The Challenge

Job Safety Analysis (JSA) or Field Level Risk Assessment is a risk assessment tool utilized in many industries to identify and control worksite hazards. JSA aims to identify risks to the public, worksite personnel, and equipment and then discuss and implement ways to reduce that risk. While computer-based systems have been in place for years, the inconvenience and expense of having workers fill out forms using a desktop or laptop computer at the job site means that this market is still largely paper-based.

Paper forms can be difficult and tedious to fill out by hand and one job site can produce a significant amount of paper. In addition, many of these forms are quasi-legal documents used for incident investigations, contractual disputes and court cases. They need to be maintained, organized and stored efficiently and correctly.

AG Technical Solutions (UK) and (US) (AGTS) is a company based in Aberdeen, Scotland that provides functional and technical support to business operational divisions including: Project Management, Project Controls, Safety Management and Technical Training. Due to their experience working within these industries, AGTS identified the need to make the JSA process more efficient and enlisted DevFacto to build an application to service this opportunity.

The Solution

DevFacto worked with AGTS to develop a JSA application for tablet computers (specifically Apple’s iPad) called HazPad. HazPad is a logical thought process tool designed to recognize, evaluate, and manage job site hazards based on energy categorization (Motion, Chemical, Radiation, Electrical, Biological, and Pressure). It enables users to anticipate and identify hazards associated with a variety of physical activities, allocate “Risk Reduction Items” against each hazard, and identify ‘Stop the Job Intervention’ triggers when necessary.

Version 1 of the application allows for the easy creation, printing, and export of JSA forms at job sites and is on sale in Apple’s App Store. The application is initially free, with full functionality unlocked by a one-time in-app purchase. This allows AGTS the ability to offer an approved ‘free trial’ of the app within the Apple application ecosystem.

In addition to the HazPad mobile application, the client created a companion guide as a reference to the HazPad Process and Risk Assessment. Hosted on Apple’s iBooks store, end-users will always have access to this important material wherever they go.

HazPad, when deployed on the job site will provide customers with:

A simplified Job Safety Analysis process
Consistency of approach to risk assessment and a reduced training burden
The ability to create higher quality JSA’s with less missing information and incorrect risk assessments
A significant decrease of physical reference material provided to workers

“Finding a company that can help realize your aspirations without compromising your ideas is a ‘eureka moment’. DevFacto has been mine. This has been AG Technical Solutions’ first foray into the mobile platform app market and the DevFacto team were not only patient but, provided incredible insights as to best practices to increase the effectiveness of our app”
Scott McKenzie, Director, AGTS