How Comply Flow rolled out a custom WHS solution for Fortstone in 5 days

buildings

Background

Fortstone is a building, asset and facilities management company based in Victoria, with a number of properties under their management.

Like many companies in this space, safety is a high priority for Fortstone, who were looking for a way to ensure safety across their sites, as well as streamline their safety management processes. Of particular interest was how they managed incidents, contractor access, high risk works and general contractor compliance.

Challenge

In Q4 of 2022, a discovery session enabled us to identify some of the key challenges Fortstone wanted to address with a digital solution. Some of these included:

  • Fortstone wanted a consistent way to manage records or audit trail to capture information on critical incidents (i.e. those required for WorkSafe)
  • Fortstone sought a solution which included complete visibility over supplier compliance (at the company and worker level), to reduce exposure to liability risk (e.g. if someone was injured on site without a valid High Risk Work Licence, or if insurance was out of date)
  • Fortstone were looking to reduce the administrative burden faced by site managers and safety teams in managing compliance across multiple sites

Moreover, it needed to be flexible enough to handle their unique business processes (eg. map to their existing incident forms and compliance criteria for the contracted workforce), it needed to be easy-to-use and it needed to be implemented fast.

In summary, Fortstone was looking for a single platform that could solve all their immediate compliance, safety and administrative challenges in one place.

Solution

In November 2022, Comply Flow was able to implement a solution for Fortstone in 5 days.

Using our existing library of Global Documents (standard industry matrix of roles and competency documents or qualifications) we set up Fortstone’s account in less than a week with a fully-automated contractor worker management system to request the correct documentation from all contractors and their workers joining.

This expedited implementation included set-up, configuration and roll-out of the following modules (these all work together, in one place).

  • Supplier/Contractor Management Used to onboard, prequalify and manage all of Fortstone’s suppliers, across all their sites

  • Workforce Management Enabled suppliers to add their Workers, and for the system instantly request the right documentation for their compliance (based on job description or role)

  • Live Access / Site Access Live Access provides Fortstone with real-time monitoring for on-site suppliers (and workers) compliance, sign-in time and digital register of all workers or visitors signing in at site (Live access allows Fortstone to manage by exception)

  • Incident Management This module provides a single location for Fortstone to report on, track and manage incidents through corrective actions to close-out, and provide a clear record-trial for future audits

  • Forms (for Work Permits) A paperless solution for Fortstone the application, review, approval and tracking of all Work Permits for contractors across their site using our flexible ‘forms’ module (Permits also work seamlessly with the Live Access applications)

Each module is accessible to Fortstone in one platform, with each service ‘speaking’ to each other seamlessly to ensure that there’s safety data is consistent and reliable end-to-end.

Overall, the solution Comply Flow enabled the Fortstone team to:

  • Streamline administration for the personnel involved in managing contractor compliance, incidents and work permits
  • Eliminate compliance gaps stemming from regulator visits, audits and internal reviews (e.g. WorkSafe)
  • Automate notifications and alerts, reviews and corrective action tasks for the Fortstone team

The verdict?

In our follow up with the Fortstone team, we were delighted to hear they saw value in implementing Comply Flow almost instantly.

As one member of the Fortstone team reported,

We had a reportable fall from height incident this week, and Work Safe were very satisfied with our compliance system, forms and steps taken…. they were happy with how things were managed.

After Work Safe's triage investigation into the fall from height incident (and conclusion that no further inquiry was necessary) they noted they would be interested to drop by to see how Fortstone’s compliance processes were implemented and managed.

With Comply Flow, Fortstone were able to demonstrate that the incident was appropriately reported, with a clear record of incident investigation and corrective actions (including documentation uploaded), a record of all the long-term preventative actions and notification to the regulator, all captured in one clear audit trail.

fortstone

Image courtesy: service seeking

The team at Fortstone, within a month of roll-out, now use Comply Flow as their source of truth on incidents, contractor compliance and permits, to ensure that work is tracked correctly through the job. With the recent fall from height incident, Fortstone Director Ben Fristch reported:

"The software pays for itself in one incident"

Evidently, Comply Flow has already demonstrated its worth in compliance following the WorkSafe review. As time goes on, the digital solutions Comply Flow implemented for Fortstone will only continue to grow in value, saving Fortstone not only time and money, but protecting them from liability and keeping their workforce safe.


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