Paper Logbooks in 2019? Crazy, Right?
We heard this exact quote from a manager that contacted us about a significant operation for which he was responsible.
For many, paper logbooks continue to be in use, even in large and important operations. Others have made a small, incremental improvement by using spreadsheets, access databases or by creating in-house developed logbooks. Still others are using decades-old technologies that just aren’t good enough.
To put it bluntly, you may be taking unnecessary risks with your operation by doing so. Further, important benefits of a modern digital logbook are being missed.
Some questions to consider:
1. Are your logbooks protected? Can a fire, flood or mishandling cause you to lose your records or any part of them?
2. Are your logbooks legible? Do they contain faded ink or undecipherable chicken scratch?
3. Can you add pictures or video to them to clearly document conditions?
4. Can they capture structured content? Start up/shut down procedures, etc.
5. Can you record inspections in the field and route them into your logbook for permanent keeping?
6. Can you review your logbook from anywhere? Home? In the field? In management offices?
7. What about research? How long does it take to gather research for audits or compliance reviews? Can you find requested, and often required, evidence of operating practices and conditions?
8. What about insight? Can you get charts or create handy tabular views of operational data? Is it easy to do?
9. Can you create reusable and configurable searches that can be shared with your teammates? Can you search at all?
10. What about backup, disaster recovery and business continuity plans? Do you have them?
11. What about sharing? Can you share the logs with others? What about corporate compliance?
12. Do you have solid visitor records? With photo identification?
13. Can you automate important entries from historians or other systems?
14. Can you design your own forms, as appropriate, for consistently documenting frequent conditions or actions?
15. Can you flag important ongoing issues to be carried forward and not lost until resolved?
16. How to you ensure that shift-to-shift communication occurs? Is there a record of operators acknowledging important shift-to-shift information exchange?
17. How do you keep track of field staff at remote sites? Phone calls and a notepad or spreadsheet? Is there a system for this? Permanent records?
You need to have good answers to these questions because the next person asking them may be an auditor or compliance officer.
Here at LogBook, helping organizations modernize their operations logging is what we do. You may be thinking… it will take too long, it will cost too much, or we’ll have to get IT involved, etc. But you just might be surprised to find that adopting a modern cloud based solution can be quick, cost effective and relatively easy.
If you are thinking that implementing a modern logbook takes a long time, consider this quote from a recent 200-person operation that we modernized in 2 days,
“I wasn’t sure they could do it. The LogBook guys arrived at our plant for the first time on a Tuesday morning. We began talking about our operation and our logbooks, which involved 10 or so different logbooks for different parts of our plant. As we reviewed all of our different needs, it seemed almost impossible that they would be able to get us setup and going in 2 days, but they did just that! On the 3rd day, all of our control rooms, equipment operators and various management teams were up and running smoothly, which was an amazing feat.”
Energy Plant Supervisor
We’d love to have a straightforward discussion about what you’re currently doing, whether we can add value to your operation, and if so, we’d like to put you quickly on the path to trying our product and determining for yourself whether we can help you do what you do better. Contact us today to get a discussion started, or just check us out at trylogbook.com.