Digital data collection reduces waste inspection time and improves disposal management

An American multinational oil and gas corporation client that operates across the United States transports approximately 2.8 billion barrels of crude oil, refined petroleum, liquefied petroleum gases or natural gas liquids each day via their pipeline in Southern Louisiana. The client was looking to increase the speed of reporting waste inspection results to reduce turnaround time for the waste management and disposal process to meet regulatory demands.

Our client required consulting services to help manage waste streams in Southern Louisiana and increase the speed of reporting waste inspection results to expedite the waste management process. Timely and accurate weekly inspections are not only a regulatory requirement; such inspections are also used as a crucial tool for the site to verify whether waste is stored safely to prevent releases into the environment or harm to employees.

GHD Digital identified inefficiencies in the current data collection process of waste inspection, resulting in delays in data getting to GHD's internal waste management team and, ultimately, the client. The traditional data collection method allowed field staff to complete pen and paper field forms and take pictures on their phones. After the data are collected, the field staff would download the images taken on-site, scan the completed field forms, and send the information to the project team. This process would often take days, depending on field staff's schedules, which resulted in delays in starting the waste management process.

GHD Digital's Digital Intelligence team and GHD's Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team, part of our Waste Services Group, proposed digital waste inspection forms to collect data across their three pilot sites. Through a digital data collection solution, they could speed up their field data collection process, increase data collection and photo-taking efficiencies in the field, and decrease the turnaround time for getting data from the field to the Waste Services team.

Working with teams from across GHD, GHD Digital worked to understand the needs and desires of the project team and the client. Upon this discussion, GHD Digital identified Esri's Survey123 as an appropriate solution for the data collection forms. Data collected in Survey123 are synced and pushed to GHD’s Atlas platform, where Waste Services team members can access the field-collected data immediately and begin the waste management process.

The data collection forms enabled field staff to efficiently collect data in a standard method, sync the data while in field, and have the information shared with office staff immediately via GHD Atlas. The digital transformation of weekly inspection has allowed earlier detection, resulting in real-time waste storage corrections to elevate hazards before an incident occurs.

Implementing digital data collection tools to a traditionally manual process has reduced project labour hours for our client during each inspection by 1-hour resulting in less transposed data errors and more efficiency.

Additionally, using the digital data collection tools, reporting time to internal staff was reduced by approximately three days from the day of inspection and made data immediately available to internal staff, which expedited the waste management process.

Using digital data collection tools enables teams to complete the client's reporting in less time with more efficiency and accuracy. Once data are synced, GHD's Waste Services team can access the data in GHD Atlas and begin their waste management process. This waste management process includes using GHD's internal program for waste management, GHD Navigator, further building efficiencies into the workflow, resulting in faster disposal of client waste to meet regulatory requirements.