Local safety professionals, Gideon Ashby and Ian Nathan, saw a gap in the marketplace and formed a partnership to launch Take5Apps.
“Back in October 2013 Gideon and I were talking about how there were no good safety apps, more specifically, no Take5 apps to get rid of those pesky Take5 cards and booklets used on many mine sites,” Ian said.
They formed a partnership on the spot and went to work formulating an easy-to-use safety application that would save time for both onsite workers and administrators alike.
At the time Gideon was working as a Supervisor for Westrac and Ian had just finished with Structural Cranes as the Safety Manager.
Gideon has eight years mining experience and is very familiar with mining safety requirements having managed the safety documentation, including the Take 5 administration for his team for four years.
Ian has over ten years safety experience, having installed four complete safety systems for four different companies. Ian has written many policies and procedures and is familiar with most facets of construction and mining safety.
It wasn’t until May 2014 that the, now formalised partnership, would release the first version of their app.
“We’re completing upfront about the fact that it wasn’t long before we started receiving comments on the shortcomings of the app,” Gideon said. “We listened to our user base and went to work on redeveloping the T5 into a practical time saving and cost-eliminating app.”
The original app had two inbuilt apps, a Take5 risk and hazard identification app and a 5-minute Hazard reporting app. Both apps allowed for automatic date and time stamping, automatically adding the users details to each of the reports and emailing them to a predetermined group of recipients, and all at the touch of a button. It was simple and fast, eliminating the paperwork and taking full advantage of the iPhone and Android device features, but the pair admit that it still had its shortcomings.
“Once again with the help of our increasing user base, Version 2.0 was released mid-2015 and the App has evolved into what we have today. Released at the beginning of this month, T5 Version 3.0 is now a suite of 3 safety apps, the T5 (Take5), the H5 (Hazard Report), and its latest addition, the P5 (Vehicle & Equipment Prestart Checklist). The ‘5’ in each apps title, stands for five minutes. That’s all it should take to complete each report and send it off to your supervisor, or even less once a user gets the hang of it,” Gideon concluded.
The T5 app specialises in proactive safety, saves time, reduces paperwork and provides an improved overview of hazard and risk reducing processes undertaken by onsite personnel. It costs $5 and has no hidden extra on-costs.
