But even for the most dedicated site manager, the task of keeping your own house in order and looking after the required health and safety documents can present a serious challenge. Paperwork can easily get soaked with rain or coffee, walk off on the bottom of someone's shoe or be torn beyond recognition. And you try telling a judge that you're sure you filed that accident report somewhere . . .
New software
A new software system from Irish-based software company Complete Business Solutions aims to help site and project managers keep track of health and safety documents and to eliminate mangled and lost paperwork. Available on CD-ROM, Construction Health and Safety Manager shifts the emphasis away from the current, largely paper-based documentation to an electronic format.
The software is compliant with the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1996 and includes pre-contract safety files, construction plans, risk assessments, method statements, company safety policy, safe working procedures, accident procedures and reporting. There is also a section for recording the training needs of individuals and subcontractors.
The CD-ROM that contains the program costs £340. The technical support is free, and CBS also sends quarterly updates on construction health and safety by email. These include news, recent trends and updates to the software. From this month, the company will run a 24-hour helpline.
Owen Kavanagh is the managing director of Project Safety Management, an Irish health and safety consultancy that is using Construction Health and Safety Manager on four major projects across the Republic, including the redevelopment of Dublin airport. He finds that the software, although it follows UK law, helps him to comply with the Irish building regulations.
"By law everyone working on site must have a safety induction," Kavanagh says. "You can input this information into the software and immediately have a record of who has been trained.
"It can also be easy to lose paper copies," he continues, "and by using an electronic system, only you are responsible for the information and only you can change it. There is no risk of someone else tampering with your files. It is good for providing evidence in court if necessary, for that reason and to the client if required." The software also helps him to keep track of personnel on site and their training requirements. "Every subcontractor is listed, and all their employees. Included is any training they might require. This helps us to plan a training programme if necessary, and then we can make sure their employer carries it out. When there are upwards of 1000 people working on a site, this kind of package is really helpful in keeping track of them."
About 80-90% of health and safety documentation for construction sites is on paper. I, as well as others, have been developing bits and pieces of software for our own use, but this is the only comprehensive software product for health and safety
The only comprehensive software
Kavanagh, who has been developing the software with CBS for the past 18 months, claims that it is the first industry-wide software to deal with health and safety. "About 80-90% of health and safety documentation for construction sites is on paper. I, as well as others, have been developing bits and pieces of software for our own use, but this is the only comprehensive software product for health and safety.
"It is a lot of pain to do all that paperwork," he adds. "It has to be filled in, printed off and filed. Using this system, all you have to do is input the information once at the beginning of a project and update when necessary, so it saves me time as well as money. As long as someone is responsible for keeping the system up to date, it is very simple to use." Kavanagh holds a master system at his office, which is fed information from his consultants on site via email. "The system isn't geared up for multi-site use yet, and I have to tweak the information when it comes in to me from my consultants on site. But CBS is working on changing that. It has been very responsive to my suggestions," he adds.
Kavanagh says that the software also makes it easier to extract information for reports on particular individuals or sections of the project. "If a client wants to know if someone has had their health and safety training, for example, you can go straight to the information and print them a copy of that person's entry in the system if required. Previously, I would have had to go searching through lots of files."
He adds that the system is user-friendly and requires little training for those who are computer literate. "It takes about an hour for you to understand the system if you have used computers before, and there is a good 'help' section on the package if you get stuck. CBS also provides good technical back-up via a support helpline." Richard Cappleman, the managing director of CRC Construction in Hull, agrees with Kavanagh's assessment. "The back-up from CBS is excellent, absolutely first-class, even in unsociable hours," he says.
Legal framework
The legal framework the package provides is also an important consideration for him. "We do a lot of work for Associated British Ports, and its health and safety require-ments are very stringent," says Cappleman. "There is also more and more health and safety legislation to comply with all the time, and we were finding that we just didn't have the time to manually compile all the necessary information. Using an electronic system was the only way forward and Construction Health and Safety Manager was the only system we looked at that met all our needs. The section on risk assessment is particularly good." And it is not just CDM compliance with which the system helps, he says. "The templates on the system mean you can also compile your own bespoke health and safety report for projects not covered by CDM."
Cappleman adds that the system required "surprisingly little customisation" and that it saved money spent on health and safety consultants. "We usually have to spend hundreds on each project on health and safety consultants to compile our documentation," he says. "By using Construction Health and Safety Manager, we could do it all ourselves." Jonny Mulligan, sales director of CBS, adds that it is not the company's intention to put health and safety consultants out of business. "Although the software is for use by construction companies, we also developed it to help health and safety consultants do their business, which is why we are working closely with people such as Owen Kavanagh," he explains. "We want something that is useful for everyone in the industry who has to compile health and safety documentation, whatever the size of the project." CBS acknowledges that Construction Health and Safety Manager is a work in progress, and it issues regular updates of the system to all users.
Source
Construction Manager
