What is an industrial Permit to Work?
A Permit to Work, or PTW, is a formal system used to authorize work presenting particular risks. It describes the task, work area, identified hazards, controls, required equipment, prerequisite isolations, responsible people, and the period during which the work is authorized.
The UK HSE describes a permit-to-work system as a formal process stating what work may be done, when, and on which part of an installation, with safety conditions checked at each stage. A permit does not replace risk assessment: it turns the agreed controls into a controlled operational authorization.
Which types of work may require a permit?
Categories depend on the site and its risk assessment. Permit-to-work software should support several permit types, each with its own checks, roles, documents, and activation conditions.
Hot work: welding, grinding, cutting, or any task that may produce heat, flame, or sparks. Confined spaces: tanks, pits, vessels, or areas with limited access and atmospheric hazards. Electrical work, excavation, work at height, line or equipment opening, and some lifting operations may also require a permit under site rules.
What workflow should a permit follow?
The workflow should prevent activation while a mandatory prerequisite is incomplete. Conditions must remain visible to the requester, work owner, operations team, and people present in the field.
Work request → risk assessment → prerequisites → approvals → active permit → work → suspension / extension when needed → work complete → verification → return to service → close.
What information should a permit retain?
A permit can contain the site, area, asset, activity, contractor, work owner, authorized people, planned dates and times, detailed description, hazards, PPE, controls, required isolations, atmospheric checks, linked permits, documents, approvers, permit status, return to service, and history.
The permit becomes an operational record, not simply a signed PDF. Teams can find the context, validity conditions, evidence, and decisions attached to a specific intervention.
What is the difference between a work permit and a prevention plan?
In France, a Permit to Work should not be presented as a universal legal requirement under that name. For work involving external companies, the Labour Code provides for a joint preliminary inspection and an assessment of risks arising from interference between activities, installations, and equipment.
When such risks exist, the employers agree before work starts on a prevention plan defining the measures taken by each company. The plan must be written when the operation represents at least 400 hours over a twelve-month period, or regardless of duration for certain hazardous work listed in the applicable rules.
Prevention plan → work package → permit to work → field checks. The prevention plan covers the operation and co-activity framework; the permit controls a specific task under specific conditions.
How should contractors be managed?
An intervention may involve site employees, a maintenance company, a subcontractor, an electrician, a cleaning company, or a regulatory inspection contractor. The permit should verify that the team actually on site matches the planned team.
The workflow can connect company → people present → qualifications → required documents → safety induction → prevention plan when applicable → internal owner. Authorization can then be refused or suspended when a contractor-related condition is not met.
How should a Permit to Work connect to LOTO?
LOTO answers: which energy sources must be isolated? A Permit to Work answers the broader question: can the complete intervention start in this area and under these conditions?
Work request → risk assessment → LOTO required → isolation complete → permit approved → work → work complete → release → return to service. The permit should display isolation status without duplicating the full LOTO procedure.
How should a hot-work permit be managed?
INRS recommends a hot-work permit for controlling hot work and provides a model detailing the preventive measures to implement. In PTW software, a hot-work permit becomes a specific permit type with its own checklist.
The form can cover the task, area, flammable products, prior cleaning, removal or protection of combustible materials, fire-fighting equipment, watch during the work, and post-work checks.
How should confined-space work be managed?
INRS distinguishes an authorization to work issued to a competent person and a permit to enter prepared for a specific operation. Before entry, the permit must be validated on site and confirm that the measures from the prior risk assessment are actually in place.
The workflow can check for a standby person, atmospheric readings, a working detector, ventilation, isolations, purging or cleaning, communication means, rescue equipment, and authorized people. An atmospheric reading should retain time, value, unit, and the person who performed it.
How should simultaneous operations be managed?
Two interventions can be safe separately but dangerous together: for example, hot work in one area while another team opens a line containing a flammable product. The system should display SIMOPS, Simultaneous Operations, meaning simultaneous tasks that may interact.
The HSE recommends linking related permits and coordinating work to identify conflicts between activities. A site view can display active permits by area, dependencies, incompatibilities, and conflicts to resolve before activation.
How should duration, extensions, and shift handover be managed?
A permit should have a clear validity period: start, end, team, and conditions. If work is not finished, the permit must not remain valid indefinitely. An extension may require a new field check, owner approval, a new atmospheric reading, confirmation of isolation, or a team change.
Shift handover, the formal transfer of operating information, should pass on work status, residual risks, isolations, restart conditions, and remaining actions to the next team. HSE highlights this transition when work continues after a shift change.
How should a permit be closed and the installation handed back to operations?
Closing a permit does not simply mean “work complete”. The system should verify that workers have left, tools are removed, guards are restored, the area is clean, the asset is reassembled, anomalies are reported, isolation is ready to be released, and operations is informed.
HSE identifies the handover of equipment back to operations as an essential part of a permit system. Software can retain final checks, the person accepting the return, and any reservations before restart.
What should QR codes, mobile, and offline mode provide?
An operator can scan a QR code on an asset or in an area to see active permits, planned work, isolations, hazards, and people present. On mobile, they can complete a checklist, take a photo, record a reading, sign a step, or suspend a permit.
An offline mode may be needed on some industrial sites. The project must define what can be viewed locally, what evidence can be prepared, and which critical actions require server synchronization before approval.
How should a Permit to Work connect to a CMMS?
Maintenance work order → risk assessment → permit required? → permit → optional LOTO → work → permit closed → work order closed. The CMMS remains the owner of the maintenance intervention; PTW software owns the authorization to perform work under the agreed conditions.
This separation avoids duplicating work orders while preserving a usable link between asset, maintenance, authorization, isolation, and return to service.
How should PTW connect to LOTO, MOC, and QHSE?
MOC controls a change to the installation. LOTO controls energy isolation. Permit to Work controls the intervention. QHSE commonly centralizes risks, incidents, actions, and safety reference systems. These layers are complementary and should not become four copies of the same record.
MOC → pump modification → maintenance work → Permit to Work → LOTO isolation → work → return to service → MOC close. The right model defines which system owns each data item and which event triggers the next step.
Which KPIs should be tracked for permits?
Steering can focus on a few signals: active permits, expired permits not closed, approval time, suspended permits, detected SIMOPS or conflicts, permits by type, and deviations involving exceptions or incomplete steps.
The goal is not to maximize permits issued or reduce approval time artificially. A useful metric surfaces risks, delays, conflicts, and unmet conditions early enough for a competent person to act.
Can AI be used in Permit to Work software?
Yes, mainly to assist with work classification, suggest potentially required permits, extract information from a request, find similar permits, summarize hazards, or detect missing documents.
AI must not decide on its own that “this work is safe” or “the permit is granted”. Authorization remains a human decision under the responsibility of the roles defined by the organization, with deterministic rules for prerequisites and critical gates.
Sphera or custom Permit to Work software?
Sphera provides a Permit to Work / Control of Work solution covering permits, risk assessments, isolations, maintenance, and simultaneous operations. A standard solution is preferable when the processes can be configured correctly in the product.
Custom software becomes more relevant when permit types are highly specific, several industrial systems must be connected, the CMMS is heavily customized, workflows vary by site, or LOTO, MOC, contractors, and qualifications must be integrated. A fit-gap should come before development.
How much does custom Permit to Work software cost?
Cost mainly depends on the number of permit types and sites, approval workflow, mobile and offline capabilities, QR codes or NFC tags, contractor management, field readings, SIMOPS, LOTO, CMMS, MOC, and migration of existing forms.
A simple digital permit form is very different from a multi-site Control of Work platform. Scoping should separate the first scope, integrations, field validation, document migration, and ongoing operations. An artificial average would not be meaningful without that scope.
