Case studies

Permits for work in industrial plants

Work permits are a certain process, or rather a procedure that is very common in industrial plants in the automotive industry. I suppose the procedure is familiar in other industries as well. If you have your own thoughts that you would like to share, I invite you to contact me through the editor. I am very interested in this topic and would like to hear about similarities and differences in other industries.

The above diagram shows what kind of work, especially dangerous work, requires organizing the appropriate permit. Such a permit allows you to perform activities at a specific location on the shop floor. You can also see how many permits are needed in total for a hundred random jobs related to emergencies, contracted work or scheduled repairs. The work permit is mandatory. Other permits are prepared depending on the situation.

The situation changes when we are dealing with larger orders requiring several days of work.

For works located at a single site, we need only one permit to flood the works for the entire duration of the installation. Today, permits for particularly hazardous work are beginning to dominate, and they are renewed every day.

The idea of permits makes it possible to perform two very important functions in a simple way:

This ensures that no unpermitted third-party company will stop the production line (generating losses) in order to start repair work – which was the case when such permits were not yet required.

As you can see from the chart above, this noble idea of permits to raise safety standards and provide valuable information has become a cause generating additional tasks that engineers at industrial plants are burdened with.

Managers who are not themselves directly involved in the process of organizing permits may not see what this procedure looks like on a daily basis. Engineers attend daily meetings where outside companies have to wait to receive the required permits. One has to walk a total of up to several hundred meters to collect all the signatures and perform on-site verification. During this organization, we sacrifice not only our own time, but also the time of those necessary to open the permit, close it and those who are waiting for it.

The most time-consuming permit, which requires special attention both during its issuance and in the post-construction supervision process, is the fire permit.

Adding up the costs of the materials, their printing, photocopying, post-construction logistics, the process of disposing of these permits, and the labor intensity resulting from the average rates that outside companies charge for their services and that we pay our employees, one can quickly conclude that access to e-permits on InnerWeb® is a savings worth implementing.