Saving 55 Minutes per Permit: The Real ROI of Digital Permit Systems

If you’ve ever worked on a busy construction site, you’ll recognise this scenario instantly:

It’s Monday morning, 7:30am. The team is inducted, RAMS are approved, subcontractors are ready to go…and then someone asks:

“Where is the hot work permit?
“Where’s last week’s signed copy?”
“Who’s authorised to close it out?”

At that moment, operations grind to a halt. The lost minutes turn into lost hours. And the stress of chasing signatures begins all over again.

This was the reality Harry Marffy shared in his Digital Construction North speaker session and it’s exactly the problem innDex’s digital permit tool was created to solve.

Why Paper Permits Cause So Much Chaos.

Although the industry has made huge strides in digitalising processes like inductions and RAMS, permits have remained stubbornly manual. Why?

Because permits are:

• Complex and multi-stage
• Dependent on the right person at the right time
• Risk-critical
• Often linked to ISO documentation
• Different on every site

Digitising them isn’t just “putting a form online” it’s mapping real workflows, responsibilities and site-specific rules.

But staying on paper comes with real consequences:
Lost documents, incomplete approvals, gaps in audit trails, delays on the programme and hours of wasted admin time.

From Complexity to Control: The innDex Approach.

Harry broke down the three design principles behind innDex’s permit system:

1. Evolution, Not Revolution.

Instead of forcing customers to change their processes, innDex digitises the exact forms they already use. The interface changes but the workflow doesn’t. This makes adoption fast and frictionless.

2. Built for the Person on the Ground.

Operatives can request a permit:

• from their phone or tablet
• at the point of work
• with auto-filled project and personal details

Approvers receive real-time alerts and escalations, meaning no more waiting around or tracking people down across sites.

3. A Single Source of Truth.

Permits automatically connect to:

• inductions
• competency records
• RAMS
• plant and equipment checks
• site dashboards
• Power BI analytics

This creates a fully traceable, real-time overview of what’s active on site and what’s safe to proceed with.

The Impact: Real Savings, Real Safety Improvements.

The results speak for themselves.

Early adopters such as Office Principles saw an 85% reduction in permit processing time, saving 35 minutes per permit on the front end alone.

More recently, Hill Group reported a 55-minute saving per permit, backed by months of data collected across active projects.

Multiply that across hundreds of permits per project, and the cumulative impact becomes enormous, saving teams days or even weeks of avoidable administrative burden.

From Chaos to Clarity.

Digital permits aren’t just digital versions of paper forms, they’re a completely new way of managing site safety and compliance.

What begins with a faster permit request ends with:

• stronger accountability
• real-time compliance visibility
• consistent cross-site workflows
• cleaner data
• predictive insight into safety performance

The industry knows permits have been a sticking point for too long. But as Harry demonstrated at Digital Construction North, the tools now exist to make them not only manageable but transformational.

And for contractors who are ready, the shift from paper chaos to predictive insight is already underway.

If you want to see innDex’s permit tool in action, click here to book a demo!