Software Procurement

I’ve been developing software for over 20 years and I think I might have learnt a thing or two about what people want and I can tell you everyone wants something different!

Surveying companies want to have a USP and a system that increases efficiency on site, property owners want to know if they are compliant, contractors want to know where the asbestos is. The list goes on. The one thing all of these have in common is: “I want software to make my life easier!”

How I started in the Asbestos software development business.

After surveying a 20-acre site, predominantly built out of asbestos, (it would have been easier to report on what wasn’t asbestos) and delivering half a rain forest in hard copy PDF reports, the Health & Safety Manager asked, more out of despair I felt, if there was a better way of delivering the information e.g. electronically. That was my “Light Bulb” moment. Driving back up the A1, I thought: I have a PC at home, I could write an asbestos management software system, sell it for a million pounds and retire! As you can see, Plan A failed catastrophically and, 20 years’ on, I’m still trying to perfect the art of software development!

So, what did I learn?

• I knew nothing about software development,

• This was going to be a considerably more difficult project than I imagined,

• I needed a professional software developer,

• I needed to undertake substantially more market research into what ALL potential users actually wanted.

 On finding a tame software developer, we both embarked on a great learning curve. My understanding of what was actually possible and he learning that there was actually life in the great outdoors! I took him out surveying with me for 2 weeks, which completely changed his opinion of what was needed! Crawling along an underground duct and trying to input data into a device was significantly harder than doing it sitting at a desk!

So, now he understood the requirements from a surveying perspective - he then sat with the asbestos management team to see how they needed to manipulate the data and the report structure they required. Then it was spending time with Property Owners and Maintenance Workers to understand fully their requirements. Then, and only then, did we start writing our first software and continued to do so, and will continue to do so because the development aim never changes: continual improvement, but the customer requirement alters on a daily basis.

The biggest lesson I learnt in all of this was: you can write the best piece of software on the planet… it is only as good as the data in it.

This is where it is inextricably linked to the survey scope because, if the surveyor is not collecting the exact data you require to manage your asbestos, then your chosen software system will become annoying, frustrating and, ultimately, redundant.

So, when procuring asbestos software what should you be looking for?

Firstly, what is it going to be used for?

Some systems are very surveyor-facing, some are very client/property owner-facing and some do both.

If you are a Surveying Company, then your main priorities will be:

1. Managing your survey team
2. Surveying efficiently whilst on site (on-site data collection apps)
3. Keeping your survey teams out surveying and not in the office writing reports
4. Producing fully customisable reports and templates
5. Highlighting any remedial actions
6. Flagging any re-inspection requirements
7. Management tools for interrogating the data

Whilst, if you are a Property Portfolio Owner or Manager, your requirements will be different:

Ability to import existing information

1. Making the survey information readily available to anyone and everyone liable to disturb it
2. Ensuring your chosen software will “Communicate” with other property management systems you may have
3. Flagging sites that require surveys
4. Flagging sites where the asbestos is not in a “Safe & Manageable” condition and recommending remedial action
5. Flagging sites requiring re-inspection
6. Dashboards to monitor the situation in a simple and visual way
7. Notifications when sites become non-compliant
8. Quick and concise reports
9. Different user levels from read-only to full administrator
10. Tracking of any remedial actions
11. Keeping the responsible person out of prison (perhaps that should have come first!)

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to focus more on the end user/property owner. If any survey guys would like any information on procuring surveying software, please don’t hesitate to contact me, I’m always happy to help if I can.

Firstly, let me just dispel a small myth: attaching hard copy (PDF) survey documents and making them available on line is NOT a database. For small property portfolios, they can be useful but have serious limitations when it comes to effectively managing your asbestos.

A data base (Db) should be live data that can be viewed, edited (with limitations) and interrogated. Ideally, your chosen consultant should be keeping your data base up to date but, where do you start?

Let’s look at a couple of scenarios:

The property owner has a portfolio of 80 buildings and has had numerous surveys undertaken. The FM manager has filing cabinets full of hard copy reports and an Excel spreadsheet with limited information but, it works, in a fashion. She, (let’s call her Anne) is getting daily calls from maintenance workers and contractors asking for asbestos information and reports. Her chosen surveying company is receiving calls on a daily basis to visit sites and buildings to verify ambiguous information and take more samples, of which all the results are coming back via email and PDF. She is drowning under a mass of paperwork and requests for information - sound familiar?

Anne has identified that the process needs to be more efficient and has decided a software package is the best option.

This is where she really needs to stop and think and ask herself a few questions:

What am I actually trying to achieve?

I need a system that will assist me in managing my asbestos safely and will allow other parties to undertake their responsibilities without the need to contact me, although I will need to know they are actually undertaking their responsibilities.

I want my chosen surveying company/companies to have access to the system and to input all survey information directly into it.

To do this, the system must be Web Based but with controlled access. The system must allow a Survey Job to be sent to a company and give them temporary access to a site to update/input the information. With trusted consultants, you may want to give them the responsibility of ensuring the whole data base is kept up to date.

I want to notify maintenance workers and contractors where the asbestos is and ISN’T.

Do not assume all people are IT literate - they are not. Access to information needs to be quick and simple, whilst giving sufficient information to undertake individual risk assessments.

I require a visual dashboard view so that I can see at a glance where, if any, of my issues lie.

Ideally, these need to be delivered automatically by email or smartphone so that there is not a requirement to keep logging into the software.

I want quick and concise reporting so I can answer any questions quickly, accurately and concisely.

The secret here is never to be in a position where you can be ambushed, when asked in a management meeting what the budget needs to be for asbestos next year. It is there at your fingertips.

I want to feel in control of my Asbestos Management.

This is eminently achievable as long as you have the right system, the  right consultant and above all, the right data.

OK, so let’s look at what Anne has. She has over one hundred hard copy PDF survey reports, she has numerous emails with pdf sample results attached and she has an excel spreadsheet with all her building information in and some asbestos information.

1. The most important question: “Where do I see my asbestos management system and processes in 12 months’, 2 years’ and 3 years’ time, because that is what will always be your driving factor.
2. I need the system to be adaptable and fit in to my existing processes, I don’t want to make major changes to my existing procedures to facilitate a new software system.
3. Review my property portfolio and split it into build date bands:
   1. Band 1 build date pre-1985
      1. Blue and Brown asbestos use was banned in 1985 (although can sometimes be found in later properties)
   2. Band 2 Properties build date post 1985 to 2000
      1. Lower risk White asbestos products gaskets, floor tiles, cement products etc.
   3. Band 3 build date post 2000
      1. Complete ban on all asbestos in 1999 (although asbestos has been found in imported products after that date.)
4. The purpose of this is to prioritise your actions. Initially, you could eliminate all of your post 2000 and concentrate on the pre-1985 sites.
5. Review and assess the survey information available: basically, is the information worth inputting to your database? If not, it may be advisable to scope a new survey.
6. Where the data is deemed to be good, prioritise sites to be input. What I mean by this is; there would be little point initially inputting good survey data from hard copy that are all negative locations. If the building does not contain asbestos, attach the document and put notes in the Database to reflect the results and guide users to the hard copy documentation.
7. If there were positive locations, they would more than likely require re-inspecting as part of the management plan. I would suggest the persons undertaking the re-inspections should input the data whilst on site. I would also take this opportunity to review/audit the existing survey to prove its accuracy.
8. Adding in additional useful information, for easy management and reporting. For example and, from my personal perspective, asbestos can be in only 1 of 2 conditions. I can practically guarantee that data would not be available in your existing reports.
   1. Safe & Manageable
   2. Requiring Action

 9. Assess which other systems within my business where the asbestos data needs to be shared.

1. If data is to be shared with other software systems, then there has to be a commonality between the data sets. An example of this is the buildings, floors and rooms. Look at these two data sets:
   1. Main Building, Ground Floor, Boiler room
   2. Main Building, Ground floor Level, Plant room
2. A human being looking at this would say they are the same area; a computer looking at this would say they are entirely different therefore, if you require different software systems to “Talk” to each other, these data sets must be exactly the same.
3. A good example of this is a works order system. The software produces a works order with the instruction to carry out maintenance work. If the requirement was to append any asbestos data to that works order as a warning to the workers, then the Building Floor and Room much match exactly in both the works order software and the asbestos software.

10. Assess which persons, departments, contractors (internal & external) and other interested parties (emergency services) this need to be shared with.

11. What budget am I working with to achieve my goals and over what period?

12. Whom do I have to include in this process from the beginning? It’s no good getting 12 months’ down the line and IT infrastructure say they won’t support it.

13. Now, I can start looking for the software system that’s going to satisfy all my requirements and, if there isn’t one, are there companies that will adapt their systems to my specific requirements?

In conclusion, Asbestos Management is relatively simple if you have good and accurate survey data, a good accessible system to manage it and a long-term plan of continuing improvement.

Good luck and, should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me personally at [email protected].

Steve Aldridge

Managing Director @ ACMS UK