Site records
On most building-services jobs a permit to work is a pad of carbon forms and a signature, and a toolbox talk is a sheet of names on a clipboard in the cabin. Both prove that somebody signed something. Neither proves much else.
That is fine until the day it has to stand up: after a near miss, in a principal contractor’s audit, or when the client asks who was working in the riser while the detectors were isolated.
A permit is meant to be the moment somebody competent confirms the work is safe to start. On paper, it records that the boxes were ticked.
It does not know whether the person receiving it holds an in-date IPAF card, whether they have signed the current RAMS, whether they were inducted, or whether they are on site today. It does not know that the MEWP’s thorough examination ran out last week. It does not know that somebody else has a fire-system impairment permit open on the same floor as your hot works.
And once it is issued, paper has no clock. The permit says eight until twelve. At half twelve the work is still going and the permit is in a drawer.
The toolbox talk has the opposite problem. A list of signatures says people were there. It says nothing about what was actually said, whether the exclusion zone came up, or what happened to the three people on nights who missed it.
Graftix now has permits to work, with ten types out of the box: hot works, working at height, confined spaces, LV isolation, live working, fire-system impairment, dig or break ground, roof access, restricted areas and lifting operations. You can add your own.
Each type has its Authorised Persons, appointed per project. When a permit is drafted, Graftix runs the pre-issue checks on the server and shows the results before anybody signs.
Qualifications. The holder has the right card for the work, in date, from the cards already recorded against them. IPAF for a MEWP, PASMA for a tower.
RAMS. Signed, and the current version.
Induction and attendance. Inducted, and checked in on site today.
Plant. If the work uses plant, its thorough examination is in date.
Clashes. Nothing else live in that area conflicts with it: hot works against a fire-system impairment or a confined-space entry, an isolation against live working.
The results are kept with the permit as they stood at the moment it was issued, which is the question anybody will ask afterwards.
An issued permit has a live countdown, on the holder’s phone and on the Authorised Person’s board, with reminders before it runs out. Extending it needs a reason and is recorded as an event, not a fresh pen mark over the old time.
Fire watch. For hot works, handing the permit back starts the fire watch as its own countdown, and it has to be signed off before the permit can be closed.
Suspend all. When the fire alarm goes off or the wind picks up, one action suspends every live permit on the project, or every permit of one type, with a reason. Everybody holding one gets an urgent notification telling them to stop work.
The AP board. Every live permit on the project in one place, plus usage reports you can export when somebody asks who was doing what.
Keys. Keys, fobs and access cards get their own register with QR labels. Issue them with a permit or on their own. They come back on a scan, with a photo, and the custodian signs them back in. A key reported lost alerts the Authorised Persons.
Permits also show on the drawing, so who is working where is answered by the plan rather than a phone call. Every closed permit is sealed with a hash, so the record cannot be quietly altered, and the permit carries a QR code. Anybody with a phone can scan the copy taped to the riser door and see whether it is still valid, suspended, expired or closed.
A talk can start from the library, from a RAMS, from an incident, or as a draft from Dave on a topic you give it.
Deliver it in person, remotely, or both. In person, the presenter runs the sign-in sheet on their phone and passes it round. Remote attendees read and sign on their own phone or in the browser, offline if need be; the signature syncs when the signal comes back. Anybody who missed the briefing can be sent the same talk in one tap, so the people on nights end up on the same record as the morning gang.
Record the talk and Dave writes it up, then checks it against the talk’s key points. The record says which were covered and which were not. Finding out that nobody mentioned the exclusion zone is far more useful the same afternoon than six months later.
Each talk ends as a sealed PDF with its own QR verify page, and goes into a register you can export to CSV.
It does not make the work safe. The checks tell an Authorised Person what Graftix knows: the cards on record, the RAMS signatures, the check-ins, the plant dates. If a card was never uploaded, the check cannot see it. Somebody still has to look at the work area.
Dave can draft a talk and answer questions about who holds which permit. It cannot issue, extend, suspend or close one, and neither can an AI assistant connected over MCP. That stays with a person.
Both are included in every Graftix subscription. Pick the permit you issue most, usually hot works or working at height, and run it on one project for a fortnight alongside the next round of toolbox talks. The first time a check flags an expired card or an unsigned RAMS, you will know whether it is worth rolling out.
Try it on a real job
Graftix puts every task on the actual drawing, then hangs the materials, certificates and sign-offs off that pin. Seven days, every feature, no card.
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