Edrington makes some of the world’s best known Scotch Whiskies and other premium branded spirits including The Famous Grouse, Highland Park and The Macallan. As well as the whisky distilleries, the company also owns a number of manufacturing and bottling plants, with nine sites in total across Scotland. 

As part of a recent project to standardise engineering operations across all of the Scottish sites, the Health and Safety team were tasked with reviewing all of their Health and Safety processes.The team faced the challenge of reconciling the different processes, rules and systems spread across nine sites, ranging from paper permit books to spreadsheet based check lists,  which were applied inconsistently across the company.

“These risks were being handled differently across different sites,” said Julie Manuel, UK Health and Safety Manager. “Creating company-wide Health and Safety or Contractor Management reports was difficult because the data resided in many different formats.So, visibility of the combined operations was very limited and there was no efficient way to audit all of the different systems.”

It was recognised early on in the project that a company-wide electronic system to handle work permits and their associated Risk Assessments and Method Statements(RAMS) would improve visibility and eventually help to enforce a standard set of Safety management processes across all the Scottish sites. 

The Health and Safety team at Edrington chose  P2W , GEMsoft7’s electronic Permit to Work and Contractor Management system because they liked the flexibility that  P2W & nbsp;provides; it was easily configured to match their processes, rather than the other way around. “The other systems we looked at could only offer one set of processes out of the box, and any changes to reflect our way of working would need to have been undertaken at some expense and as time consuming enhancements” 

“What we also liked about GEMsoft7 was, we felt our business mattered to them and they were enthusiastic about our project.We were able to have face-to-face conversations with them, which made the configuration and setup process much easier.

The team at GEMsoft7 have a detailed knowledge, not just of the  P2W   technology but of the underlying Health and Safety procedures, the legislation, and how other organisations put this system into practice most effectively.They even helped manage the project and offered invaluable advice about how to get the system up and running quickly and effectively without some of the pitfalls associated with larger projects.”