Global HSE Solutions: bringing efficiency to fire surveys & inspections

Global HSE Solutions: bringing efficiency to fire surveys & inspections

The challenge: finding the right tools for streamlined processes

Ross O’Loughlin is the Head of Global Technical Services, a role which combines business development with process development and improvement. In that capacity, he seeks to both improve the client’s experience of services while making those services more transparent, efficient and enjoyable for his team to deliver.  

When O’Loughlin joined Global Technical Services, he was keen to ensure his team had the tools they needed to deliver their work successfully. He also needed to be able to predict the scope and time needed for work in order to generate accurate quotes for clients. 

Another central challenge for the business is being able to recruit enough highly-trained professionals to fill the roles required. As a result, it’s important that each person at GTS is able to work efficiently to deliver the projects the division takes on without compromising their work-life balance.  

O’Loughlin said “My main concern was how we could speed up our surveys without losing the value within the survey. I wanted to improve the working life of my staff. Reporting, writing, and collating information around a survey has always been a laborious task. If we can streamline that in any way, that allows us to focus our energy on delivering our expertise.” 

The test: usability on a large-scale surveying project

Following a demonstration of PlanRadar at FIREX, O’Loughlin saw PlanRadar’s potential to be a one-stop shop for delivering surveys and inspection results. The ability to record video and integrate BIM were also key to GTS’s requirements around the Building Safety Act and increased expectations for data collection in line with the Golden Thread of Information.  

After further conversations, the team decided to trial the software on one project from start to end. 

The test project was based in a university in Northern England, where the surveying team were delivering a damper inspection survey. There were thousands of dampers to inspect, making this a task that required meticulous record-keeping.  

The team’s feedback was unanimous: “The guys on the test project said that PlanRadar was fantastic. It really sped up their reporting and it was very usable.”