Nord Safety case study - Olvi Oyj

Olvi Oyj

NordSafety case study

Olvi Oyj NordSafety case study

Introduction

For Finnish brewery company Olvi Limited, safety has never been better. And Lauri Multanen, Operations Director at the chain, credits part of that success to the implementation of EHSQ mobile application NordSafety. Discussing its previous poor records, Lauri says

“We have not had a very good safety history. We had lots of small accidents, nothing major or serious, but too many minor incidents. For the past five years we have been working on this, and actually now we have been able to cut the amount of incidents and accidents down to almost zero. We only had one minor accident within the past year, and NordSafety has been a very important part of the whole process within that time.”

Out with the old at Olvi Ltd

Before this period of reinvestment in the safety of its 350-strong workforce, Olvi Limited was struggling with an archaic health and safety system that did not support its good intentions. Lauri explains,

“That system was more than ten years old, and it was not mobile, so you could not use it on modern equipment such as tablets and smart phones – actually you couldn’t use it from outside the site, from any distance from the system. And when it came to reporting, that module of that system was non-existent, and there were some language issues as well. It was out of date, not user-friendly, and it was not flexible – on the contrary. We also had manual pen-and-paper methods in place.”

Reassessing the safety of the organisation led the brewery brand to look for a contemporary solution that better suited their needs. And for Olvi, that meant going mobile.

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Managing safety from the palm of the hand

Knowing that a mobile application would lead the organisation towards a safer and more modern future, Olvi ultimately found NordSafety, a partnership that would go on to improve its EHSQ statistics dramatically. Of selecting the app, Lauri says

“We had a couple of demos from similar kinds of applications, and we saw three or four different options in total, but we chose NordSafety because it seemed to be visual, simple to use and practical, and consequently would fulfil our need well. We implemented NordSafety just under a year ago - it’s easy to roll out, you don’t have to do any expensive major training projects for your employees, you can just roll it out very easily.”

As a result, Lauri believes that taking ESHQ management mobile was the right step:

“We can now do the near-miss reports on the spot as soon as something is being depicted or something is happening. We can log the accident in the system there and then, and you can also take photographs at the scene and add that to the report. You can have a whole story created in the same system and have it done on-site. You can also link the location to map so you can identify where you are when you are doing these reports, so that’s also helpful. You can use it on everybody’s mobile phones, so it can be used site-wide very easily.”

Olvi also implemented different checklists and inspections such as 5S audits into the NordSafety mobile solution, making it much easier to gather all relevant information and include photos in the reports. NordSafety creates 5S index trends automatically to show development and encourage people to keep the EHSQ standards on a high level. Many parts of these processes have been automated to save time related to reporting.

Engaging employees for a safer workplace

Lauri believes that this use of accessible technology has increased worker engagement with health and safety practices, which in turn has seen a rise in the amount of reports being made on the ground. He says,

“The number of near-miss reports has increased after the rollout of this system, because it is easy to use and you can use it on mobile around the site which helps a lot. You can use a QR code, the square code that you just read with your mobile phone, to immediately open the system, and it’s just very easy. The reception has been very positive. And of course, the easier the system is to use, the easier it is to launch for the employees, so you don’t have to have a comprehensive training system, you can just roll it out and enjoy!”

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Managing standards as well as safety

Across Olvi Limited’s Finnish brewery location, NordSafety is not only in use to monitor safety procedures – it has also been utilised in maintaining quality standards. Lauri tells us,

“We are not only using NordSafety in the safety aspect, we also use it in quality and environmental monitoring. So we actually have three elements in place in the system.

In the same way that we can do the near-miss reports concerning safety, if there is something hazardous or if something is considered a potential safety risk, we can also do the same thing to uphold standards and compliance - for example if the employee detects something that can be harmful in terms of the quality of the products or food safety. And then this also applies in the environmental area, for example if there is a chemical leak or an incident that could be considered a serious environmental deviation from the normal process.”

Developing a partnership with NordSafety

As early adopters of NordSafety, Olvi Limited has struck a close rapport with the software company, with the team using their feedback to meet the brewery’s specific requirements and requests.

“Our relationship with the NordSafety team is very positive, our wishes have been taken into account very well. The development of the system has also been done in part according to our requests, so that’s why it’s very flexible - most of the things we have asked for have been used as a kind of developing platform for the whole system. We have had good contact with the NordSafety company, we’ve had many meetings with them. It’s like a development partnership.”

Conclusion

For the Finnish branch of Olvi Oyj, the decision to implement NordSafety was one that helped the brewery site to achieve a turnaround for its health and safety efforts.

“NordSafety has been an essential part of the total process and the health and safety improvement and results have been very good. We keep a record of our accident-free days, and we hit the record at the end of the last year.

Lauri

Multanen

Operations Director, Olvi Limited www.olvi.fi

NordSafety

NordSafety wants to make safety engaging and productive for every organisation where HSEQ matters. With our mobile solution for HSEQ management, you save in collecting, analysing and utilising relevant data. Safety, environment and quality are becoming more and more important for organisations, and we are here to ensure HSEQ data works for you. www.nordsafety.com