Let us discuss green technology. From solar panels, winds farms, and EV cars the push is on to make quick changes. But should we be making the changes quickly?
I am all for a green future, and I think that is a sensible solution. What I am not so sure of is the speed at which implementation happens and looking at the “total picture.” We must look at all the processes from beginning to end to fully validate the benefit of implementing green technology. I would like to break this down into the respective areas to make us all think about this.

Manufacture – what are the real implications of the manufacturing process. What materials are being used? How are these products being made? Where are they being made? Are they recyclable? Are there certification standards? How are these certifications verified in a global economy? So many things to think about, but we all tend to jump straight to the end and see the benefit, without taking into consideration the above.
What about the materials – are they recyclable? Are they a renewable source? What is the energy expended to produce this product? What source of energy is used to produce the product? Does this offset the carbon emissions, or does it increase it from existing technology? Does the product meet the countries required Standards? Does the country have set Standards? According to Sustainability Victoria 83% of a solar panels makeup is not currently recyclable in Australia. In Victoria, this waste is banned. Current stats show that we are generating e-waste 3 times faster than general waste. Get my point? We must think about the ENTIRE process.

Installation – In 2019 we had a major drama in Queensland with the installation of solar panels. Who can install them? What qualifications do you need to have to install panels? Are they electrical or are they mechanical? Is there regulatory oversight? The same issues go with EV charging stations and wind farms. We all know that if a product is not installed properly, it can lose most of its effectiveness and therefore negate the benefit to the user. We cannot have another Home Insulation Scheme debacle, that’s for sure!

If solar panels are not installed properly (too many panels for the size of the inverter) by qualified people (and how do we know they are qualified? – don’t get me started on that one!) they can become overloaded, causing excessive heat which can lead to installation fires. What recourse does a person have for issues with the panels? Australian homes and businesses have installed solar panels, but do you end up removing them like this couple?

Certification & Testing – Even once they are installed, by which standards do they fall under? What certifications must be obtained? What are the testing requirements to ensure it is safe and fully compliant? What regulators are involved? Who is the governing authority in this matter? Is there regulatory oversight?

We have seen a prime example of this in solar panels installs in Queensland in 2019. Indicators show that 1 in 4 Australian homes have solar, but the Installation Standards, or lack of clear standards, is the cause for “unsafe solar installations.” All bodies must work together, the consequences are too high, and we MUST get this right.

Maintenance – What are the requirements? Who is accredited to do this work? How do you know they are accredited? What are the Standards? Where are the guidelines? Who is responsible for ensuring this process is undertaken? Is there regulatory oversight?

Responsibility – In Queensland, Australia, if you are a director of a business with any renewable energy sources installed, YOU are liable under the Queensland WHS Act Section 5 ruling around the duties of a PCBU Person in Charge of a Building or Undertaking). As a homeowner, YOU are responsible for ensuring this happens. This also includes maintenance of the panels which cause the same issues, even if they were installed correctly.

Lifecycle – What is the lifecycle of the product? Does the cost outweigh the advantage? How do we calculate this cost as real dollars?

If we look at wind generation, the maximum lifespan of each blade is 25 years. This may seem like a great deal and a long time, but each blade (longer than a 747 wing) equates to 17 tonnes of un-renewable material. Europe has 3,800 blades placed in landfill per year, 64,600 tonnes. Solar is no better either. We must be thinking smarter when we come to the entire lifecycle of the product.

Kurt’s Summary – We need to allow the government, and associated regulators, the opportunity to fully look at the technology, understand it, set out the criteria for all the above (make it plain and simple), and mandate the required standards – BEFORE mass adoption of ANY new renewable sources. Similarly, the government and regulators MUST do this quickly, simply, and correctly. We cannot be held up by bureaucratic delays and indecision.

I will leave you with this report by the EU “A life cycle perspective on the benefits of renewable electricity generation”. Download this and have a good read. One item that it included reinforced the overall point I am trying to bring to our attention – “the increased use of RES is not impact free and may come at a cost to the environment.” In order to be responsible for our actions on this planet we MUST know, understand, and agree to these “costs” from all perspectives – BEFORE we jump on the renewable energy bandwagon.

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Quick Safety, which is an Electrical Inspection & Testing app (released in May 2019), has put an end to these dangers by announcing their industry innovation of a ‘combined electrical safety alert system’ that notifies electricians when 1 of the 23 Australian or New Zealand agencies announce a dangerous situation.

No longer will everyday electricians need to rely on their electrical contractor (employer) to pass on these alerts that are received 2nd hand via their employer.

Through the Quick Safety app there is a medium that we can connect with electricians, ensuring a direct communications pathway between the existing 23 local, state and federal agencies and the electricians on the ground around Australia and New Zealand.

Quick Safety takes all 23 channels across Australia and New Zealand, we filter and sort according to HIGH priorities and normal priorities. The HIGH priorities are pushed out to the app and it locks the screen instantly and ensures the electrician opens, reads, and acknowledges the alert before continuing with their work. At the same time a message is sent to them warning of the alert, this way Quick Safety captures everyone – those working and those not working. Low level alerts sit on the homepage of the app and electricians can catch up with the alerts at smoko or lunch. The employer can see their team have acknowledged the alert and all their staff in the field are protected and aware of the danger.

Quick Safety has now launched their FREE Safety Alert System for the protection of all 208,000+ electricians across Australia and New Zealand.

To help protect your team and protect yourself on the site, go to the app store and download the ‘QuickSafety’ app.

This app is completely free and is our gift to the industry.

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Below I’ve listed some of my favourite ideas that are bound to help you comply with your regulatory requirements faster and with more efficiency, so you can get on with your day in a fully compliant, effective manner.

Must I File Certificates of Electrical Compliance? 

Yes, you must. Licensed electricians and contractors who work in Australia must file a certificate of compliance every time they complete a job. It’s the crucial last step in your sign-off process. A failure to file compliance certificates can cost an electrician up to $550,000 in fines and penalties.

What’s more, you need to hold onto these certificates for at least five years (seven in New Zealand) or you risk financial penalties. Professional tradesmen and commercial companies working across a range of industries, including mining and construction, are similarly affected.

If filing compliance certificates is mandatory, how do you make this administrative process as quick and painless as possible?

Time Management

Keeping on top of your schedule makes it easier to tackle your compliance filing. Make sure you know exactly what jobs you’re on each day and set aside time at the end of each one to tick off your filing requirements. Don’t let your filing build up to the end of the day—you’re more likely to unknowingly neglect it this way, or you might even miss the odd certificate if you’re tired and in a rush.

Get Organised

Make sure you’ve got all the details you need to complete your certificates quickly and painlessly, including a note of the work you’ve undertaken and the customer’s personal details. The less you need to hunt around for details, the quicker you can get your filing done. Being organised also allows you to determine faster what you need to do, the details and things you need, and what to prepare for.

Prepare in Advance

Think about the jobs you’re doing before you get there. Fill in whatever details you can before you start the work and set yourself reminders to complete the certificates. Most importantly, don’t move on to the next job until you’ve completely signed off on the previous one. This turns your full focus to the next job and lets you mentally prepare the proper way.

Use Digital Tools 

With the importance of filing compliance certificates and the potential stress and headache that comes along with it, it makes perfect sense to use technology to make sure you’re up to the task.

You could opt for digital work management tools to help you organise and plan your tasks the right way. The good news is, when it comes to compliance, we’ve got such a tool in mind, one that helps you achieve the aforementioned things while making sure that you’re on top of your compliance certificates tasks: QuickSafety.

QuickSafety is an app that helps you file and lodge your certificates with ease and store them securely for the required number of years without having to deal with loads of paperwork. This helps you reduce clutter, allowing you to enjoy the benefits of an organised workspace.

We developed the app with your convenience, work efficiency, ease-of-use, and innovation in mind. This is why we made sure that it has features such as offline capability (it stores data which you can later upload when you’re within network range), 24/7 access for you and your team, and instant compliance lodging. It also syncs across different devices so all team members have all the needed details and lets you pre-plan jobs and log work progress and completion for better work management and work status visibility.

Last but not the least, QuickSafety allows for easy and organised inspections and testing, allowing you to input and validate test results to make sure that the work done is safe and complies with current standards.

So, if you want to accomplish all your compliance tasks without any problems and put more efficiency and better management into your work, we at QuickSafety can definitely help. You can download our app now via Google Play (for Android devices) and iTunes (for iOS devices). If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us; we’re more than willing to help you out.

The post Key Ways to Guarantee Better and Faster Filing of Compliance Certificates appeared first on QuickSafety.

Fortunately, QuickSafety offers a solution here. To gain a better understanding of what our app offers, let’s take a closer look and learn more about its features that will help you do your job better, faster.

Why Electricians and Contractors Need a Convenient, Paperless Filing System

The filing of certificates of electrical compliance is an essential part of the signing off process for electrical work across Australia. However, it’s easy for this critical step to be overlooked when we’re busy working across multiple jobs. Remember that these certificates ensure that the work done is up to current safety standards, which means they shouldn’t be ignored.

So what’s the problem with lost compliance paperwork or failure to comply with Australian safety regulations? Well, it’s illegal, and it can cost electricians up to $550,000.

It’s not just electricians and electrical contractors who are affected. Professional tradesmen working across the construction and mining industries can be affected, too. With all these filing regulations comes another problem—keeping your paperwork organised and secure. Electricians are required by law to hold onto compliance certificates for at least five years (or seven in New Zealand), and failure to do so can result in additional penalties.

This is why it’s so important to have a paperless, convenient system through which to keep track of all your compliance certificates and the work you’ve undertaken.

How QuickSafety Can Help

The QuickSafety app is developed with electricians and electrical contractors and the problems they’re facing in mind, especially those related to compliance filing.

Using complex filing tools and working across multiple platforms costs businesses time and money. Our app lets you log and complete jobs with just a few clicks, helping you move from one task to the next seamlessly and efficiently.

The QuickSafety App: Key Features

The QuickSafety app boasts many impressive advantages over traditional filing and job management tools. QuickSafety will not only help ensure you file your compliance certificates on time but will also make your job easier in other aspects.

• No training required: QuickSafety integrates with your existing business management systems so you don’t need to spend more time installing new software or training your team to use a new system.
• Syncs across devices: QuickSafety syncs automatically across devices, bringing you up-to-date information and data. This eliminates the need to spend time and energy in manual info gathering across your team.
• 24/7 access: Access your certificates remotely and at any time of day. Instantly update jobs so that your team can see the most recent and most precise information available.
• Inspections and testing: QuickSafety enables users to input test results and the app validates these results to current standards to ensure that the work done is safe and compliant to the standards.
• Instant lodging and paperless management: Lodge your certificates instantly. You also won’t have to deal with loads of paperwork, so you can keep your workspace free from clutter, which has a host of benefits.
• Pre-plan jobs: Schedule jobs in advance so you know exactly what you need, where you’re going to be, and when you’re going to be there. Upload your certificates in real-time to ensure there are no potentially risky delays. As with any job, proper planning results in more efficiency, preparedness, and faster completion of work.

Me and my team created QuickSafety to help you do your job easier, faster and safer, especially when it comes to compliance. We know the value of efficiency, proper time management, and making sure that the job meets the proper standards—things that our app will help you achieve. Not only does QuickSafety remove the hassle of manually filing certificates of compliance, it will also helps you manage your and your team’s tasks better, resulting in more efficiency and productivity.

If you want to know more about how we can help, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

QuickSafety is now available for download via Google Play (for Android devices) and iTunes (for iOS devices).

The post How QuickSafety Can Help You Do Your Job Better, Faster appeared first on QuickSafety.

Below, I break down why these certificates are so important and what happens if you fail to issue, lodge, or file them properly on time or if you don’t issue them at all. 

Certificate of Electrical Compliance 

A certificate of electrical compliance confirms that an electrician or electrical contractor has completed their work to Australian electrical regulatory standards. Different states and territories have slightly different names for these certificates, but their aim is the same: to ensure quality of the work done and for the safety of the client.

Certificates of electrical compliance are very important. Aside from giving consumers peace of mind, they ensure that you’re only liable for the work you’ve undertaken, which protects you and your reputation if the client gets further, non-certified work done. 

So, the question now is, what happens if you issue or file these certificates late or not at all? 

The Repercussions of Non-compliance

The consequences may vary if you fail to lodge electrical compliance certificates. Here are the most significant consequences that you should be aware of. 

Financial Penalties

Don’t financially risk your business by neglecting your compliance certificate duties. If your state electrical regulator finds that you’ve failed to lodge or issue certificates on time, or at all, they can and will fine you. As an example, for single case fines, the penalty for failing to issue this certificate can be as high as $5,000 while failure to comply with Australian safety regulations could mean fines of up to $550,000.

Failure to store your compliance certificates for a certain number of years will also result in more fines. For example, in Queensland, the penalty is $4,000. Is it worth the risk? Certainly not!

Losing Your License

Both electricians and electrical contractors could suffer restrictions or lose their license entirely if they fail to issue and file the necessary compliance certificates as needed. The good news is, this task doesn’t have to stressful and involve excessive amounts of paperwork anymore—our QuickSafety app allows you to digitally file and securely store your certificates of compliance for the required five years (or seven years in New Zealand).

Unsafe Work

Licensed electrical workers, by law, must comply with Wiring Rules, including, of course, the issuing and lodging of compliance certificates, and putting their license number on the document. Electricians who fail to complete a compliance certificate because they aren’t licensed to do the work put their customers—and themselves—at risk of serious electrical accidents and faults. In other words, these certificates can also ensure that the electrician who did the job is licensed to do so. Unlicensed electrical work can result in fines of as high as $40,000.

Loss of Reputation

Reputation is a big deal for electricians and electrical contractors. If you have a reputation for sloppy work practices, this can damage your business long-term—in the eyes of workers and clients alike. Aside from hefty fines and the possibility of getting restrictions or having your license revoked, lodging or filing certificates of compliance late or not at all will certainly negatively impact your reputation. And, since word can get out quite fast especially with instant messaging services, social media, and mobile devices, this could ultimately lead to less work and fewer clients for you.

As an example, recently, a person was fined $7,200 plus costs for unauthorised electrical work without certification. Don’t let the same happen to you.

How QuickSafety Can Help

At QuickSafety, we not only help you do your job more easily, we also help you do it right. Our app functions as an easy-to-use platform that lets you lodge and securely store certificates of compliance. This is done efficiently through online connectivity—however, if you’re out of network range, the app will store the information and upload it once you’re online once again. We also provide electricians with assistance in terms of inspections and testing, including input and validation to current standards.

Lastly, ours is an app that functions as a great tool to manage your and your team’s tasks—especially in terms of planning—and eliminate messy paperwork for a workplace that’s conducive to productivity.

The QuickSafety app is now available for download via Google Play (for Android) and iTunes (for iOS). If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me and my team. 

The post The Dangers of Not Lodging Your Certificates of Compliance appeared first on QuickSafety.

Find Out More

How QuickSafety can Help

At QuickSafety, we take the hassle out of validating, recording, and storage of your inspection and testing results, as well as in most states—completing and issuing your Certificates of Electrical Compliance. With our user-friendly app, electricians can digitally lodge their certificates within seconds, and allows the contractor to secure storage of all certificates and testing results securely in one place for up to five years (or seven in New Zealand). It also functions as a useful platform that will help you manage your time and tasks better and get rid of workspace clutter, making the job easier overall. If you have any questions, please get in touch with my team.

The QuickSafety app is now available for download via Google Play (for Android devices) and iTunes (for iOS devices). Don’t take any chances. Sign up with QuickSafety now.

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With this in mind, we at QuickSafety have designed an app for electricians, tradies, mining firms, and other contractors that will help you save time and money on inspection & testing and issuing compliance certificates, leading to a more robust competitive advantage to leverage.

So, how does our app achieve just that? Below is a summary of how one app can lead to increased time- and cost-efficiency.

What Is QuickSafety?

Compliance certificates, required in all states, remain an important government mandate, with serious penalties and repercussions for failure to comply. Taking care of the paperwork and records required can consume a lot of working hours, costing a company significant amounts of time. And since, in business, time essentially equates to money, this also means lost profits.

The QuickSafety app can help you process, manage, and organise compliance-related issues. It also conveniently stores records for up to five years in Australia (seven years in New Zealand). Our app takes the stress out of compliance by reducing legal exposure by up to $370,000 per month.

How QuickSafety Helps You Save Time and Money

Our app takes care of access, record keeping, and compliance validation. This leaves your staff and admin more free to do what they do best and rids workspaces of messy paperwork.

Keep Better Track of Jobs

The QuickSafety app allows users to pre-plan jobs while also logging progress and task completion. This allows users and admin to monitor tasks better and be updated in terms of the status of each task. The ability to pre-plan jobs also helps you be more time-efficient and prepared—you’ll be able to spot and even address potential issues in advance, resulting in reduced downtimes and saving you from headaches and lost income.

Register Compliance Information Remotely

Less paperwork. No more forgetting to complete compliance reports on the way back to the office. Just file remotely via your mobile device. If you’re reporting from a location so remote that you’re offline, QuickSafety will store the information and send it as soon as you’re within network range. This added convenience saves you time and reduces the stress associated with managing paperwork, keeping you more focused on improving your tasks or business as a whole.

Syncing and 24/7 access

Since information is also synced across all devices, QuickSafety not only saves time and money but also helps reduce miscommunication. With admin or staff members always updated, they’ll be informed of what they should know, need to do, and should prepare for.

Not every job falls between the hours of nine and five on business days. As such, QuickSafety also provides access on all hours every day, including holidays. It works whenever and wherever you have a job to do.

Efficient and Easy Compliance

As we all know, being compliant and managing compliance certificates can be tiring and frustrating. However, we basically have no choice—failing to comply means hefty fines and will negatively affect your reputation. Fortunately, with QuickSafety, through its innovative features, compliance is made easy and efficient, saving you from stiff penalties and helping you have more time to, say, do more tasks, improve your skills, or look for more clients.

That and its ability to help you manage your tasks and provide better visibility of progress for you and your team means that it not only helps you save time and money, it also makes your work easier overall, without you having to compromise anything.

Reach Out Today

With QuickSafety, you’re given a Certified AS/NZS3000 compliant app that provides advantages when it comes to compliance and task management—advantages that will help you do your job better. If you want to know more about QuickSafety or if you have any questions, get in touch with me or my team and we’ll be more than willing to help you.

If you’re interested in downloading the QuickSafety app, it’s now available for download via Google Play (for Android devices) and iTunes (for iOS devices).

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This is one of the reasons why the QuickSafety team and I developed the QuickSafety app.

Our app serves as an easy-to-use tool for lodging, processing, managing, and storing compliance certificates and helps ensure that the work is done and is compliant to AS/NZS 3000 standards. This is important since failure to be compliant can lead to hefty fines and even having your license revoked.

In a nutshell, the QuickSafety app makes life easier for electricians and electrical contractors, especially in terms of compliance certificates, while saving them from incurring penalties and breaking compliance laws. So, how does our all-around electrical compliance app achieve just that? Below, we highlight and explain some of its key features to give you a better idea of how QuickSafety can change the way you work for the better.

Easy and Quick Compliance Lodging

Thanks to technological advancements and the internet, we now have the ability to complete certain tasks easier and much faster compared to the past. The QuickSafety app is a clear reflection of this. Users can lodge inspection and testing values as well as compliance certificates via their mobile phones and complete the process in just a fraction of the time. This significantly reduces paperwork and eliminates the stress of manual filing.

Pre-plan Your Jobs

We developed the QuickSafety app with proper job management in mind. As such, we made sure that it allows users to pre-plan their jobs. This feature lets you log your future jobs many days ahead, saving you time in the process and allowing you to manage your workload better. Knowing and planning your jobs ahead of time allows you to better prepare and do your homework for increased job efficiency.

Automatic Syncing

The QuickSafety app also enables better collaboration and communication between admin and team members. With its instant syncing feature, information is automatically synced and updated across all devices. This ensures that all team members are updated when it comes to information they need to finish the task, and enables easier reporting on job progress.

Offline Capability

We’re well aware that you can’t always be online 24/7. There will be times that you’ll be out of Wi-Fi or network range, so we made sure that our app still works offline. It validates test results to AS/NZS 3000 Standards, as well as automatically stores your data and work progress even if you’re not connected to the internet. And, once you’re back online, it will upload data so you won’t have to start over.

Secure Storage

Another thing that we don’t like about paperwork and manual compliance filing is that important files tend to get lost over time. We remove this headache with the QuickSafety app. It lets you keep track of all the compliance certificates you’ve lodged and stores them securely for the required five years (or seven years in New Zealand).

With these features, the QuickSafety app allows you to better collaborate, manage your work, save time, and meet compliance standards—important requirements if you want to effectively scale your business.

If you want to know more about this app, please don’t hesitate to send us a message and we’ll be more than happy to help you out. The QuickSafety app is now available for download on Google Play (Android devices) and iTunes (for iOS devices).

The post Learning QuickSafety: A Walkthrough of Its Key Features appeared first on QuickSafety.

The truth of the matter is that clutter—in the form of things such as messy paperwork and a disorganised workspace—can slow us down and make us less productive, ultimately affecting our bottom line.

The Ill-effects of a Messy Workspace

Studies indicate that people spend a good deal of time looking for lost paperwork or gathering up files to do their work more effectively—time that could’ve been spent on other, more important things such as actually doing the job, looking for more business, or improving operations.

Not only that; there’s been plenty of research that reveals that clutter and a disorganised workspace negatively affects productivity. This, in turn, could adversely impact your bottom line. Think of it this way: because you spend more time and effort on dealing with paperwork and clutter, you’ll have less time dedicated to doing quality work and expanding your business. In the long run, this could even affect your reputation.

The need for having an effective system to manage or reduce paperwork becomes more apparent for electricians and electrical contractors. Aside from having to manage their tools and technical files, they also have to deal with plenty of paperwork related to certificates of compliance. If left unchecked, their files could pile up and make the task of organising them a more stressful job.

A Solution to all the Clutter

Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could simplify or reduce your physical paperwork, streamline your job’s processes, and effectively declutter? By using digital work management tools and platforms such as QuickSafety that allows you to work with more efficiency, easy access, and less clutter, you’ll be a lot closer to these goals.

These tools offer the benefit of effectively managing your tasks and files while letting you reduce paperwork by having digital copies you can access online. In QuickSafety’s case, you can lodge certificates of compliance and record your inspection and testing results — a critical part of electricians and electrical contractors’ work—via your smartphone and store them for up to five years in Australia (seven years in New Zealand). Not only are you reducing clutter, you’re also making sure that the work you do is compliant to current safety standards.

Last but not the least, and with less physical clutter resulting in mental clutter, these tools could lead to a state of mind that’s better suited for accomplishing more tasks, one that’s more focused at getting the job done. To drive home this point further, below are other benefits:

• You’ll find things you need faster; just a few clicks and you’ll have access
• You can deal with compliance issues seamlessly without any hassles
• Having less clutter allows you to focus more on your tasks and deliverables
• With a better-focused mind, you will perform and produce higher quality work

If you want to reduce paperwork and clutter on your job site, make your workday more organised, and ensure you remain compliant, QuickSafety is here for you. Our app allows you to pre-plan jobs, store files securely, record inspection and testing results, and lodge compliance certificates wirelessly, among many other conveniences, to make things easier for you. You also don’t have to worry about file access for you and your team—it allows syncing for all devices and admin and team members for continuity and efficient collaboration. It also functions offline, even without mobile or network service. Whether you work as an electrician, electrical contractor, construction or mining company, or a government electrical regulator, this easy-to-use, stress-free tool will work wonders for you.

The QuickSafety app is now available on Google Play and iTunes for download. Get in touch with us today to know more.

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