prontoforms mobile solutions ensure health and safety compliance

/ W H I T E P A P E R

Mobile solutions ensure health and safety /compliance.

2WHITE PAPER / MOBILE SOLUTIONS ENSURE HEALTH AND SAFETY COMPLIANCE

1 / Technology empowers compliance, yet outmoded data collection and reporting undermine it

The availability of mobile solutions has equipped health and safety inspectors to conduct

inspections that ensure compliance. Using these solutions allow information collected

through these inspections to be shared with all those concerned in a timely manner over

reliable communication channels.

Though workflow processes are becoming increasingly automated, many businesses are

still relying on slow, unreliable data collection and sharing methods for health and safety

compliance. Choosing to do so presents a number of challenges.

Vital safety information may not be communicated properly, if at all.

Paper forms can suffer from illegible handwriting or become misplaced in transit. Because

these compliance reports are paper-based and must be transported often long distances,

they are vulnerable to loss or even theft. Delays in deliv-

ering reports have an inherent time and opportunity cost.

Manually transcribing and processing data recorded on

paper is not only tedious but prone to error.

Compliance reports must be physically transported to

different stakeholders and field reporters who may be

based in different geographic regions. This is not only a

time-consuming endeavour, but a costly one as well.

Though businesses are aware of the potential pitfalls of

manual reporting, many believe that a greater challenge

would be adapting to new technology. Managers are often

wary of adopting digital platforms, particularly when they view their current processes as

adequate. Still, even titans of industry understand that the most seemingly efficient processes

can be further enhanced.

Yet even those who consider ad-hoc digital file collection as a solution fail to realize the

challenges and errors prone to this method. While digital photos, emails and excel files can

be collected digitally they fail to form a cohesive and auditable data record submission with

GPS and time stamps. In turn integrating ad-hoc digital content into an analytics system is

tedious and prone to error also.

Exploring the new interconnected

workplace offers an increased

ability to track and ensure

compliance. Developing a strategy

for utilizing connected devices gives

you peace of mind and certainty that

regulations are being followed.

/ Thinglogix, 2015


2 / Unanswered Challenges Have Consequences

If vital safety information is not communicated effectively, businesses may fail to achieve

health and safety compliance, delaying or even halting their operations and drastically

impacting their ROI.

Accidents can occur on the job site if field workers do not accurately record potentially

crucial information, or if safety managers do not receive reports that flag the need for com-

pliance intervention.

Accidents are costly

If a company is found liable for injuries sustained by civil-

ians or site workers, lawsuit awards or settlements could

reach millions of dollars.

There are a number of other costs that companies can in-

cur as well. Some of these include time lost from work due

to injured employees, replacement costs, reduced efficien-

cy rates due to the breakup of a crew, damage to tools

and equipment and loss of production for the remainder

of the day. Accidents can also deliver a substantial blow

to corporate morale, causing a decline in workplace pro-

ductivity.

Failing to properly report on health and safety issues due

to transcription or data entry errors can also negatively

impact business operations. In failing to properly docu-

ment a faulty piece of equipment, for example, business

operations can be set back days or even weeks. This sce-

nario can be avoided if a system is in place to properly

identify and address faulty equipment.

Accidents can also negatively impact the corporate brand, further impeding business

opportunities. In an increasingly competitive global market, no business can afford to make

these mistakes.

It has never been more crucial for businesses to seek alternative means of compliance

reporting.

The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic railway filed for bankruptcy due to the Lac-Megantic train derailment, which resulted in the deaths of 47 people. The railway and several former employees connected to the disaster were charged

with criminal negligence.

/ American Journal of Transportation,

2015


3 / Use Tech to Tackle Compliance

Collecting, analyzing and sharing information is crucial to maintaining compliance. Aber-

deen Group recommends that businesses adopt a mobile solution to make reporting more

effective and less cumbersome. Mobilizing compliance reporting dramatically increases the

efficiency of the reporting process, which in turn reduces — and in many cases, eliminates

— the risk of unreported issues.

Many organizations are quickly realizing these truths. Still, there are a number of factors to

consider when deciding which mobile technology and solution to adopt.

Smartphones or tablets

Businesses need to decide whether to use a smart phone or tablet. This is often determined

by the abilities and constraints of the selected mobile application, as well as the specific

requirements of each compliance inspection. Some of the features that will need to be

considered are screen size and resolution, as well as the necessity of portability, instant

messaging and image capturing, to name a few.

Secure information storage

Another critical factor to consider when selecting a reporting tool is ensuring that the

mobile device application facilitates secure storage of information. A study conducted by

Dimensional Research shows that with the rise of mobile device use for business functions

comes the increased threat of information theft from those devices. It is essential that any

electronic reporting tool have robust security features to protect users from information

theft.

79%Of the 790 IT professionals surveyed, 79% report mobile security incidents in the past year, 45% of businesses with less than 1000 employees reported mobile security incidents costs exceeding $100,000, and 52% of large companies say cost of mobile security incidents last year exceeded $500,000.

Dimensional Research, 2013


Powerful data collection features

Electronic reporting tools must include powerful data collection features. Field workers

must be able to collect detailed site information to adhere to the compliance requirements

of an increasingly regulated business world.

Common required features include the ability to capture images, photos, signatures, GPS/

timestamps and barcodes. The ability to capture images is often a necessity when only

pictures are able to fully convey issues and concerns found in a compliance inspection. The

ability to capture signatures on a mobile device is necessary for any compliance form that

requires authorization or consent. GPS and timestamps help confirm the location of job

sites, customer visits, time of arrival and work performed. Compliance inspections may also

mandate the scanning of bar codes on equipment.

These features need to be supported by a configurable workflow and platform that can be

tailored to the needs of each company, a powerful analytics engine that can identify trends

in data, and a solid deployment methodology provided by an experienced solution provider.

Field workers need to be able to effectively capture data and send it to various stakeholders.

This mandates a digital workflow that allows users to immediately share information recorded

in the field. If a serious and pressing safety issue is identified, health and safety personnel

need to send and receive contextual notifications in order to address the issue in time.

In recording field data, it is also essential to be able to organize the recipients of compliance

reports into groups. This is particularly important for large organizations where different

recipients work in different geographic areas. If recipients are based in different regions,

categorizing them by time zone ensures that each worker receives health and safety reports

during his or her working hours.


The necessity of cloud management and storage

The world-wide adoption of cloud services by businesses necessitates having a compliance

reporting system that is cloud-based in order to remain competitive. The International Data

Group (IDG) found that most businesses are using cloud services, and those that aren’t plan

to do so within three years.

Many businesses are adopting this technology because it offers flexible bandwidth,

document version control, secure storage of information, the ability to recover from system

failures, increased collaboration between employees and the ability to react faster to drastic

operations changes than competitors who do not have cloud services. Still others are choos-

ing to managing their information using a cloud platform such as Google For Work, Box, etc.

Using Google For Work allows them to use tools such as Google Drive and Google Sheets,

which further enhances a businesses’ ability to share information from a cloud platform.

Given the mass adoption of this service, it is essential that the tool selected to conduct

compliance reporting have cloud access to remain on par with competitors. Having a

compliance reporting tool connected to the cloud allows business to stay connected with

compliance reporters at all times, access all reports the moment they are filled out, and make

decisions regarding crucial data as soon as it is available. Because of that it is also essential

that any mobile solution chosen be able to mesh with cloud platforms such as Google For

Work so that the mobile solution’s capabilities can work in sync with those tools used on the

cloud platform (such as Google Sheets) to improve existing compliance reporting practices.


Analytics: Don’t miss anything

Along with mass cloud adoption, many organizations are beginning to make use of analytics

features to leverage data quickly and respond to business processes and opportunities

faster. An Accenture study revealed that businesses are increasingly relying on analytics

to take full advantage of their data when making key decisions. In a globally competitive

environment, it is imperative that analytics be a core component of daily operations.

Analytics allows businesses to identify trends in compliance data and above all else, identify

common issues so that they can be corrected.


The choice to build or buy

Another key factor that needs to be consider before adopting any data collection solution

is whether to build it internally or buy an existing solution.

If you choose to build your own application, you’ll need to develop, deploy, support and

maintain an in-house built mobile application. The time required to do so can be lengthy and

unpredictable, leading to a further mobile deployment lag, as compared to more aggres-

sive competing enterprises. From there an endless series of questions need to be answered

to progress from conception to development. Once the application is fully developed and

deployed, a great deal of maintenance is required to keep the application running smoothly.

A subscriber deployed App like ProntoForms has zero-to-little maintenance and support

costs. On the other hand, any in-house developed and deployed App will have perennial

ongoing maintenance and support costs.

Buy vs Build? What should I do? ProntoForms offers a tried and true service that processes over

7 million forms every year. If reliability, scalability and ease of

maintenance are important to you, let us show you why we think

we have the right answer.

Talk to an expert

http://www.prontoforms.com/support/free-consultation.php


IN-HOUSE APPS: THREE KEY AREAS FOR ONGOING REQUIREMENTS

THE APPLICATIONThe actual application that is deployed into the field

Mobile users will invariably encounter issues and require fixes from time to time. This also extends to servicing the various OS versions that the enterprise has chosen to support. In considering possible applications, one also needs to consider the speed of device changes, mobile iOS changes, the mix of mobile devices (e.g. Andriod, iPhone, Smartphone,

Tablet, iPad) a company has in the field, and the mix of different operating systems that may need to be supported, even if in a transition period. In considering how rapidly these changes happen, it will be important to select a mobile forms application that can function seamlessly through these hardware and software adaptations.

THE ADMINISTRATOR PORTALThe online command center of the deployed application

The administrator portal must always be kept up on the latest security and software innovations, to ensure that it continues to best serve the enterprise.

Additionally, you will need to create a workflow to connect your data – As the application and administrator portal are used to organize and collect data in the field, it’s the export and connect element of the equation that integrates this data within the enterprise’s systems. Whether it’s keeping an API, HTTP or FTP site in working order, or ensuring that data can be shared and accessed with various cloud services, an enterprise’s CIO must handle the immense pressure to keep the data communication lines open and fully-functioning. When you create your data workflow and you need to share data with different partners, suppliers or regulatory groups may want that data delivered to different cloud services in different file formats. If you need to re-engineer your data workflow with an R&D team every time it can be costly.

ANALYTICS & SCHEDULED REPORTING Sophisticated cloud based analytics are a relatively new phenomena

The International Institute for Analytics reports that just a few short years ago a company requiring analytics would need to engage in descriptive

analytics. Most companies would create time-consuming analytical models in batch pro-cesses, and decisions were made based on experience and intuition. Analytics advanced into Big Data in the mid-2000’s, when complex data sources and new analytical and com-putational abilities emerged. Enter today’s world, and utilizing big data analytics is a critical

part of running a business effectively.

1 0WHITE PAPER / MOBILE SOLUTIONS ENSURE HEALTH AND SAFETY COMPLIANCE

Thus, in describing the four preceding elements, it’s safe to say that it requires a dedicated

team to continually maintain and support a proprietary mobile business solution. Here are

other key build maintenance and support components that enterprises must consider:

• Server activity – Costs and configurations associated with server licenses and server

operations are required. If outsourced, cloud services supplier monthly fees, with con-

sideration of service quality, uptime, data security and redundancy.

• General Maintenance – Bug fixes, continual QA work.

• Updates – Regular updated Apps for each supported OS must be created. Moreover, every

time a new operating system is introduced, an App must be adapted and re-created.

• Variables – Various challenges can arise, including structure breaks or other unpredict-

able emergency situations.

• Human Resources – consider the difficulties of engaging and retaining developer talent,

particularly developers in high demand in mobile app development

In contrast to the preceding build maintenance elements,

purchasing an App like ProntoForms frees up enterprise

IT and development departments, requiring no further

major maintenance costs. In addition, integration capabil-

ities such as a REST API are still possible.

The sum of all build maintenance and support elements is

often either underestimated or overlooked when project-

ing the lifespan costs of an App.

“ProntoForms usage-based payment options provide the

consumers with additional benefits, including increased

functionality and fixed-priced maintenance that avoids

additional costs.”

Moreover, according to Woodward’s analysis from Movers Speciality Service Inc. in Section

three, of the $4.2 million spent on development, deployment, support and maintenance over

a 10-year span, $1.4 million can be directly attributed to maintenance-only costs.

“Applications always incur additional enhancements and ongoing support over their life span. These costs are usually higher than the costs of initial development.”

/ Woodward


4 / The Benefits of Going Mobile

Adopting mobile forms will automatically rectify many of the issues inherent in paper-based

reporting, enabling businesses to remain compliant.

Beyond maintaining a clean compliance record, using mobile forms to streamline reporting

improves business operations and in turn, the bottom line. Some of these financial benefits

include reduced insurance costs, avoided lawsuits, better brand value because of a clean

safety record, and being able to use technology as a differentiator to capture more business.

According to a recent study conducted by

McGraw Hill, construction companies who

maintain health and safety compliance

reported the following benefits:

• 51% report increases in project ROI

• 43% report faster project schedules, with

half reporting schedule improvements of

a week or more

• 39% report a decrease in project budget

• 82% report an improved reputation

• 71% report lower injury rates

• 66% report they have a greater ability

to contract new work

• 66% report better project quality


MOBILE FORMS IMPLEMENTATION CASE STUDIES

Switching from paper to mobile forms improved busi-

ness productivity for Crosstown Transit Constructors.

The company has been tasked with completing an

extensive LRT project to expand Toronto’s subway

system. This multi-year project employs nearly 300

workers and mandates high health and safety require-

ments.

Crosstown was originally using paper forms for

compliance reports such as safety site checklists, but

quickly realized that they needed a better solution.

Upon switching to ProntoForms, they were able to

collect data more accurately and process it faster.

“Previously, paper forms would

eventually make their way back to

me. I would then have to review them

for errors and perform time-consum-

ing data entry or scanning. Before,

the process could take up to five days. Now, forms are dispatched to all

of management via ProntoForms and

the whole process takes an hour.”

/ Christina Lindstrom,

Health and Safety Manager

Crosstown Transit Constructors


PG&E, one of the largest utilities providers in the United States, began using mobile forms to

address the challenges associated with meeting regulatory compliance requirements.

For meter inspections, the company used a custom-built application, but it lacked key

capabilities. For quality assurance and damage control, the company relied on a paper-based

solution as well as Microsoft Access and Excel for reporting and analytics. The data collec-

tion solution had several limitations. There were also delays in the paper-based auditing

and Excel tracking of services and equipment. These setbacks significantly impacted data

quality as well as the speed and reliability of reporting.

PG&E faced high stakes when determining whether or not to switch to mobile forms for

compliance reporting, as the most significant risk of not effectively tracking meter quality

and repair issues was the possibility of customers’ houses being damaged or destroyed due

to faulty equipment. This would make the company liable for failing to be compliant and

would also result in severe corporate brand repercussions.

By switching to mobile forms, the company avoided the risk of equipment failure, accidents,

liabilities and damage to their corporate brand. They also achieved significant savings, both

on costs associated with internal IT support and costs incurred the previous year in using a

custom application.


5 / Choose a Trusted Partner for your success – some thoughts to consider

You’re going to make a major change in your organi-

zation. Succeed and you’ll be recognized as a hero, fail

and the losses could be dire. To make sure your venture

is a heroic success, you need to make sure you pick the

leading mobile forms provider to equip your company

with a solution that meets their needs perfectly. But given

that every company claims omnipotence, what are some

ways you can assess who is truly the leading mobile forms

provider?

There are some telltale signs you can look for.

The companies associated with a brand are indicative of

their trust and confidence, and a good place to start when

considering possible mobile forms providers. The ideal

mobile forms provider would hold partnerships with high

companies.

ProntoForms distributes its solution

through carrier partnerships with AT&T,

Bell, Rogers, Nextel and Entel. They

are also actively working with leading

mobile device manufacturer Apple and

MDM provider MobileIron.

A small sample of ProntoForms customers


Next it will be important to identify which mobile forms providers have received recognition

from independent business analytics for their solution’s capabilities and customer service.

It is also critical to find proof that the company’s solution capabilities and customer service

are in fact exceptional, which can only be proven through finding outspoken customers of

the company who advocate for their solution – companies that you know, trust and respect.

There are other signs you can watch for. The leading mobile forms provider will need to

have full solution capabilities for mobile data collection, a sophisticated administrative

portal, workflow connectivity to the cloud and analytics. For the reasons discuss in previous

sections, using a solution that has only 80% of these features just won’t cut it. As size always

matters, it will be important for your mobile forms provider to have experience deploying

and supporting the solution with an organization with your size, and in turn be able to offer

a breadth of deployment and outsourced management services. With that, you will need to

find proof that they have best in class customer support to protect against any pitfalls that

could impede the success of your venture.

ProntoForms receives Competitive Strategy Innovation and Leadership Award from independent analyst firm Frost & Sullivan, for their exceptional solution capabilities and customer service.

NORTH AMERICAN MOBILE FORMS COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

INNOVATION AND LEADERSHIP AWARD

2015

Read the report

http://www.prontoforms.com/lp/resources/Frost-Sullivan-Award-Mobile-Forms-2015.php


6 / Don’t Risk Settling for Less

You may be reading this white paper because you’ve been

planning to deploy a mobile solution for health and safety,

but the scope of the project always seems to grow out

of control. Worse yet, you may have deployed a mobile

solution for health and safety in the past, but it was never

fully deployed for technical or employee adoption reasons.

The ProntoForms solution can help you achieve your com-

pliance objectives. No other solution provider has been

acknowledged by top-tier industry brands as the leader

in this space. ProntoForms has the domain expertise and

innovative spirit needed to successfully deploy a health

and safety compliance platform that protects your bottom

line. Discover how ProntoForms can safeguard you, your

workforce, your corporate brand and your customers.

Act today to mitigate risks, mobilize health and safety

compliance in less than 30 days with a trusted leader.

ProntoForms was identified by The Wall Street Journal as a key Apple partner to bolster iPad sales to businesses.

/ click here to read the article

Want to see if ProntoForms can help mobilize your business?

Request a free consultation with a mobile forms expert

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/apple-pushes-ipads-for-business-with-different-partners-similar-aims/

http://www.prontoforms.com/support/free-consultation.php

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/08/13/apple-pushes-ipads-for-business-with-different-partners-similar-aims/

prontoforms mobile solutions ensure health and safety compliance

Documents

safety compliance

compliance reports

safety managers

safety inspectors

vital safety information

white paper mobile solutions

paper forms

outmoded data collection