5 Ways You Can Utilize Your ERP to Foster a Safe Work Culture

Employees working in mining, industrial and manufacturing industries often operate in high-risk environments, which require a considerable degree of safety awareness.

A safe working culture is more than a safety plan. It involves a proactive approach to preventative measures across the entire organisation. ERP safety processes offer a myriad of features that can be leveraged to provide a safe working culture for organisations and employees.

Give Your Staff the Skills to Stay Safe

Safety isn’t as simple as asking employees to be careful. Without an adequate training framework, an organisation could place an unskilled employee at risk of a work-related injury. This can be managed by utilizing a training module within your ERP, which links directly with personnel details contained in human resources modules, and may pull data in from LMS (Learning Management System) reports.

Training modules offer a variety of reporting tools to ensure personnel have the skills they require to safely perform their role. Information such as course attendance, qualifications and accreditations can be used to manage and monitor organisational training requirements, avoiding risks associated with expired certifications and skill shortages.

Use Your Data to Make the Right Decisions

One of the biggest benefits of an ERP is the ability to utilise organisational data in real-time. They are comprised of modules which integrate to share data across the system. Organisation-wide data insights can be found by taking advantage of cross-module reporting capabilities. Reports can be used to pinpoint at-risk demographics, recurring injuries and common injury locations, which can be compared against industry benchmarks.

Organisational hierarchies are often complicated, and an ERP workflow system can be used to open communication channels and refine business processes. Approval and notification lines can be used to ensure critical information reaches the right people when they need it.

Establish Barriers to Danger

Even in highly regulated industries, such as mining and manufacturing, accidents continue to occur. ERP can enforce security by restricting access; both physically and digitally, to individuals without required credentials.

ERP integrated swipe cards and similar identification systems can be used to restrict physical access to dangerous areas such as blast zones, assembly lines, dangerous goods storage store rooms and underground sites. When swiped (or beeped), information can be validated against security clearance and required qualifications. Movements throughout the organisation can be tracked and used to determine incident hotspots or personnel most frequently at risk. This can be especially useful for organisations with a high number of contracted personnel.

Enforcing access restrictions throughout the ERP ensures users will only access areas of the system specific to their role. This is vital to protecting sensitive data and maintaining information integrity. Overall, this will have an impact on the accuracy of forecasts and the quality of decisions made.

Automate and save More than Time

ERP automated functionality can be used to effectively manage staff and resources, allocate the right people to the right jobs, schedule optimal staffing levels and provide a safe working environment.

• Contractual obligations can be integrated into the system, the parameters providing a framework for successful project management.
• Leave balances can be monitored and managed to achieve optimal staffing levels, especially during periods such as Christmas and holidays.
• Scheduling tools, such as shift calendars and preventative maintenance, can be used to allocate resources and equipment, significantly reducing the risk of malfunctions and injury to employees.
• Automatically generated notifications can be used to contact required individuals for timely responsiveness in the event of an incident.
• Barcode scanners can significantly reduce the time required to perform stocktakes, simultaneously increasing accuracy and reducing fatigue levels.

Implement a Health and Safety Module

ERP safety modules provide a central repository for safety-related information and to assist with legislative compliance, empowering organisations to take a proactive approach to workplace safety.

Organisations also gain an advantage in prediction and prevention of safety-related incidents. In the event of an incident, management tools within ERP safety modules can be used to oversee the incident and ensure proper procedure is followed.

Dashboards can also be configured to effectively monitor safety standards, identify work-incident patterns and provide insights to target areas for improvement.