Page 859 - Xmo Strata - Bulletin Archive

Health, Safety & Environmental Bulletin No 318

30 August 2012

Journey planning: Becoming more alert

Being available to help customers at all hours of the day and night is something we pride ourselves on
at Xmo Strata. From planners to site crews, we are always keen to find a solution and be on-hand to
attend sites whenever the need arises.

But, we must make sure that whilst we are eager to help, we are also conscious of how many miles
our crews are travelling in any given day in company vehicles.

We have a company policy in place, for safety reasons, which limits the distance our crews can travel
during their working day if using a company vehicle. However, a recent incident has highlighted that
we all need to be more vigilant when it comes to planning our journeys and our work.

An Xmo Strata engineer recently exceeded the maximum mileage, as set by the company, in his
enthusiasm to support a customer during a particularly busy period. Following the site visit, the
engineer returned home, which took him over his maximum travel limit.

This is not an exercise to point the finger of blame – the engineer was doing his job, supporting the
customer and making every effort possible to ensure that the situation was addressed / rectified as
quickly as possible. It is, however, an opportunity for us to revisit our procedures and make sure we put
further systems in place to ensure the safety of our site crews.

EVERYONE has a responsibility where safety is concerned. In this situation it is down to senior
management to recognise the issue and look at ways to address it, work planners to implement and
monitor a new system, and crews to be mindful of the distances they are travelling.

XmoMan: Alert added to journey planning module

In response to this incident, and in the interests of following best safety practice, we have added a new
alert to the journey planning module of our XmoMan management system.

The alert (as shown in the below image) will warn journey planners if any scheduled work would mean
crews travelling in excess of the maximum mileage set by the company. In this instance, the alert will
also prompt our planning team to ensure a hotel is booked for the crew to stay overnight, allowing them
to remain within their daily travel restrictions.