N.B. Company Creates App That Tracks Safety Measures
MONCTON — A New Brunswick tech company wants to help businesses keep their employees safe and cover their backs when it comes to complying with rules and regulations around COVID-19.
Moncton-based Safelii has launched its first product, Qualiitrak. The web-based app allows companies to digitally collect compliance data from their workforce to easily detect issues in real-time and demonstrate proof of compliance. It takes what is often done by manual, paper-based checklists and makes it digital.
“In the practical sense, it is really a checklist that people can complete to confirm that certain tasks or certain things have been inspected. Elements that are not compliant are fed back directing to management for attention for corrective actions if required,” said Safelii CEO Henri Mikhael.
“The whole application is centered around that, the ability to create the checklist, to conduct inspections, to report compliance or not compliance and to take actions around non-compliance situations.”
Qualiitrak was originally designed to help businesses in more industrial sectors to digitally keep track of safety and quality compliance and procedures. The app was set to go to market next quarter, but when COVID-19 hit, they saw an opportunity.
“One of the key elements around COVID-19 was how do we make sure that we are abiding by those required regulations. We found there was an opportunity to help companies,” said Mikhael.
“Because when you follow regulations around COVID-19, you have basically have a checklist. You have to disinfect your computer, the high-touch areas. All the things we found that were somewhat generic. We thought it would be useful to make them more itemized.”
From now until the end of the pandemic, Qualiitrack offering all its app and COVID-19 checklists free to all businesses.
“The event of COVID-19 got us to say ‘there’s something we can do to help, and we decided to launch the application much faster with checklists that are pre-populated around COVID,” said Mikhael. “So we’re going to have things that are useful to all business and some that will be industry-specific.”
Qualiitrak’s features include real-time notifications of problems and activity and the ability for all employees to report issues or observations. Users can also upload photos to document possible issues.
The app has already undergone private beta testing, including at a New Brunswick daycare, which even before COVID-19 had government regulations to follow. Simon Gauvin, Safelii’s chief technology officer said Qualiitrak’s app can not only help keep employees safe but also serve as proof of compliance to outside governing bodies if needed.
“So in companies like that, for example, the same thing may thing apply to the COVID issue, in which you have to prove that you have a certain amount of materials dispensed, that you have sanitizer on everybody’s desk, you have to have XYZ in order to keep the company open,” said Gauvin.
“Businesses are afraid of getting shut down for various reasons, they want to stay open, but they are also concerned about their employees’ health and contracting COVID-19.”
Though the enforcement and regulations around businesses and coronavirus are still very new, Gauvin says they plan to continue to update Qualiitrak so it works the way companies need it to.
“One of the things that’s important here is that the application allows for that kind of information to be collected by the company and distributed to the authorities in order to show that compliance was in fact in-place,” he said.
“As we continue to evolve the app … we will augment the application in order to satisfy that in a more efficient way. That’s really the key, it’s to help the companies stay open and to help the employees stay safe.”