{"id":15152,"date":"2020-07-28T02:53:52","date_gmt":"2020-07-28T00:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/renewables\/electronic-permit-to-work\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T11:08:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T10:08:55","slug":"electronic-permit-to-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yokogawa.com\/eu\/blog\/renewables\/en\/electronic-permit-to-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do so many electronic Permit to Work projects fail?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photography and Permit to Work<\/b><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m a big fan of photography, I like taking pictures, I admire the technology and I truly love the results. The principle of photography is simple: ensure you have enough light and don\u2019t move your camera while taking pictures!<\/p>\n

To control the light, you have 3 main variables; aperture (opening of a lens\u2019 diaphragm, through which light passes), shutter speed (the length of time when a camera shutter is open), and ISO (the sensitivity of the image sensor). How difficult can it be, especially with all the support of technology and software?<\/p>\n

Almost everybody owns a camera and nowadays we all take photos with our phone or camera. Still, you can instantly see the difference in quality between a professional photo and just a photo. The rules for photography are the same for all of us and yes, technology will make some difference, but the real differentiator is the knowledge and experience of the photographer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My wife doesn\u2019t like to go for a walk with me when I\u2019m in the \u201cphotographer\u201d mode. While she\u2019s enjoying the walk and beautiful surroundings, I\u2019m focused on composition, contrast, light, and the million other small things that could make the difference between an ordinary photo and a Pulitzer winner. This focus, in conjunction with taking a lot of pictures, has made me the photographer I am today. Now you might ask yourself: What is the connection between photography and Permit to Work? Well, let me explain\u2026<\/p>\n

Why do we need a Permit to Work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Permit to Work (PtW) is a management system used to ensure that employees work safely in a hazardous environment.<\/strong> Used specifically for high-risk activities, the system allows a person or a group of people to carry out a task under strict controls. Permit to Work is an essential part of Control of Work (CoW); the integrated management of critical maintenance processes. Control of Work combines Permit to Work, Hazard Identification (JHA), Risk Assessment (RA), Isolation Management (IM), and others to form the Operational Risk Management (ORM) system within a plant.<\/p>\n

I believe too many companies consider Permit to Work more as a must-do procedure, instead of a valuable system to help employees work safely. The Permit is a written document that authorizes certain people to carry out specific work at a specific time. It sets out the hazards associated with the work and the precautions to be taken. The same Permit helps employees to increase safety awareness about the potential risk and provides specific instructions regarding the appropriate precautions to be put in place. The Permit to Work can be rather complex due to the need to co-ordinate all the required activities, conditions, tools, and precautions, which can become an extensive paper exercise. This gets more complicated still when other paperwork such as certificates are added to the permit. When the paperwork gets the upper hand, then, in my opinion, safety is at stake. The system becomes gradually more bureaucratic. If a site is not careful, the original purpose of creating the safest possible environment to work becomes secondary to the management of the permitting paper process. Resulting in process paperwork experts as opposed to process safety experts!<\/p>\n

Electronic Permit to Work<\/b><\/h2>\n

For some time now there has been a trend of replacing paperwork and moving to an electronic Permit to Work. There are good reasons for it:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Saving time and costs<\/li>\n
  • Compliancy<\/li>\n
  • Better audit trail<\/li>\n
  • Better coordination and communication<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    You might expect that \u201cincreased safety\u201d would appear on the list. \u00a0However, I believe just replacing paper for electronic Permit to Work will not significantly increase safety. This has been confirmed by several customers who shared their lessons learned and conclusions about their own Permit to Work activities with me. So that begs the question and it\u2019s a big one; why does it not increase safety?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s get back to my example from the beginning. Replacing paper for electronic Permit to Work is like buying a luxury photo camera. With the new camera, you can do more, you have more supporting features and yes, you shoot better photos, but still not comparable with photos from even semi-professionals. The reason why is simple.\u00a0 You cannot buy experience<\/strong>, and you can trust me when I say that for a luxury camera, you still need a lot of experience to take good photos.<\/p>\n

    What kind of experience does a Permit to Work system need in order to increase safety?<\/p>\n

    It needs a comprehensive overview and understanding of the risk associated with the task and the necessary precautions to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. These must be communicated in a way that is easy for a worker to understand.<\/strong><\/p>\n

    An electronic Permit to Work that merely replaces the old paper system, i.e. when the Risk Assessment process itself remains unchanged, is like buying a new camera without investing in changing the experience of the person who takes the photos. It happens too often; Permits are still submitted without a comprehensive Risk Assessment for a specific task. All the new electronic system does is; allow the plant to get to the same dangerous state, just more efficiently!<\/p>\n

    What is the real value of Control of Work?<\/b><\/h2>\n

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