Pacific Ethanol, Inc. (PEI) began using BasicSafe’s suite of products in 2012. Prior to implementing BasicSafe, Pacific Ethanol had disjointed programs, views on compliance differed among its plants and information sharing was difficult, which resulted in compliance deficiencies.
Pacific Ethanol purchased the entire suite of BasicSafe products, which includes 11 tools. It was implemented initially at their four locations to develop a form of consistency and information sharing among the plants. The initial primary focus for implementation was the PSM Module, with the rest following shortly. Starting in 2015, three other locations were acquired and PEI essentially doubled in size overnight. BasicSafe was implemented at the new facilities as part of the integration plan. With the growth of the company, consistency and communication were integral to success. BasicSafe helped achieve this. In 2016, the scheduler tool was added to ensure all compliance deadlines were met. Utilizing BasicSafe meant using standardized programs at each location, rather than different programs, managed different ways, at each location. With BasicSafe, regulatory documentation is easily accessed by employees at all locations and are particularly useful during inspections or audits.
Subsequent compliance program audit results improved at the facilities between 25-50% after the implementation of BasicSafe. This improvement can be attributed to BasicSafe’s ability to manage and easily produce documents needed during an audit.
With BasicSafe, Pacific Ethanol is able to better track action items, including who should complete them and whether or not they were completed on time. Having these events detailed makes it easy to provide proof to auditors of what’s being done to handle EHS programs. It increases efficiency and speeds up the audit process when they can easily search for a document and give it to the auditors rather than searching through three-ring binders or Excel spreadsheets. It also helps Pacific Ethanol feel more prepared in the event an unexpected audit takes place.
Pacific Ethanol now has 10 plants at six locations, and BasicSafe modules are implemented at each one. Some are more frequently used than others at the various locations, but BasicSafe tools are accessible when needed.
Using all the tools in the software suite enables a seamless experience. Not only does it simplify transparency for companies with various locations, it accelerates the time it takes to locate and produce documents for inspections.