Good Morning All,

Quick bit of advice needed please....Hot works permits. We do these on site daily for our welders, filling them in each morning. Some of our senior team are happy to sign a weeks worth so the welders don't have to waste time each day. I personaly do not agree with this. If the daily permit has been filled out for each day of the week in advance, then a accident happens and that person is not on site, surely this would be a problem and they can't guarantee the safety of those who it is applicable too?  Would appreciate your views on this.

Permits should be there to control the unusual not the daily.

A well designed system will make people stop, think, assess and adequately control.

A paper chase system is nothing more than a mark on a piece of paper and given the site approach you describe will offer absolutely no protection "in the event of..." so to be frank why bother?

If they are welding daily is this at different locations within the facility every time or are they in effectivley one place? If the latter then design the location to minimse hot work risks (no-flammables, regular cleaning) and there will be no need for the permit.

At one site we had a welding bay in our engineers where they could work without permit, if they wanted to weld elsewhere they needed a permit. They found it easier to strip down plant and take it to the welding bay than obtain a permit.

Bailey - a lot of organisations seem to think that it is good to be addicted to Permits.

A lot of organisations need to be weaned off their addiction!

As soon as you have too many Permits,then the first thing that usually happens is that people get rather lax in how they are written and monitored - and it becomes precisely what you say - a paper chase.

If instead, tasks are assessed then you can decide WHY you think that the risks are such that a Permit is an appropriate tool. 

Then, when you decide it is, everybody knows that it needs to be properly thought out and implemented. If you have 1 permit instead of 100 a week, or 10 instead of 1000, each is much more likely to be given the proper attention.

When I was an HSE Inspector I was once kept waiting for nearly an hour as the site operated a policy that a Permit was required for each and every visitor to the site (whatever the purpose of the visit) and the only person who could sign off the Permit for me to access was out to lunch. (Nothing wrong with a senior manager having a lunch break).

When he finally returned he was mortified (keeping a regulatory inspector waiting is not generally a very bright idea!) but we discussed both the complete failure to provide for contingency for what to do in his absence and the lack of logic in requiring a Permit for each and every visitor to the site.

Sorry I am struggling with this frequent welding activity being so widely dispersed across a site.

Is this maintenance welding in which case improving the quality of materials used would reduce the need for frequent repair.

Is this production welding in which case could satellite bays be established?

Is the site suitable to be a hot works area with other activities such as painting segregated? 

Following Roundtoit's comments, do we have permits just because they are welding?  Can large areas of the site be assessed and designated suitable for HW and permits for others?   Perhaps a little more info,on the scenario could help visualise the problem