Safety first
Jeff Coghlin, IT manager, explains how safety is central to Braun Electric. “We’re a long established company,” says Coghlin. “At the same time, we stay on the cutting edge through a fierce commitment to continuous improvement with the FileMaker Platform as a cornerstone. Our safety record is one of the things we’re most proud of, and that’s been improving even more through greater thoroughness and accessibility to information made possible by the FileMaker Platform.”
To tackle on-the-job safety for over 435 people, Application Developer Jason Larson and Coghlin sat down with the Business Improvement Team to identify the most pressing issues. They decided that their first task was to digitalize the most critical, and among the most complex, business processes: Job Safety Analysis (JSA).
Traditionally, the forms supporting the JSA were 100% paper-based. People in the field would fill out pre-job forms and associate standard operating (SOP) procedures from large binders into job procedures.

and procedures, electronically.
The SOP maintenance process required printing and maintaining two three ring binders of information for each of over 300 vehicles in the company. If there was a change to an existing procedure, or a completely new process created, then a new sheet of paper had to be printed, laminated, and hole punched for every binder in the company and the old sheets collected. This would take two to three weeks to complete. Braun needed a more efficient way to distribute this information to its team members, ensuring they have the most up to date version of this critical information.
Larson states, “We needed a digital form and mobile solution that would help team members by providing information immediately and prompting electricians to answer questions about underlying safety issues they may not have considered.”