Safety Knights

Would love to have a deeper conversation with you about that, and see If I can get you something

If you are a "One-Woman or One-Man Show" I know from experience I know you will be doing nothing more than fighting fires, especially in a large facility, without help or software to assist! When I was a large site manager (for over 25 years) I also had HR responsibilities, I could never do anything proactive in H&S until we got EHS Software. With over 300 SDS I had no chance of properly managing and complying with Haz Com without something like "MSDSonline". I had no chance of implementing a good Ergonomic Program without something like "Humantech or Ergo Factor." I barely was able to track my injuries and training on Excel, but it drained time for lots of other stuff!

Now as a consultant I always recommend to my customers EHS software. Most of my customers now are small manufacturing firms of around 200 employees. Typically my Safety Contact has other responsibilities in HR, Manufacturing, Engineering, or Quality. I often get my customers to try out various products, but the price tag almost ALWAYS scares them off. Of all my customers only one has invested in MSDSonline, and their prices have risen to the point this customer is looking at other options. However, they now have a very effective Haz Com program!

I can also tell you the competition in this market is fierce! I am constantly asked by GLG to consult with start-ups on entering the business. Sometimes I wonder if every retired Baby Boomer IT person thinks this is a good business to enter. Many of these companies are Canadian, I know of one practically right on the Canadian side of the border. I also have seen Chinese, Russian, and others getting in the business. Just this week I have been contacted to consult with Chinese and Russian start-us, which I turned down.

The technology is getting better every day, and some of the prices have dropped, Why EHS Velocity keeps jacking up their prices I do not understand!

Hello Mike. This is a great question, and my answer will be biased. In my experience, the typical ROI on an EHS system is measured in a few different ways:
1. time and resources saved on paperwork: how many hours per week/month you won't spend on checking boxes on paper, and be more engaged with the field.
2. compliance fines and field risk avoided through better data, reports, and automation. Your insurance broker will probably have something to say about this.
3. additional business won over competitors because your company invested in technology and forward-looking solutions.

Things to look for: user experience (!!), one solution that covers all your needs, easy access to data and reports.

My company, SkillSignal is a major US player. More info at https://www.skillsignal.com/
Connect with me https://www.linkedin.com/in/sdeghell/

We help our customers with this all the time and the most "slam dunk" case I ever saw (where $ ROI is involved) was at a Midwest utilities co - as someone else has also suggested here, the Safety Manager calculated that the safety team was collectively spending 5 days per month on admin e.g. copying info from paper to spreadsheets. He converted that into dollars and compared it with the running costs of safety software, which got the attention of the CEO who ended up sponsoring the project. I don't have a copy of the case but there is more info in this article I wrote, hope it's helpful: https://www.pro-sapien.com/blog/business-case-ehs-software/

Really common scenario to be moving from spreadsheets, hope you can get something implemented soon!

I was looking at ECO Online for our fire department. Not only would we be able to track injury/illness/near misses, we could also start to track A and B checks, morning safety briefs as needed, and make it easier to report on our cell phones and tablets. We could also complete safety inspections, take pictures and send the report to facilities if the correction was more on their side of things. Unfortunately we are in an audit year and despite having my BC, HR and myself doing a demo that looked very appealing, we were kinda shot down. I'm still trying to push for it. Good luck!