Northumbrian Water uses a Nintex-based solution to promote water safety and regulatory compliance
Richard Humphreys |
This article was originally published in the Summer 2019 issue of The Record. Subscribe for FREE here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.
Northumbrian Water, one of the UK’s largest water utilities, is using the Nintex Workflow Platform to transform how its people work and connect them to processes and content throughout the company. The bottom-line result is helping one of the UK’s largest water utilities to maintain its physical infrastructure more cost-effectively, meet regulatory requirements more successfully, and even boost the health and safety of its workers and contractors.
One of the company’s most crucial uses of Nintex Workflow for Office 365 and Nintex Mobile is to track the physical condition of hundreds of chemical tanks. Tanks that corrode can leak toxic chemicals that damage the environment and may seriously injure people. They can also expose the utility to tens of thousands of pounds in regulatory fines and even higher civil damages.
Previously, Northumbrian Water tracked chemical tank status with spreadsheets and paper forms that weren’t searchable and didn’t facilitate analyses. Now, with remote workers armed with Nintex Mobile on their devices, tank conditions are recorded promptly and accurately using Nintex Forms. Then, Nintex Workflow for Office 365 quickly routes the surveys to a SharePoint Online database, where business analysts can use front-end analysis tools to spot issues and address them more promptly than ever before.
George Schley, business analyst at Northumbrian Water, together with his colleagues, created the solution in just three weeks, rather than the three months or more he says it would have taken with traditional technologies.
Northumbrian Water had used Nintex Workflow in its on-premises environment – but adopting Nintex Workflow for Office 365 with the help of its technology partner, Synergi, was an eye-opener. “With Nintex for Office 365, our people can connect, and access required workflows quickly and efficiently,” says Schley. “We extend workflow to outside contractors and suppliers, like the people who do our tank surveys. We run workflow underground, where remote workers can use it in connected or unconnected modes, as necessary. We will have thousands of people with access to Nintex-based solutions and we’re thinking of new uses all the time.”
One of those new uses is a proactive checklist created with Nintex Forms for Office 365 and Nintex Mobile, which gets employees to think about working safely before they start a potentially dangerous task. It’s simple, brief, and designed to head off accidents before they can occur.
“We’re developing capabilities considerably quicker with the Nintex Workflow Platform,” says Schley. “We’re also changing the culture to be more health and safety conscious, and more collaborative. That’s something you don’t expect from a workflow platform.”