Oil and Gas · Technology, AI
Digital permit to work and HSE incident reporting for an oil and gas terminal
A tablet and web app that replaces paper permits to work at a petroleum storage terminal, with isolation checks, gas test records and area authority sign offs, plus an incident and near miss module. An AI assistant turns spoken or handwritten reports into structured incident records for the HSE team to review.
- Client
- A coastal petroleum products storage and dispatch terminal on the west coast of India, handling tank farm, gantry loading and jetty operations
- Region
- India
- Sponsor
- Terminal manager and head of health, safety and environment
- Duration
- 22 weeks to go live on all permit types, then an embedded support rotation
Engagement model
FDE: Forward Deployed Engineering
Two engineers and a strategist worked on site for most of the build, attending permit issue meetings each morning so the app followed how permits were really raised, checked and closed.
How FDE worksThe team
- Solution strategist with process safety background1
- Forward deployed engineer2
- AI engineer1
- Mobile engineer1
- QA engineer (shared)1
The challenge
Where things stood
- Hot work, confined space, electrical isolation and work at height permits were paper books in triplicate, and the safety officer could not see at a glance which permits were open across the tank farm.
- Gas test readings and isolation points were written by hand, sometimes after the fact, and cross referencing a lock out tag out register took time during audits.
- Contractor supervisors raised most permits, but their competency and induction records sat in a separate file in the HR office.
- Near misses were under reported because the form was long and in English, and many contract workers preferred to describe events verbally in Hindi or Gujarati.
The approach
How we ran it
Weeks 1 to 4
Permit walk and rules
Followed permits from request to closure on day and night shifts. Wrote down every check, signature and simultaneous operations rule from the terminal's safety manual, and agreed with HSE which rules the app would block and which it would only warn on.
Weeks 5 to 12
Permit to work core
Built the permit types with role based sign offs for issuer, area authority and receiver, gas test entry, isolation certificates linked to the LOTO register and a live board of open permits by area. Tablets run offline in hazardous areas where Wi Fi is not allowed, then sync at the control room.
Weeks 13 to 16
Contractor and asset links
Linked permits to equipment tags from the maintenance system and to contractor induction and competency records, so a permit cannot be issued to someone whose induction has lapsed.
Weeks 17 to 22
Incident module and AI assist
Added incident and near miss reporting. Workers can record a voice note or photograph a written slip; the AI assistant drafts a structured report with location, equipment and suggested category, which an HSE officer checks and corrects before it is saved.
What it looks like
Representative screens
Drawn to show the kind of system we delivered. Client screens and data stay private.
Near miss report assistant
Voice note received from contract worker, 2 min 14 s, Hindi. Location from tablet: Gantry bay 4.
Draft: During loading of tanker GJ12BX4471 at bay 4, the bottom loading arm coupling was found not fully latched before flow started. Operator stopped the pump within seconds. No spill. Suggested category: loading operations, equipment condition.
Missing details: name of operator on duty and whether the coupling seal was replaced. Please confirm before saving.
Operator was Hemant Parmar. Seal checked, it was worn. Change category to maintenance.
Updated. Near miss NM-2024-0318 saved for HSE review, with a suggested action to inspect all loading arm couplings on gantry bays 1 to 8.
What we delivered
Modules and features
- Hot work, cold work, confined space, electrical and work at height permits on tablet and web
- Gas test records and isolation certificates linked to the LOTO register
- Live open permit board by area with simultaneous operations conflict warnings
- Contractor induction and competency checks before permit issue
- Incident and near miss reporting by voice note, photo or form in Hindi, Gujarati and English
- AI drafted incident reports that an HSE officer reviews before saving
- CAPA tracking with owners, due dates and closure evidence
- Audit trail and printable permit copies for statutory inspections
What changed
Outcomes
- The safety officer sees every open permit by area on one board
- Permits cannot be issued to contractors whose induction has lapsed, and gas tests are recorded at the time of testing
- Near misses are reported in the worker's own language in a minute or two, so more of them reach the HSE team
- Audits pull permit, isolation and CAPA history from one place
Looking back
Being on site every morning for the permit meeting mattered more than any requirement document; the written procedure and what area authorities actually checked differed in small but important ways, and we only learnt that by standing in the room. The offline tablets needed more care than we planned, because sync conflicts on a permit are a safety issue as well as a data issue, and we spent two extra weeks on a rule that the control room copy always wins. On the AI side, we kept the assistant to drafting and never let it close or categorise a report on its own, and the HSE team said that was why they trusted it. We would start the contractor competency link earlier next time, since the induction data needed a lot of cleaning.
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