Energy firm Centrica to centralise health, safety and environment software systems
The utility firm, which sources and supplies energy to subsidaries inlcuding Ireland's Bord Gais US-based Direct Energy, will consolidate its incident management, audits and inspections programme using the platform in what has been described as a "milestone project for the industry", according to CRedit360's director Mark Shields.
The software will allow the firm, with of workforce of 37,000, to analyse data and send automated reports and dashboards, send them to director level for sign off and provide business intelligence for the board.
Employees will be able to log information on the ground through smartphone apps as well as through a desktop portal.
"Given the nature of our business, Health & Safety is the top priority on our agenda," Philip Sayer, head of health safety and environment governance and assurance at Centrica said.
"This is a business critical system to help us to manage HSES performance and take a more proactive stance to further enhance our position. CRedit360 covers the full spectrum of our needs, after a comprehensive selection process we are very much looking forward to working with the credit360 system."
CRedit360 also provides systems for engineering firm Arup, Bettercoal, Aviva, British Airways, Boots, Betfair and British American Tobacco.
A vital aspect of the software is its automated functions, something that has proved to be crucial for health and safety in the energy industry.
In 2010, an explosion on BP's oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico caused the death of eleven employees and the spill of millions of barrels of oil into the sea.
An investigation into the disaster found that BP's monitoring systems - then a standard in the energy industry- had provided the necessary safety data, however the firm relied too heavily on manual observation and human eyes could miss the warning signs.
A report by the Oil Spill Commission, published in 2011, stated: "In the future, the instrumentation and displays used for well monitoring must be improved""There is no apparent reason why more sophisticated, automated alarms and algorithms cannot be built into the display system to alert the driller and mud logger when anomalies arise."
BP has since rolled out health and safety environment software CA Clarity 12.0 more widely across the business, allowing it to assess risk reduction projects and automatically send reports to the board to analyse.
Vendor CRedit360 also provides systems for engineering firm Arup, Bettercoal, Aviva, British Airways, Boots, Betfair and British American Tobacco to fulfill energy-based regulations and monitor firms' environmental footprints.
Centrica generated more than £2.7 billion in operating profit in 2013. It did not disclose the cost of the project announced this morning.
Image: Centrica's Hummingbird Spirit floating production storage and offloading boat in the North Sea Centrica