Any professional who bears responsibility for an organisation’s health and safety budget knows how important it is to track the workforce’s use of PPE in order to understand what is being spent and at what rate. But tracking is not purely an exercise in financial control, it is also about ensuring that your team is working safely. Tracking PPE wear and usage, and the frequency at which items are being replaced can reveal a lot, such as whether a more appropriate item is required.
What is an Online Management Portal?
As a client of Contego Safety Solutions you’ll have access to a bespoke Online Management Portal. This system gives you complete purchasing control and full visibility of all your transactions with us, whether orders are placed online, by email or by phone. It allows interrogation of the ordering data by using a wide range of filters to obtain the sort of management level information you may need. Ultimately, the Online Management Portal helps overcome the pain points experienced by those responsible for health and safety procurement.
Contego’s Online Management Portal allows anyone responsible for an organisation’s PPE and protective clothing to:
- Track PPE usage
Among the key factors the portal can track is the type and quantity of PPE being used. Using the filters, it’s simple to track the use of PPE and protective clothing by employee, a key to ensuring individual, team and organisational compliance. You can delve further into the data to examine product usage reports for each person with ordering rights. For up-to-the-minute order tracking, you can set up new order email alerts, then access the portal directly for an at-a-glance dashboard view. If changes are required to limit ordering or allow easier access, parameters are effortlessly altered within the portal. This is particularly useful for seasonal flexibilities or adapting to business expansions or contractions.
- Monitor individuals’ PPE and protective clothing requirements
Limiting the range of products that can be ordered by an individual employee or team ensures that only those items identified and authorised by the health and safety team are purchased. Ultimately, this hands control to those responsible for procuring PPE and managing budgets and avoids any unwelcome budget surprises from unexpected purchases. However, authorised staff can quickly and easily add new items to the approved lists to adapt to fast-changing working environments, or if new or unexpected hazards present themselves.
- Identify how often PPE, protective clothing and workwear needs replacing
By analysing reports generated by the Online Management Portal, health and safety staff can identify reordering patterns in PPE or workwear items. Understanding how long products should last before they need replacing, such as masks, gloves or safety boots, will help inform whether training, such as how to care for PPE, is required to extend its longevity, or whether alternative products would be better suited to the tasks. It can also reveal if teams are over-ordering to ensure they’re not caught short of essential supplies. Contego Safety Solutions clients have dedicated Account Managers, who can help forecast supply chain management to make sure PPE is always readily available.
- Spot anomalies
The Online Management Portal makes it easy to spot unexpected changes in purchasing activity. Usually, anomalies are the result of changes in the working environment that create a need to purchase different or more equipment. Analysing the data can quickly reveal the source, allowing further investigations into the reasons. Most issues can be easily solved using tools available in the portal, such as adding spending limits per user or site, or adding a management requirement to approve or decline orders.
Contego Safety Solutions stocks a wide range of corporate workwear, protective clothing and PPE, including our WEARMASTER® range. We also provide a bespoke uniform design and manufacture service to ensure you get precisely what you are looking for in a company uniform. The friendly and expert team at Contego Safety Solutions is always on hand to give advice and guidance on the right PPE and protective clothing for your needs. Contact us now on 0800 122 3323 or sales@contegosafety.co.uk to discuss your requirements.
To find out more about our extensive range of safety clothing, workwear and equipment, visit our online shop.
