Digitising operations with an award-winning task platform

Context

Daily operational and health-and-safety work across the network ran on paper checklists, radio calls and informal messaging. Completion was unverifiable, incidents were reconstructed after the fact, and the operational knowledge that kept sites running lived with long-tenured individuals rather than in any system.

A previous digital attempt had been rejected by operators, which meant the project started from negative sentiment rather than neutral.

Challenge

Operators had good reasons for scepticism. The prior tool asked them to describe work they had already completed — pure overhead appended to a physical job. Any replacement had to be faster than paper on the busiest day of the year, or it would be defeated the same way.

At the same time, the organisation needed auditability: HSE compliance, certification evidence, and a record that stood up to external review.

Approach

Designed the tool to participate in the work. Instead of a reporting system, the platform issues the next task with context attached and captures completion as a by-product of doing it. The record is generated, not requested.

Optimised the first week. Common paths were reduced to fewer interactions than the paper equivalent, forms were pre-filled from known context, and the interface was built for one-handed use in field conditions.

Automated the workflows that were previously verbal. HSE routines, escalations and overdue handling run on their own rather than depending on someone remembering during a shift change.

Connected sensor data to task creation. Integrating boat-sensor telemetry meant safety and operational alerts generate assigned, prioritised tasks automatically — closing the loop between measurement and action without a human in the middle.

Measured sentiment, not just usage. Adoption can be mandated; goodwill cannot. Employee NPS was tracked deliberately as the leading indicator of whether the system would survive.

Outcome

• 150,000+ tasks completed in the first year across the network.
• Employee NPS improved from −23 to +40 versus the previous product.
• BOUSSIAS Gold Award — Health & Safety Project of the Year.
• BOUSSIAS Silver Award — Use of Technology, for the sensor-to-task integration.
• Contributed evidence supporting Blue Flag International certifications.
• Automated task generation from telemetry, removing the delay between an alert and an owner.

What I would carry into another engagement

Operator sentiment is a leading indicator and usage is a lagging one. When people ask for features, the system has become theirs — and that is the point at which an operational platform starts compounding instead of decaying.