIGURABLE REPORTS
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Status for Current Year
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Category for Current Year
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Report Type for Current Year
Incident Reporting - Incidents in Last 90 Days
Incident Reporting - Overdue Incident Investigations
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Location Last 30 Days
Incident Reporting - Injury by Body Part
Incident Reporting - Near Miss Event Details
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Status and Person Responsible
Incident Reporting - Overdue Incidents by Status
Incident Reporting - Incidents by Status
Incident Reporting - Vehicle Incidents by Time of Day and Affiliation
Incident Reporting - Vehicle Incident Details by Location
Incident Reporting - OSHA Details

Intelex would like to congratulate Metso Minerals on their newly implemented, global safety program! The following article was featured in Mining News Magazine and discusses Metso's proactive approach to safety.

Safety Is No Accident

Metso Raises the Bar with Global Standards

Mention safety to most mining industry people and their first picture is of protective headgear and reflective vests. But according to Chris Adkins, global health and safety specialist for Metso Mining's Life Cycle Services (LCS) team, the future of safety is more in software than in hardhats. "There'll come a time," he says, "when we'll be able to remotely monitor what every single job site is doing from a safety point of view."

To achieve this goal, the LCS team has launched a Safety Management System using Intelex, a web-based safety software application, which is both completely configurable and globally accessible. Best of all, according to Adkins, is the way the system can be specifically tailored to meet the needs of the user.

Configurable System

"With the Safety Management System now operational," he says, "Metso supervisors and managers can manage safety documents, report employee incidents and draw upon continuously updated best practice guidelines from Metso operations worldwide." Furthermore, safety guidelines and information can be configured according to the legal or linguistic requirements of different countries.

Adkins explains that the new Metso system "can also be specified for various levels of management and education, including safety training for particular machines or service contracts." Training courses will be able to cover every aspect of mining safety or can be individualized for subjects as varied as mills, confined spaces and road safety. The Intelex program can also help to assess relevant conditions at a job site and to monitor local governmental or environmental standards.

Standard Practices

There are currently over 440 safety-related documents in a variety of languages in the system and running "live" in eight countries. The remaining countries where Metso operates service contracts should be "live" on Intelex by the end of 2008, by which time the management reports section of the system will also be operational.

Adkins sees Metso's Safety Management System as vital in establishing a uniform code of safety behaviors. "Part of my role is to create standard practices that are equal in every region," he says. "With verifiable results I can help protect and maximize the potential of Metso's greatest resource, our employees".

Adkins concludes, "People are realizing that safety is not a fad. We're here to stay."

"We'll be able to remotely monitor what every job site is doing from a safety point of view." – Chris Adkins

Photo left to right - Neil Hughes (Legal Services & Risk Manager, Australia), Chris Adkins (Global Health & Safety Specialist, Life Cycle Services), Howard Savage (SHEQ Manager, Australia) & Pieter Geldenhuys (SHE Manager, South Africa)

Metso's safety program is powered by the Intelex Safety Management System. Speak with an Intelex Account Manager about how your business can benefit from an organization-wide safety program.

Hey Blog readers!  With the release of Intelex 5 officially in the books, the Client Relations Team, in addition to posting free Intelex-Exchange content, would like to continue sharing success stories and other interesting musings/developments from the world of Intelex.

Just prior to the release, Project Consultant Devon Ambrose, along with Help Desk Team Lead Jeff Preager, had the opportunity to visit with Kikkoman Foods Inc., in Walworth, Wisconsin for the purpose of conducting on site training.  If you’ve ever used soy sauce in any of your gastronomic culinary experiments, I’m positive Kikkoman is a company you’re familiar with.

Using Intelex’s Environmental and Safety Management Systems, this particular training session focused on Safety Incident Reporting, Document Control, Audit Management, Safety Meetings, Hazards and Risk Assessment, and reporting (Dashboard and Scorecard building). 

Several factors helped make it unique: the most intriguing of which was an Intelex initiative to enhance Help Desk awareness.  By having Jeff actively participate in training, the Help Desk immediately gained a first hand sense of both training requirements and client expectations.  Jeff was also able to form a more personable relationship with Kikkoman representatives, individuals he’s closely communicated with in the past.

Not only did Kikkoman benefit from having two trainers present, this invaluable experience has allowed the Help Desk to more effectively prepare for clients transitioning to ongoing support, something all Intelex clients will benefit from.