Oil and gas
Control high risk work across complex operations
Keep permits, isolations, handovers and contractor crews tied to the process safety barriers they depend on, on every shift.
The problem
Where control of work breaks down on live plant
Hydrocarbon sites run many permits at once, around equipment that is still pressurised. The gaps usually appear between people, not within one form.
Isolations out of sight
Isolation certificates sit apart from the permit, so an approver cannot easily confirm which points are locked, by whom and whether any are shared with another job.
Handover by memory
Suspended permits and live isolations pass between shifts verbally or on paper logs, and conditions attached to them are easy to lose.
Barriers on paper only
Bow tie studies name critical barriers, but the permit crew rarely sees which of them the job is touching or temporarily impairing.
One connected workflow
Planned maintenance with isolation and multiple approvers
A crew replaces a leaking control valve on a gas export line. Here is how the work stays under one record from planning to reinstatement.
Illustrative scenario. Every site configures its own steps, forms and approvers; this is not a customer case.
Permit request
Maintenance planner
The job is raised against the tag number, with the planned window, the contractor crew and a reference to the process risk assessment for that line.
RecordedScope, equipment tag, crew, linked assessment
Isolation plan
Isolation authority
Valves, blinds and electrical points are listed on the isolation plan. Each point is applied, locked and verified in the field, with a zero-energy check.
RecordedEach isolation point, who applied it, verification result
Multi-party approval
Area authority, operations, HSE
The permit routes to each approver in turn. Each sees the isolation status, crew readiness and any barrier impairment before signing.
RecordedEach approval, condition and timestamp
Shift handover
Outgoing and incoming supervisors
The job runs into night shift. Live isolations, gas test results and open conditions are handed over and acknowledged by the incoming supervisor.
RecordedHandover acknowledgement with open items
Reinstatement and closeout
Performing authority and operations
Isolations are removed in order, the line is leak-tested and returned to operations, and the permit is closed with the work confirmed complete.
RecordedDe-isolation sequence, test result, closeout sign-off
Applicable modules
The FirstEHS modules this work draws on
By role
What each person gets from it
Area authority
Sees every permit and isolation in the area before approving the next one, so interacting work is spotted early.
Isolation authority
Records each lock, blind and verification against the permit rather than a separate certificate book.
Operations supervisor
Receives a structured handover of suspended permits and live isolations at the start of shift.
Process safety engineer
Can see where live work touches a critical barrier and which changes are open against it.
FAQ
Questions we hear from this industry
Bring one isolation-heavy job to the demo
Share a real maintenance permit and its isolation plan. We will walk it through FirstEHS from request to reinstatement.