Project Overview
Zero Harm is an integrated safety management solution designed to support workers operating in high-risk environments such as mine or construction sites. Users can instantaneously report a geo-tagged safety hazard or incident using the native Android app, putting the days of slow and clunky paper based reporting in the past. Automated email notifications and the companion website integrate with the Zero Harm mobile app and allow safety personnel to quickly react to any situation.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Deloitte: Adrian Cardenosa, Daniel Guelfi, Kenny Wong, Reece Wagner
Curtin University: Anij Shreshtha, F.X. Dio Budiraharjo, Scott Lambert, Stephanie Siao
Project Brief
Zero Harm was designed to support a ‘safety culture’ by providing users with an intuitive, modern and simple platform for reporting, monitoring and consuming information on safety incidents and hazards.
The Android application is used to report safety hazards and incidents by capturing an image, the details of the event, and location, which are in turn submitted via an interface to a companion website. Newly submitted reports appear in the website application in real-time, allowing administrators to action these as soon as they are identified. The end result is a faster reporting mechanism which is able to provide detail such as GPS location and hazard/incident images not seen in traditional paper and spreadsheet driven processes.
Other key functionality of the application includes the ability to show hazards nearby based on the user’s location, an emergency contact list defined server-side and a quick contact form to engage safety administrators.
Usability was baked into the development process of the application by constantly testing design decisions against two personas – ‘The Worker’ and ‘The Safety Administrator’. The application also includes a Gamification element which rewards safety-conscious users with the possibility of linking this functionality to an employee incentive program. The application is also a native Android solution and benefits from greater responsiveness and usability not afforded by mobile web apps and ‘one size fits all’ framework alternatives.
Overall Zero Harm provides a robust, workflow-enabled, end to end mechanism to identify, manage and report on safety incidents and hazards.
Project Need
Zero Harm aims to address the business problem of slow, inefficient safety reporting by utilising mobile and web architecture to provide near real-time data to relevant employees. It is an end-to-end safety management solution, from the initial event capture on the Android device, documenting the status of an incident all the way to reporting on resolved events.
The solution is intended as a tool to complement existing safety processes such as Take 5s and Job Hazard Assessments (JHAs), by providing an entirely automated workflow between Mobile and Web components to ensure that incidents and hazards can be quickly assigned to the appropriate party.
Recognising the challenges of operating in remote areas, the application will store submissions made when no network connection is present and automatically submit them a network connection is re-established.
As the current and historical submission data is stored in a structured manner, statistical information can be generated through the companion website which can be used to derive safety intelligence for the business. Reports implemented for the solution include an analysis of the total number of incidents, the total cost of incidents, and the number of active hazards. These reports also allow for further drilling of information down to a particular site for more advanced analysis.
User Experience
In order to tailor the user experience for the Zero Harm solution, two personas were developed at the project onset. These personas were ‘The Worker’ for the mobile application and ‘The Safety Administrator’ for the companion website. Each persona described the profile of the model user, their goals and aspirations in the context of their work and a typical day for that user. Design considerations were frequently tested against each persona to ensure the requirements of that user segment were met.
By adopting a user centric design approach, the usability of the solution was evaluated on a frequent basis which complemented the agile development approach.
An example of such a design change made in response to testing against the ‘Worker’ persona was the incident/hazard submission form. Originally a scrollable, data-intensive form which took approximately a minute to fill out, the form was redesigned to support the profile of the Worker persona who is active throughout the work day and requires a fast mechanism to report between construction activities in controlled safe zones. The form was reduced in complexity and refined over several iterations to ensure it could be completed and submitted in less than 30 seconds.
The Android application also includes a gamification element which awards titles for submission milestones. An evolving infographic tracks a user’s submission progress toward the ultimate title of ‘Zero Harm master’. As the data for these milestones is available and auditable there is the potential to implement an incentive-based reward model to users.
Project Marketing
We are confident that Zero Harm will achieve a quick return on investment through reduction in Lost Time Injury (LTI) incidents. Reduction will be achieved by the quicker response times afforded using a mobile application to instantly transmit reports via the internet to the cloud-based web solution with email notifications advising safety staff of the event. Safety staff can then act to reduce the hazard in a much faster fashion than would be possible through the use of paper or web forms accessible on-site.
Zero Harm was a finalist in the Western Australia IT Awards (WAITTA) and has subsequently made it through to the national iAwards for the ICT industry.
Zero Harm has excellent market potential in the Energy and Resources industry as it significantly improves on a fundamental process underpinning all operations - by providing a workflow-enabled, end to end mechanism to identify, manage and report on safety incidents and hazards.
As the pilot of Zero Harm has only recently concluded, opportunities are still being pursued in the marketplace.
In Field Services
This category relates to applications developed in order to aid and facilitate organisations requiring mobility whilst out of the office.
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