VARD: Leading the way in HSE and Quality Management with Synergi Life
Transforming incident management for a safer workplace
VARD designs and builds high-quality, specialized vessels for the global market. From their headquarters in Ålesund, Norway, they operate shipbuilding facilities in Brazil, Romania, Norway, and Vietnam. In addition to maritime services, VARD produces a range of advanced power and automation systems, deck handling equipment, and vessel accommodation solutions.
Building a sophisticated health, safety, and environmental management program
Shipyards pose numerous chemical and physical hazards to workers, often resulting in unsafe conditions higher than national averages. VARD prioritizes keeping its shipyards as safe as possible by leveraging its Health, Safety, Environment, and Quality (HSEQ) management programs. Having subsidiaries worldwide requires VARD to have a user-friendly incident reporting system that operates effectively across multiple languages and international locations.
In 2007, VARD started with Synergi Life’s HSE module (incident management and environment management), a legacy software. Seven years later, they added the quality management modules. Currently, over 2000 of VARD’s employees use Synergi Life.
Creating a culture of sharing and learning
Human errors and mistakes are inevitable in high-risk environments. VARD quickly recognized the importance of fostering a culture of safety, or safety culture, ensuring employees understand they will not be disciplined for reporting incidents.
Synergi Life’s reporting system helps facilitate this culture so everyone can focus on learning from mistakes without fear of repercussions. The incident reporting software has shifted the focus from quantity to quality, emphasizing the need to investigate incidents appropriately. By increasing awareness of unsafe conditions and encouraging employees to feel comfortable enough to report incidents, it has become much easier to register what has happened and learn from it. Automatic features like reminders for assigned actions help ensure issues are properly tracked and followed up on.
“One of my favorite features in Synergi Life is that after an incident is reported, I can assign actions to my coworkers, and the system automatically pushes and reminds people to follow up. This way, we can be sure to learn from the events.”
Anna Boness, Group HSEQ Manager
Since starting with Synergi Life, VARD has kept a record of common health and safety indicators like lost time incident rate (LTI). They can identify the LTI rate as 3.2 times lower in 2024 than it was 18 years ago in 2006.
Enabling incident management in employee’s native language
Like many international companies, VARD requires its incident reporting software to function seamlessly across borders and promote global communication. VARD’s locations and subsidiaries had diverse needs for risk management, as well as for environment, health, and safety.
Anna Boness, Group HSEQ Manager, explained, “We are very proud of using Synergi Life because it's the only system available for every single one of our units worldwide, from the Americas to Asia, including our seven shipyards and many subsidiaries. While they report accidents and quality cases, they also report worked hours in the monthly data registration module and include other information needed for monthly reports.”
VARD facilitates incident reporting by leveraging Synergi Life’s multiple language options. The program is used in English, Norwegian, Portuguese, and Romanian.
Cross-company easy access to incident reporting
When Synergi Life moved to SaaS, VARD was an early adopter and migrated in 2021. The change to cloud-native instantly streamlined the reporting system, mainly when operating across borders. Using SaaS allowed the company to have all locations on a shared server, ending their ongoing issue with differing domain names.
This shift reduced dependence on a single IT specialist, making system maintenance and updates more manageable and streamlined. Additionally, it facilitated easier cross-border operations by consolidating all users on a single server, improving communication and data management across locations.
VARD also benefited from an improved user experience, including features like autocomplete in search fields. These enhancements made the system more accessible and user-friendly, reducing the time and effort required to report incidents. By simplifying the process, it encouraged more frequent and accurate reporting. Anna Boness says, “Using SaaS also makes it easier for us to organize ourselves, and Synergi Life has lifted everyone a level, improving communication across the board.”
World-wide reporting
Initially, each VARD location had different incident reporting methods. VARD needed to implement shared reports, standard data collection, and uniform reporting criteria. With Synergi Life, all locations use the same reporting criteria, ensuring consistent data when aggregating information. This consistency has also improved the coordination of safety measures and quality management practices across the organization.
To make their reporting even more streamlined, they have added some customizations. An incident report’s status changes automatically depending on the fields in which an employee enters information. Anna especially likes the report-sharing function. “With report-sharing, I make the report with an employee and transfer the authority to them, so it’s their report."
Customization lets employees lend a voice
Customizing software to better meet an enterprise’s needs is essential. VARD welcomes suggestions for improving the Synergi Life experience for all employees. Everyone can make a change request. Four times yearly, these change requests are evaluated in meetings of the VARD Synergi forum.
In the forum, changes may be approved, deemed unfeasible, or deemed feasible but too costly. Recently, due to increased access to the admin web, VARD has implemented more internal changes without external help.
Adapt to changing environmental management and sustainability reporting requirements
The VARD HSEQ Department carefully tracks regulatory changes and the company’s environmental impact. Using Synergi Life’s Environmental Management Module, the department can generate detailed reports on energy consumption, emissions, and waste management.
The software streamlines the collection and reporting of environmental data, ensuring compliance with corporate sustainability goals and external regulations. This also supports the organization's efforts in tracking and improving its environmental impact.
Enhancing safety with Synergi Life and AI
In the future, VARD plans to use Synergi Life to enhance its safety culture further and delve deeper into the causes of incidents. Anna explained, “We want to go beyond understanding what happened on site. We want to uncover the ‘why.’ Why was the employee feeling stressed, unmotivated, or not following instructions? By understanding these underlying issues, we can take effective action to truly fix the problem.”
VARD is especially interested in how Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions will support Synergi Life. Current and future AI will further help transform HSEQ data into actionable insights and foster a safer environment.
About VARD
VARD builds ships from start to finish, offering exceptional services to ship owners and operators. Their shipyards provide ship repair and conversion services on all types of sailing vessels. From design to the last layer of paint, VARD guides clients through each part of the process. VARD designs and manufactures a wide range of vessels for various markets, including energy, seafood, adventure, and security.
Additionally, VARD develops and designs concept vessels for the maritime industry. Some of their specialized ships include service operation vessels, naval and coast guard vessels, fishing vessels, and icebreakers, all with customer-specific applications. For every type of vessel, VARD provides a high level of customization to meet the specific needs of its clients.