23/May/2007
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‘with safety being so key to E.ON UK’s business, the profile of the Mindset project was very high - all the way to the MD. Undoubtedly, the success of the project was down to Contigo’s technical competency, ability to understand the business problem and total commitment to the customer’s needs. If only all projects were this smooth!’
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The problem
In 2005, Tony Cocker, the Managing Director of E.ON UK Energy Wholesale (EW) called for a ‘Step change’ in safety performance. As part of the programme, DuPont Safety Resources Limited were contracted to conduct a safety culture maturity survey. Recommendations were made. These included developing a safety vision, moving from lagging to leading performance indicators and developing a system of Behavioural auditing.
To address these, a ‘mind set check’ system, called Mindset, was conceived. Its aim was to prevent incidents by alerting workers and managers to unsafe work habits or acts before injury occurred by auditing the interactions with employees and contractors in their workplace. The aims of interactions themselves included identifying and correcting safety issues and unsafe behaviour, raising safety awareness and building a safety culture.
To demonstrate management commitment to safety, mind set checks required that all layers of management, from the MD to first line supervisors should be trained in its use. Additionally, management would benefit from the subsequent generation of leading positive safety performance indicators that would assist in the tracking of safety performance.
The solution
Towards the end of 2006, Contigo were employed, following successful tendering, to deliver the Mindset web based system. The aims of the application included consistency and a reduction of time for data entry and analysis, identification of trends and best practice and effective communication across many business areas within E.ON UK.
The Mindset application was successfully developed to tight deadlines, on budget and above user expectations by leveraging the productivity gains of the latest Microsoft technologies and Contigo’s own frameworks. The application was based exclusively on Microsoft technologies, helping set a new precedent for software development within E.ON EW IS. The solution utilised ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005 and SharePoint technologies and integrated into E.ON’s Portal and ‘White Pages’ people directory.
Contigo worked closely with various EW teams. Early prototyping and demonstrations to the EW Safety Team combined with iterative development enabled realisation of the team’s abstract concepts. Additionally, simplified architecture, improved installation processes and staff training substantially improved application installation and supportability for the EW IS team.
EW IS project manager, Erik Cummins said ‘with safety being so key to E.ON UK’s business, the profile of the Mindset project was very high - all the way to the MD. Undoubtedly, the success of the project was down to Contigo’s technical competency, ability to understand the business problem and total commitment to the customer’s needs. If only all projects were this smooth!’
The enduring legacy
Following the system implementation, the solution has been well received by both the business community and IT operations. Usage of the solution has been approximately 3 times higher than was anticipated. No support issues have been raised which required anything more than some configuration changes.
This is testament to Contigo’s iterative development approach and focus on delivering highly ergonomic applications combined with high quality, thoroughly tested solutions.