October 23, 2023

Insights from our Users – This Year’s User Forum

Over the course of two informative days, a dedicated group of professionals gathered at Hotel Bristol for INOSA User Forum 2023. This event served as a vital platform for knowledge exchange and discussions regarding the use and possibilities of the system. The User Forum highlights the importance of maintaining a close relationship with our customers and gaining insights from them to continually enhance the system. Two highlights from the event was the user presentations from Mads Bårdsen at Ydra and Kjellbjørn Fossheim’s presentation from Hydro. Their insightful experiences underscore the crucial role that INOSA has played and continues to play in reinforcing organizational quality and efficiency.

Customer Proximity

For INOSA, engaging with users is crucial to achieving continuous improvements in the system. The User Forum is a significant platform where users and system administrators can come together to share their experiences, ask questions, and benefit from each other’s knowledge. This provides us with a unique opportunity to gain deep insights and continually improve the INOSA system in line with the actual needs and challenges faced by our users. Additionally, the forum offers a valuable opportunity for our customers to connect with a diverse group of individuals working in various parts of the system, including customer support, UX designers, developers, sales, marketing, and product development departments.

Striving for a Safe Workplace

An important part of the user forum is to hear about the experiences of the system’s users. The Managing Director of Ydra, Mads Bårdsen, shared his experience shortly after taking office when he had to deal with an incident involving a personal injury. In such situations, it is standard practice for the Labor Inspectorate to become involved and ask the following questions: Was the machine/equipment in a proper condition? How many hours had the individuals involved worked in the past few days? And had the individuals involved received sufficient training?

These questions served as a catalyst for Ydra to reflect on the question: Are our colleagues adequately prepared to perform their work in a safe and efficient manner? This is where INOSA became an important part of the tools and solutions for Ydra. Bårdsen particularly emphasized the importance of INOSA’s improvement and documentation modules as central tools in the organization’s efforts to ensure a safe workplace and the continuous improvement of the employees’ working conditions.

Mads Bårdsen discusses their active efforts to create a safe and secure workplace for their 45 employees.

Global tools – global savings

Kjellbjørn Fossheim from Hydro delivered an inspiring presentation on how Hydro, with factories spread across the world, has successfully implemented a joint system for managing operational procedures by using INOSA. During his presentation, Fossheim introduced a new INOSA feature called “WOC” (Walk Observe Communicate), which Hydro has been a driving force behind the development. WOC is a digital form of Gemba walk related to operational procedures. Using WOC, they can conduct job observations directly in the workplace, resulting in a remarkable time savings of up to 50% per job observation. This achievement is especially impressive considering Hydro performs over 160,000 job observations annually, demonstrating the significant efficiency gains they have achieved through INOSA.

Kjellbjørn Fossheim from Hydro illustrates how shields used during the Viking era can be compared to today’s standard operating procedures, serving as crucial tools in the workplace.

A Platform for Improvement

INOSA User Forum 2023 served as a crucial platform for knowledge sharing, learning, and improvement. The presentations by Mads Bårdsen at Ydra and Kjellbjørn Fossheim at Hydro emphasize the importance of understanding and adapting to customer needs. It is clear that the INOSA system plays a pivotal role in assisting organizations in achieving high quality, efficiency, and safety. This User Forum underscores the importance of maintaining customer proximity to develop and enhance systems tailored to the real challenges organizations face.