Cramlington-based, Compass Developments, is set to invest in an advanced digital management system to transform safety culture across all aspects of the business.
The project is coordinated by Carney Consultancy, based in North Shields, which works throughout the North of England for a growing range of companies in the construction and manufacturing sectors.
Carney, which offers Quality, Safety, Health, and Environmental (QSHE) training and consultancy, has utilised the industry-leading Safety Culture management system to develop a paperless solution that will provide unique insights on all projects. It has already been adopted by two companies operating in the built environment, with Compass now also set to invest.
The system, customised for Compass, which was established in 2009 and is acknowledged as one of the region’s leading providers of high quality, turnkey construction solutions throughout all business sectors, has been trialled on a project the company is working on at Woodhorn Museum.
Carney Consultancy, technical director, Martin Crammond, said: “In our external support role, we recommended the adoption of the Safety Culture management system as we were aware of the movement towards paperless activities, seamless document management and control. We designed a bespoke system and the core forms that Compass use. We prepared a set of digital templates and planned how the system should be introduced to the Compass teams. We also advised on the approach to training and change management, so adoption is smooth.”
Chris Morris, company secretary at Compass Developments, said: “Our integrated management system developed in partnership with Carney, gives us exceptionally strong ISO aligned procedures across quality, environment and health and safety.
“Many of our forms are still paper or PDF-based and as our projects have become larger and more complex, maintaining consistent and easily accessible records has become increasingly difficult. This led us to exploring digital tools that could make safety and quality compliance easier for our site managers and give our leadership team better visibility of all projects.
“Following our discussions with Martin, we’re now trialling the system on our Woodhorn Museum project. The site provides an ideal case study given its complex, heritage-focused nature and live operational environment, making it a strong test for real-time safety reporting. Key risks such as scaffolding and protection of historic fabric make reliable data capture essential, while the site’s remote location underscores the need for effective mobile and offline functionality.”
The management platform allows instant access to the correct form, such as risk assessments, site inductions, daily checklists and toolbox talk records on any device, removing the need to search shared drives. There is also Improved evidence for compliance with automatically time-stamped and geo-tagged records that support internal, ISO and HSE audits and fewer administration bottlenecks as site managers can complete, sign and upload in minutes rather than scan and email.
Added to this is enhanced data for leadership with dashboards that show trends such as the number of inspections, recurring issues and close-out rates. Improved culture by encouraging reporting and proactive safety behaviour, for example, turning Speak Up for Safety cards into instant digital reports.