UK Contractor RED Systems Ltd. Using Field View to Track Workers’ Health and Safety

RED Systems Ltd. is leading the way for safe construction practices in the United Kingdom amid current COVID-19 affected business climate by leveraging technology.

A Viewpoint client, RED Systems is a UK-wide specialist sub-contractor that designs, supplies and installs a range of structural glazing, aluminium windows, doors, curtain walling and roof light and atrium systems. The company is using Viewpoint’s Field View solution to track the health and safety of its workers.

On March 23rd, RED Systems decided to withdraw all labour from its sites, as it did not think they were safe given the guidelines set out by the UK government. Clients did ask RED Systems to return to site but Managing Director Michael Green was not comfortable letting teams work under usual construction conditions whilst Covid-19 was still an ongoing concern for public safety.

RED Systems acted fast and looked to find a solution that would benefit its clients, the economy and its own business whilst protecting workers at the same time. This led them to using Viewpoint’s Field View to create customised health and safety forms, which they could monitor across all jobsites.

On arrival at site, workers’ temperatures are taken, they self-certify for symptoms and they are provided with PPE. All information is recorded on the form created in Viewpoint Field View and is then automatically emailed to key stakeholders such as Green and RED Systems’ clients. Clients love the proactive approach taken by RED Systems, as it gives them confidence of a safe working environment. RED Systems is now looking to invite clients into the collaborative Field View software system.

On the decision to take proactive steps to improve health and safety for workers, Green said: “We wanted our staff to be able to tell their families it is safe to go to work. We not only have a duty of care to our workers but also a duty to the economy.”

Field View is a cloud-based and off-line mobile solution that replaces pen and paper in the field for quality assurance / quality control, safety, project delivery and handover. The Viewpoint solution doesn’t just help RED Systems track employees’ health and safety. The company was able to extend the abilities of its back office systems out onto jobsites, allowing the ability to resolve issues quickly, reduce risk, and deliver higher-quality projects with accurate, paperless processes in the field.

Field View has been integral in RED Systems’ quality improvement strategy, led by Andy Almey, Director of RED Jam, a process transformation consultancy. It enabled RED systems adopt a culture of continuous improvement alongside Field View and lean processes delivering significant benefits, including a year on year cost of error reduction of over £300k and an increase in RED’s gross profit performance. RED Systems combined data from Field View with analytic tools to try and further improve quality and reduce costs. The company immediately identified damaged beads as being the most frequently reported snag. Repairing or replacing beads was costing Red Systems up to £26k a month. Using the Field View data to highlight this problem of beads meant the company could put quality control processes in place to reduce the number of associated snags and ultimately improve the bottom line. The result? After just three months recording a cost of £26k on repairs to beads, RED Systems reduced this to only £225 in a single calendar month.