No time for handwritten notes
Hundreds of global apparel corporations rely on factories in Bangladesh to produce their garments. To improve worker safety, The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was created by more than 150 apparel corporations. A key requirement of the Accord agreement was to conduct independent safety inspections for up to 1,100 factories.
As a leader in fire protection and life safety, risk and hazard analysis, and code compliance assessment, Hughes was awarded a contract to perform the factory inspections. The goal: identify the most severe fire and safety hazards as quickly as possible so they can be rectified. The catch, however, was that Hughes had to complete the project within just six months.
Traditionally, Hughes took handwritten notes and photos on-site and later entered them into an electronic document. Brian Rhodes, Hughes' director for codes and standards, says, "We simply didn't have time to report the old-fashioned way. Plus, it would have been a quality assurance nightmare to review so many reports from 20 different inspectors. We needed much more efficiency and consistency to handle a task this large in such a short time frame."