Ready, Set – Don’t Print!

Printing tags before they are actually needed may seem to improve your efficiencies, but it may turn out to be a false economy when the state of play changes, as one PAS user recently found out!

The PAS user had prepared several permits, including printing tags, a week before they were to be issued.

However, before they were issued, another different permit was required that shared an isolation with the several that had their tags printed. The preprinted one was in a conflicting isolation condition to the new one.

PAS did exactly what it is designed to do and prevented the new tag on the new permit from being printed. Printing this tag would potentially allow a permit breach to occur, said Sage Technology Director, Peter Kingwill.

The new permit took priority which meant that the user had to go through a lengthy and unnecessary process to wind back the earlier permits.

The correct use of PAS is only to print documents including tags when they are needed, not in advance. This does not stop the preparation and planning of the permit but it is much better to leave it in the Planning Complete state until it is time to isolate the plant, which is the appropriate time to print tags.

“This allows PAS’s cross referencing to do it checks at the time isolations are about to be performed and is less likely to result in the above situation,” Mr Kingwill explained.

He invited anyone with questions of this tip to contact either himself or PAS Developer, Mick Board, by phoning Sage Technology on 1300 13 14 11.

Return to August 2006