Paperless asbestos site management case study

Background

CATC Compliance was established in 2020 to deliver all aspects of asbestos management and removal. Having worked as an operative, supervisor and ultimately contracts manager, founder Cathryn Lloyd wanted to use her experience and insight to build her own business, which would focus on best practice while offering safe and economic solutions.

In addition to the usual challenges of setting up a small business, Cath had to navigate the Covid pandemic. Though confident in her reputation and potential clients, Cath had seen other businesses fail, and in turbulent times she limited her exposure by securing an asbestos licence before investing in building up the company – a decision which saw her presenting to two Health and Safety Executive inspectors in her dining room.

Cath’s cautious approach has paid off. After the lifting of Covid restrictions, CATC Compliance was able to quickly establish itself, building on a strong reputation for its expertise. The firm has now secured contracts throughout England, Scotland and Wales, and it continues on a path of sustainable growth.

Challenge

With extensive experience of legacy asbestos management systems, Cath was only too aware of their limitations. She’d lobbied previous employers to explore alternatives to paper-based record-keeping and Excel spreadsheets, but hadn’t yet managed to break away from them.

Starting her own business from scratch, Cath knew she had the opportunity to build its asbestos management workflows and processes around a far better system. However, with the firm in its infancy, she also needed to manage limited resources. She took the decision that the site teams would start with a familiar paper-based system, and that the business would reconsider a digital solution once it had established itself.

Within a year, CATC Compliance was in a position to consider an asbestos management system. With Cath’s multiple roles in the business – from site supervision through to business management and administration – her time was at a premium, and she needed a system that would streamline and simplify her workflow. Moreover, at times when the business was working on multiple projects, Cath needed systems that would help her manage several teams – even when working on another site herself.

Results

In 2023, Cath was introduced to Assure360 founder Nick Garland, who was able to explain the ways in which the system might benefit her business. This was followed by a demo, after which Cath concluded Assure360 was ‘all the bells and whistles’ when compared to other systems she’d seen. Shortly afterwards, CATC Compliance became an Assure360 customer.

Cath was immediately able to benefit from many of the Assure360’s core advantages. With the Assure360 Paperless app, on-site paperwork was eliminated, along with site folders in which it might otherwise languish. Instead, Cath’s supervisors could now record their checks via a simple touchscreen interface, adding notes and photographs as necessary to complete the site diary.

Paperless’ plant menu delivered a further advantage, drastically reducing the setup time of each project. Instead of the error-prone manual logging of every serial number, for example, supervisors could now simply pick from a list, completing their plant records within moments.

This streamlining freed up supervisor time for other critical site roles, but also gave Cath a real-time insight into progress – and any issues – on all the business’ jobs. For a small firm, this is a critical advantage, reducing the need for Cath to attend site, and allowing her to focus on the management and smooth-running of all projects.

What the client said

Previously it was me overseeing the high-risk or bigger projects, and mainly because of the paperwork: just making sure everything was right. Now I’ve got a lot more trust in my supervisors, I can monitor and oversee the job live without having to be on the phone every five minutes. Assure360 has helped me get this confidence in the team.

I can pull up Assure360 – I can even login on my phone – and see everything about the job as it’s happening. Photos, the site diary, exposure, just everything. It means I don’t have to visit the site all the time to read the diary or check the paperwork, and that’s helped massively.

I don’t think it’s too complicated for people who aren’t tech savvy. One of my operatives was dyslexic, and had trouble to read and write. Instead of putting a pile of paperwork down in front of him, he could go on Assure360, see the method statement, get his photo taken to show he’s clean-shaven – and he could understand the work better from photos and plans displayed on the system.

I could never go back to paper now. We had an HSE inspection last week and there were no issues, we just presented them the tablet. If they asked for a particular thing, I could just show it to them on a single document. If an HSE inspector wants to see all the paperwork that correlates with the job then it’s all on there as well: the method statement, risk assessment, ASB5 – just everything associated with the project.

One of my biggest positives is the personal/exposure strategies, and how all the information is recorded and presented in a report. Reports are available in each subject, allowing us to monitor our company policies and targets. The biggest advantage is that all the information is stored and available on one system – this will be such a benefit during our license renewal this year. 

Assure360 really is great, and it’s evolving all the time. We have quarterly meetings now with the team, and things are always getting updated to make it better. They’re always wanting to improve things, but they involve you in that which is great.

Client name

• Cathryn Lloyd, Director

 

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