Courtesy of the help of its Middle East partner, Barik IT Group, Intelex Technologies is cornering the market on providing comprehensive EHS management software solutions to utility companies across OMAN. 

Recently, Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) joined Muscat Electricity Distribution Company, Al-Ghubrah Power and Desalination and Majan Electricity Company by turning to Intelex for its industry-leading EHS software solutions.

Check out our Press Room for more details on this exciting new relationship and Intelex's continuing growth across the Middle East.

The Smurfit Kappa Group is a world leader in the paper-based packaging industry, producing over 12 million tons of paper annually, employing over 40,000 individuals, and operating over 300 plants and mills worldwide. 4 Years ago, with dozens of manufacturing sites across the UK, each using their own variation of a paper-based safety incident tracking system, Smurfit Kappa Recycling wanted to remedy this disjointed approach and implement a system to standardize and streamline the recording, tracking and reporting of safety incidents across their UK sites.

Smurfit Kappa selected Intelex’s Safety Incidents Reporting application to meet their needs as it provided a centralized reporting system, accessible via the web by any employee at any location. Smurfit Kappa’s paper incident form was translated into an easy-to-complete digital version and a simple user interface was configured so that upon logging in, users were presented with the incident form, ready to be completed and submitted.

“Intelex’s Safety Incident Reporting Application provided such a high level of visibility into our safety performance that we were able to identify areas for improvement that would have never been uncovered otherwise. Detecting root causes and driving corrective and preventive actions, it has been a critical component to the success of our entire safety program and maintaining OHSAS 18001 conformance,” commented Mark Montgomery, Compliance Manger for Smurfit Kappa Recycling UK who spearheaded the project.

Since implementing Intelex’s Safety Incident Reporting application 4 years ago, Smurfit Kappa Recycling has experienced significant savings and has seen vast improvements in their safety performance. Quantifiable results include a 58% reduction in lost-time accidents and a 63% reduction in number of absent days through injury. Also, per annum their accident frequency rate reduced from 1.9 to 0.83 and accident severity rate reduced from 32.52 to 8.55. The elimination of paper forms streamlined the reporting process and centralized all of their safety incident data, making it instantly available for review and analysis through real-time reports and dashboards. The user-friendliness of the application resulted in the recording of virtually all occurrences of incidents, near-misses and hazards, improving the ability to trend and analyze data.

To learn more about Intelex’s Safety Incident Reporting application – click here.

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.

Along with our Middle Eastern partner Barik IT Solutions, Intelex is pleased to announce two new additions to our client roster, Majan Electricity Company and Daleel Petroleum both located in Oman, have selected Intelex Technologies to provide them with an EHS Management System.

Both companies are key players in Oman’s energy industry with Majan Electricity being a leader in electricity distribution and supply and Daleel Petroleum a top oil and gas operator. Majan Electricity selected the Intelex EHS Management System as a means of automating all of their Environmental, Health & Safety processes into one unified system, working to effectively manage and track such core business components as Audits Management, EHS Training, Incident Reporting, Permit Management, Document Control, Environmental Management and Risk Assessments. Daleel Petroleum selected Intelex’s Safety Management System as a means of automating and tracking their EHS activities across all of their operating sites. Both companies will be leveraging the web-based Intelex platform to foster real-time reporting and generating a complete 360-degree view into their EHS business processes and performances.

To learn more about how an Intelex solution can help you improve your organization's EHS performance, request a free demo here.

Intelex is pleased to announce that Virgin Atlantic Airways (VAA) has gone live with their Intelex Safety Management System organization-wide. VAA, one of the world's leading long haul airlines, employs over 9,000 people and has flown over 65 million passengers in its recently celebrated 25 years of existence. VAA first approached Intelex in search of a solution to unify their multiple incident reporting processes into a single streamlined application that could be accessible to all staff across the entire company. After an analysis of the functionality of the Intelex system to meet their requirements, the Intelex platform was selected as it allowed VAA to utilize proven Intelex modules as well as the versatile Intelex iForm® tool to create their own customized Incident Reporting Management and Analysis System (IRMA).

With the new 100% web-based system launched, all VAA employees can now access Intelex's system from any location. VAA is now actively monitoring and tracking all non conformances, maintaining auditor's checklists, proactively assessing risks, analyzing incidents and tracking, managing and reporting on safety meetings and employee training. By implementing an integrated Intelex solution, VAA was able to significantly increase the integrity and usability of the data they were capturing, all through a very simple and user-friendly interface. Congrats to everyone on both the VAA and Intelex teams who worked on this project to make it such a success!

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.

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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.