South Jersey Industries

Challenge

For years, the SJI Safety team had been collating data from across divisions and departments using paper forms, emails, and Excel spreadsheets.

Unfortunately, this meant lost time at almost every step of the process. Not only was entering data into a spreadsheet every month time-consuming, but it led to numerous data errors.

In addition, because Excel is not designed to do all that SJI needed, the file became very large and unstable. It would often freeze and crash, causing more time delays.

Furthermore, the data was not connected to any other IT systems, so it wasn’t easy to disseminate safety information across the business.

"The challenges SJI had before Pro-Sapien are common headaches we come across in many organizations. However, it’s clear that SJI has a safety record to be proud of, so it was our mission to deliver a safety management software system to match. The fact SJI was using Office 365 meant we were well placed to help the Safety team maximize that investment with a modern, built-for-purpose, widely-accessible solution."

– Colin Espie, Developer, Pro-Sapien

Aims

Recently, SJI made a strategic investment in Microsoft Office 365. The company was successfully using the platform in several ways, including for documents and email—but not yet for safety.

Therefore, when the SJI Safety team came across Pro-Sapien, it was a no-brainer.

Together with Pro-Sapien, SJI set about solving the IT disconnect in several ways:

• Integration with Active Directory for the up-to-date org hierarchy
• Access through the SJI SharePoint with single sign on (SSO)
• Familiar interface easy for users to adopt
• Forms, libraries and dashboards all on a single platform
• Power Automate (Flow) enabled integration with other business apps to reduce duplication of effort
• License structure not prohibitive to allow all employees access
• Configuration in all areas of the software to match SJI processes

"We first learned of Pro-Sapien in a safety publication article outlining the benefits of a consolidated safety software system. From there, we researched the solution and were excited to learn that it ‘checked all the boxes’ of what we were looking for and so much more."

– Craig Stewart, Director of Safety & Quality, SJI

Results

Subsequently, SJI rolled out Pro-Sapien across the group in 2020. The Safety team was able to replace inefficient IT systems and connect Safety to the rest of the company.

Already in the early stages of using Pro-Sapien, SJI is seeing many benefits:

1.   More time for proactive activities

Instead of wasting time on manually entering safety data, the team is freed up to work on proactive tasks such as developing job safety analyses and new safety training.

2.   Greater visibility across the organization

Drill-down visuals have been added to corporate SharePoint dashboards, so there is now greater access to safety metrics and performance across the company.

3.   Rollout of a formal Near Miss program

Using Pro-Sapien as the key tool, SJI is seeing a positive impact from capturing near misses, investigating the causes, and sharing lessons learned.

However, the biggest benefit for SJI has been the widespread visibility into safety performance, thanks to Pro-Sapien’s integration with Office 365.

"Before, the organization only saw what the Safety team had time to distribute. Now, with Pro-Sapien, safety information is right there on corporate dashboards along with our financial and operations performance.

Having safety top of mind and having the entire organization aware of our performance leads to greater involvement in the safety program by all employees."

– Craig Stewart, Director of Safety & Quality, SJI