Wincanton has rolled out a web-based health, safety, and environmental management system across 400 of its UK sites, following a three-month pilot.
The 3PL giant reckons it has slashed administrative costs as a result. Previously, its method of capturing safety, health and environmental-related incidents was a lengthy process. Each month details regarding incidents were captured via spreadsheets and completed at each site throughout the business.
This involved lots people and processes which was clunky, time-consuming and costly to administer, and could also lead to duplication errors.
The company decided that a health and safety management system would help provide accurate, real-time information, reduce the time spent producing statistical information for management reports and cut the associated costs.
It was also in the midst of expanding its European operations, for which it needed a single, central repository.
As a result, it opted for Rivo’s Safeguard system, and set the ball rolling with a three-month pilot across its UK locations. Subsequently, the system was rolled out across 15 European countries, translated into nine languages (Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Polish, Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian) and made accessible to more than 2,000 licensed users.
To deliver the system to these European locations, the two companies worked together to identify and meet the requirements specific to each country, translate the Wincanton system into multiple languages and train users on a country-by-country basis.
Safeguard was implemented across the business using a controlled, structured format, which enabled both organisations to measure the success of the project. The entire project – from the start of the pilot phase to full implementation – was delivered in nine months.
Rivo has continued to improve the Safeguard system for Wincanton. For example, it has implemented a Crime Reporting module, which gives Wincanton the ability to report criminal incidents.
The Risk Assessment and Audit/Inspection modules have also been modified to work in conjunction with the Incident Reporting module, to help increase visibility and improve efficiencies across the business.
All modules are available throughout 15 countries and in their native languages.
Sean Cusack, Wincanton group health & safety manager says: “Excellent management systems demand excellent data, and our previous systems had become burdensome and costly to administer.
“Safeguard has reduced the administrative burden, saving cost, whilst at the same time providing an efficient platform for information capture that has made life easier at site level.
“Management reviews are now more detailed and targeted, allowing us to make more precise judgements about how and where to allocate resource. We allocate a standard costing formula to each lost time accident (based on liability claims, sickness payments, agency replacement staff, overtime, management time etc).
“Reducing accident rates, or maintaining rates at very low levels, contributes to reducing our running costs and makes us more attractive to our customers.”
