In the wake of the Grenfell Tragedy and subsequent Hackitt Report, greater scrutiny has understandably been placed on buildings’ fire safety capabilities, and on ensuring that the various components that go into protecting a building in the event of a fire – of which fire doors are one – function appropriately.
With that in mind, building managers and fire safety companies have been looking for ways to optimise their fire door inspection processes and reports, and using a dedicated fire door inspection app is one such means. This article lists 9 of the top benefits of using an app for fire door inspection reporting.
1. Advisories and Defects Can Be Captured in Real Time
It’s vital that information regarding fire door defects is captured and rectified as quickly as possible. With software like Rugged Data, you can capture and upload photos of fire doors directly into the report you’re generating with the app.
So, whether there’s an issue with the intumescent strip lining the door, a lack of appropriate resistance rating signage, or anything else that needs addressing as a matter of urgency, you can record this and insert photographic evidence into the final fire door inspection report, complete with date and time stamps.
2. Exact Door Positioning on Schematics/Maps
When dealing with large buildings or facilities, there are often a huge number of fire doors that need to be inspected.
As such, it can be difficult to pinpoint the precise location of a faulty fire door, for instance, leading technicians to wander around a building aimlessly searching and being left scratching their heads, hoping to stumble upon the correct door if they’re lucky.
With reporting software like ours, however, you can annotate and markup floor plans to show where specific fire doors are that need addressing.
3. Ensuring the Golden Thread of Information is Maintained
Few concepts have seen as prolific rise to prominence in recent years as that of the golden thread of information.
Introduced by Dame Hackitt in light of the Grenfell Tragedy, the golden thread pertains to the idea of a central chain (or ‘thread’) of information about a building from design and planning all the way through to service management once built.
To ensure this thread is as solid, consistent and immutable as it can be, using software that digitally documents the status of fire doors, demonstrates their compliance (or lack thereof) and tracks any and all changes that are made to the reports.
Tamper-Proof Accountability
In other words, reporting software like Rugged Data means that reports can’t be tampered with or falsified, and that level of accountability and transparency is absolutely crucial in successfully weaving the golden thread through a building’s lifecycle.
4. Hierarchical Organisation of Fire Door Information (Plus Other Assets)
When you’re managing a lot of sites, one thing you want is clear organisation. Efficiency reigns supreme when time’s at a premium, and one of the greatest ways to supercharge reporting efficiency is to structure your systems in a hierarchical manner.
The “Genealogy” of Asset Maintenance and Reporting
Think of a family tree and that’s very much what Rugged Data is like. You can trace everything back to the original system, on the most macroscopic level; in this case, that might be a portfolio of high-rise buildings.
At the same time, though, you can follow that genealogical chain all the way down to the most granular of details – that’s to say, individual assets like one specific fire extinguisher in a thirty-storey high-rise office complex.
Simplicity of Use
Having such a wealth of information at your disposal is great on the one hand, but if it’s not organised in a structured, easy-to-follow manner, then you might as well not have such rich data, because it becomes a challenge trying to navigate it.
Luckily for you, Rugged Data does structure it in an easy-to-follow manner, with the hierarchy implemented both easy and intuitive to use.
5. In-Built Traceability
When changes are made to inspection reports generated in Rugged Data, those changes are tracked and recorded. This creates a concrete audit trail that can be used to showcase your business’ compliance and accountability.
Because mistakes sometimes happen when inspections are being conducted out in the field, administrative teams back in the office need to be able to have the option to edit reports that have been submitted; this might be something as simple as a typo or a field that’s been populated with information intended for another field.
Without tracking these changes, however, reports would be left open to tampering; whereas, with tracked changes, all parties can rest assured knowing there’s an accurate representation of what was changed and when, from which a “why” can be more easily ascertained.
6. Stored in the Cloud – Don’t Lose Your Information
Gone are the days (for the most part, at least) when fire door reports were purely physical in nature and stored in a ring-binder or cardboard box with fraying edges.
Not All Digital Storage is Equal
These days, it’s more often the case that fire door inspection reports are stored digitally; even if they’re still carried out using pen and paper, there’s a good chance that will then be scanned and stored as a PDF somewhere on an internal computer system.
The issue(s) with this, however, is that this is still a highly fallible method of storage. It relies on the company to regularly back up its information, and if that storage is corrupted in any way, those files are lost forever.
The fire door inspection reports – which we know are a crucial part of any fire risk management protocols – are still at risk of natural disaster, theft, cybersecurity breaches or even internal tampering.
The Cloud Offers a Solution
By storing your fire door reports in a centralised data hub in the cloud, you mitigate the risks mentioned above. It means that, even if your internal computer systems are damaged or tampered with in any way, our fire door reports will be safe and sound stored in the cloud.
What’s more, with a cloud-based solution, data is backed up automatically, negating the need for you or others in your business team to remember to back up its information or go about setting up automated, routine backups. And if you needed any more convincing on the cloud, then there’s the fact that the reports generated are incredibly easy to access.
7. Easily View Compliance Status(es)
If there are hundreds of fire doors under your responsibility across your various facilities, knowing at the drop of a hat which are compliant and which aren’t is incredibly useful. That’s why, with Rugged Data, you can easily see which sites are compliant, and which require urgent attention.
This makes non-compliance (whether accidental or otherwise) far less likely and clearly lays out to technicians and building managers which assets need addressing, and where exactly those assets are. Again, thanks to the schematic management feature within Rugged Data, it’s incredibly easy for professionals in the field to locate those non-compliant fire doors (or whatever fire safety asset it happens to be).
8. More Services Can Be Kept in the Same, Single System
We understand that many fire risk management companies inspect more than just fire doors; there’s a whole host of services that need overseeing, including fire alarm testing, fire extinguisher servicing, inspecting fire dampers, ansul systems, etc.
With an all-in-one, hierarchical management system, you can monitor all your services and assets (not just for one site but a whole series of buildings/sites) from one, singular data Hub. This drastically streamlines workflow processes and maximises efficiency. Not to mention the accountability and compliance gains we’ve already alluded to above.
9. Reports Formatted in a Slick, Professional Manner
Whilst we’ve put this at the end of our list, given that it doesn’t quite have the weight or significance that compliance or safety benefits do, there’s no denying that well-formatted, slick-appearing reports instil more confidence than those that have been shoddily put together.
Reports generated with Rugged Data can have your company’s own branding on, helping reinforce the professionalism that all fire risk and safety management companies want to come across when dealing with clients.
When it comes to the finished cake, this feature might just be the buttercream frosting – but it’s seriously tasty frosting…
Final Thoughts
So, there you have it! Nine of the top benefits of using an app like Rugged Data for fire door inspection reports. It’s worth noting that this list isn’t exhaustive, but hopefully it gives you a flavour of just what you can expect to get out of an app for your fire door inspection report needs.
If you’re still not sold, why not consider our Faster Fieldwork 28 Day Sprint. We’ll take one of your reporting processes; in this case, fire door inspection reports, and then build and implement your process within four weeks. If we don’t? We’ll refund your setup fee and build the form for that process entirely for free! Contact us now to have a no obligation chat about how we could help.
