Read about real builders, self builders and others in the trade and find out about the types of projects they've undertaken using HBXL software packages.
Andrew Snell and Health & Safety Xpert
19/10/2008 19:55:00
Andrew Snell uses Health & Safety Xpert to stay stay on site, win more contracts and increase his profit.
Andrew Snell and his company DJ Snell are based in Clacton-on-Sea in Essex. The company has been trading since 1948 and became a Limited company in 1981. Andrew directly employs a 6 strong workforce and works with a variety of subcontractors.
In 2006 Andrew secured a contract with EDF Energy. This created a massive amount of work from a health and safety perspective as with commercial works it is necessary to produce and supply health and safety documentation with the quotation at tender stage.
Business goals
In order to win the EDF contract in the first place he needed to provide quality health and safety documentation before the project commenced to demonstrate his company’s competence.
Andrew also wanted to save money on health and safety consultant fees without jeopardizing his chances of winning the work or putting his team’s health and safety at risk. Expenditure on the production of the health and safety paperwork through external companies without being sure of winning the contract is an expensive risk – and given the regularity of contracts for which he was tendering, Andrew needed a way to make financial savings.
Andrew also needed – like any UK building company to adhere to UK health and safety law – specifically the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the new Construction Design Management (CDM) Regulations 2007 to ensure the health, safety and welfare of contractors and the public alike on site particularly where a mistake could mean instant death.
If the safety situation on site changes, Andrew needed to be able to extremely quickly produce updated or new risk and coshh assessments or method statements on site with his laptop and provide new documentation and training to his team and record the fact that he has provided this training and Toolbox Talks on the fly.
Of course, if any health and safety officer were to inspect his sites he would need to be able to prove his competence and so was aware that all his risk assessments and other documentation were available at hand on his laptop.
Applications used
Andrew purchased Health and Safety Xpert Total Toolkit edition in 2006 from HBXL and has been using it intensively ever since. With regular health and safety updates from HBXL’s website direct into his software, Andrew is totally up to date and this gives him peace of mind that he’s got his health and safety covered.
It’s built in knowledge base determines the likely tasks and risks involved on site. Plus there are many other essential documents that Health & Safety Xpert produces that will help effortlessly fulfill legal documents.
Quicker still, as Andrew has HBXL ‘EstimatorXpress’ he can import his estimate into Health & Safety Xpert and it will automatically produce the paperwork for the job.
Implementation process
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations came into force on 6th April 2007, primarily to improve health and safety within the building industry, to have the right people for the right job to manage the risks on site, and also to focus on effective planning and managing risk.
The regulation changes placed legal duties on virtually everyone involved in construction work and as such Andrew had to demonstrate to the Client (EDF Energy) that as one of the CDM Co-ordinators and Principal Contractors sub contractor team not only could he advise them on health and safety issues during the design and planning phases of the construction work, but that he could also plan, manage and co-ordinate health and safety whilst the construction work was being undertaken from both the office or out on site.
Health and Safety Xpert from HBXL, fitted his requirements.
The software itself is incredibly simple to use with no need for training, all Andrew had to do was to tell the software the type of job that he was undertaking and then it selected the relevant risk and COSHH assessments for him as well as completing many critical other documents.
Not only does the software come with context sensitive help on every screen, Getting Started Guides are supplied as standard to give hints and tips on using the software, in addition to which it comes with a guide (in plain English) detailing the regulations and documents needed to be produced.
Andrew says “In the time it had taken me to eat two sandwiches a cake and a couple of biscuits I had produced an entire health and safety policy for the job! Not only did the time saved help but the quality of the documents I now produce and the way they are presented is professional & easy to read for all levels of operative on site”
Business benefits
Andrew also says: “The software is marvelous! When I show people the relevant paperwork they actually laugh as it’s so thorough they think its too much! I can either give them the printed copies or show/send them electronically. As I’m out on site I can tailor the risk assessment to a specific job by simply amending an odd sentence in the risk assessment on my laptop on-site. With the method statements I can take out sections that are not relevant and all of the statement is renumbered. I needed a piece of software that I could adapt to each environment – both commercial and residential; the beauty of Health and safety Xpert® is that I can tailor it to my needs and my clients stringent requirements”
Having Health and Safety Xpert from HBXL has enabled Andrew to win more contracts, streamline the way in which he produces his health and safety documentation and as such has meant that he successfully retained the contract with EDF Energy, making a good margin as well.
He added “EDF Energy are really hot on health and safety issues, so far since I have sent them the paperwork I’ve had no queries or questions, which is great from our point of view, especially with the complexity and dangers of the job being in such close proximity to sub-station cables and pylons!”
Andrew continues “I think that on this particular job I must have used every risk assessment within the software as the job was so complex. Everything that I required came as standard within the package, there were risk assessments for everything from mobile towers to buried services, something that this particular site had in spades! When the CDM regulations changed in April, HBXL sent me a software update to ensure that I remained compliant with the regulation changes – Brilliant!”