Custom app development for emergency plans and safety rounds at a Seveso site
The internal emergency plan of a Seveso establishment is usually in order. What is rarely there is evidence that it has been practised and that the measures under it work. That evidence is created on the installation: during a round, during an exercise, at the moment someone notices something. And there is no keyboard there.
What changed in 2024
The Besluit risico's zware ongevallen 2015 (Decree on Major Accident Risks 2015) lapsed on 1 January 2024 and was absorbed into the Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet). What was called a Brzo company is now a Seveso establishment, and the substantive rules are set out in section 4.2 of the Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving (Decree on Activities in the Living Environment). The name has changed, but not the severity: prevention policy for major accidents, a safety management system, an internal emergency plan and, for upper-tier establishments, a safety report.
Supervision in this category is unusually demanding and unusually shared. The competent authority, the safety region and the Netherlands Labour Inspectorate (Nederlandse Arbeidsinspectie) all look on together, each from its own perspective, and they visit the site. What is asked is not whether the plan exists, but whether it is alive.
This is where things go wrong. A safety management system that exists only on paper is hard to defend at an inspection. Rounds are walked and ticked off on paper, exercises are held and summarised in a report, deviations are reported and followed up by email. Everything happens; it is simply not easy to find again when someone asks about it three months later.
Two topics sit alongside this and have their own pages. For the substance inventory, the threshold assessment and the management system, there is software for Seveso obligations; for releasing work on an installation, there is the app for work permits and isolation.
What happens after an inspection with its findings is a separate process: several supervisory bodies, their own deadlines and a public summary. See software for Seveso inspections.
How we build this
The observation on the installation is the unit here. If it is captured at the moment itself, the exercise reports and the inspection questions follow from it.
We look at how things currently work, what gets written down and where visibility drops out. In a process plant, that happens in more places than you'd expect.
You have a safety management system with established procedures. We build the field side of it, not a new framework alongside it, because two frameworks are worse than none at all.
The app works offline and syncs later. In tank pits, cellars and behind steel, that isn't an edge case but the normal situation.
We ask a question an inspector would ask and see whether the answer is on the table within a minute. What's missing then will be missing later too.
What the app does in practice
The app does little, and that little must always work, wearing gloves and in an environment where a phone may not even be allowed. Which components you need depends on your installation and your risk category.
Rounds past installation parts
For each round, which points are due and what to look out for. The app guides the round and records what was observed, so it can later be established which part was checked and when.
Verifiable presence at the point
A tag or code at the installation proves that someone was actually there. Without that, a ticked-off round is just a claim, and that is exactly what an inspector tests.
Deviations reported immediately with follow-up
A leak, a blocked escape route, a missing valve. The report is given an owner and a deadline on the spot, so it doesn't sit in an inbox.
Drills recorded with lessons learned
When the drill took place, who took part, what went wrong and what was done about it. For an inspector, the internal emergency plan is only worth as much as the drill record beneath it.
Photo with time and place
A picture of the actual situation during a deviation or drill. In a review afterwards, that is the most convincing piece of evidence and the one recorded most quickly.
Fully offline operation
Rounds, reports and photos carry on without a connection and sync later, with each round showing whether that succeeded.
Who we build for
The nature of your installation determines what the app looks like. Four situations.
Chemicals and process industry
Extensive installations with zones where equipment must meet requirements. The round is the most important observation tool here, and where an app delivers the most value.
Storage of hazardous substances
Tank storage and loading and unloading terminals work with changing batches and many visitors. Besides the round, what matters here is who was on the site and for what reason.
Maintenance and contractors on site
Work permits, final checks and handover after a job. Those moments fall between parties and are therefore the least well recorded. For the inspection of the work equipment itself, there is the inspection logbook.
Production with large cooling installations
Ammonia brings into this category companies that don't see themselves as chemical businesses. The obligations are the same, while the organisation isn't set up for them. We work out the risk inventory below on the RI&E tool with action plan.
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The app is the field side of your safety management system, not a new framework. What it records ends up in the file where your procedures and your emergency plan already sit.
Why Appfront
Inspection tests whether the plan is alive
Three inspectors look over your shoulder and they do visit. That is why we build the trail of rounds and drills, because that is what they ask for and what paper doesn't provide.
There is no signal at the installation
Tank pits, cellars and steel structures. Offline is the baseline: an app that stalls down there gets abandoned, and then the observation never happens.
We don't build a second framework
You already have a safety management system with established procedures. The app is the field side of that, not a system of its own.
Connecting to what you already manage
Installation data and maintenance schedules already exist. We connect to them via integrations rather than having you retype them.
Security and privacy
This app holds the weak points of an installation where major accidents could occur: where which substance is stored, which valve isn't doing its job, which escape route was blocked. That is more sensitive than an ordinary inspection file. We limit what is stored offline on the device to the current round, tie permissions to the user and to the installation part, and ensure that a lost device can be disconnected remotely.
There is also something that doesn't apply to other apps: in some zones an ordinary device is not allowed in. That is not a software question, but it does shape the design, because the app must also run on the equipment that is permitted there and must cope with part of a round being entered later. On the evidence side, photo, timestamp and observer must be tamper-proof; a drill report updated after the fact proves nothing. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside come through our vulnerability disclosure policy.
Frequently asked questions about Seveso and the safety app
Seveso. The Brzo 2015 lapsed on 1 January 2024 and was absorbed into the Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet); since then the regulations refer to a Seveso establishment, and the substantive rules sit in section 4.2 of the Activities Decree (Besluit activiteiten leefomgeving). The term Brzo still appears a lot in older documents and in everyday speech, but in documents for the regulator, use the new term.
The core obligations remained: a major accident prevention policy, a safety management system, an internal emergency plan and, for upper-tier establishments, a safety report. What did shift is the place in the framework and therefore the link to permits and the competent authority. Have your own adviser check what that means for your site.
The system describes what must happen; the app records that it did happen. That difference is what an inspector tests. Rounds ticked off on paper don't show that someone was actually at the installation section, and a drill without lessons learned and follow-up is, at inspection, a report with no sequel.
That depends on the zone. In some areas an ordinary device is not allowed in, and you work with equipment approved for that. We design the app to run on such equipment and so that part of a round can be entered later without the record losing its value. Which zone requirements apply to you is for your safety specialist to determine.
Because the question shifts from searching to demonstrating. An inspector asks when an installation section was last checked, or what was done about a deviation from last quarter. If that is in one overview with time, person and follow-up, the conversation is short. Otherwise a search through mailboxes begins.
Lower-tier establishments don't need a safety report, but the prevention policy, the management system and the internal emergency plan still apply. In practice the app is actually lighter there, because there are fewer installation sections and fewer rounds. What stays the same is that the evidence is created on site.
Often, yes, and that is usually sensible because it concerns the same people and the same installation parts. Maintenance schedules and installation data come from your existing package via integrations; the app adds the recording rather than a second administration.
That depends on the number of installation parts and rounds, whether exercises need to be included and which package you integrate with. Rounds with recording are usually quick to become useful; exercises and integrations cost more. We give a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase.
Demonstrating that rounds and drills took place?
Ask when any given installation component was last checked, and see how long it takes to get that answer. That is the question an inspector asks. We build this as a standalone app and as part of a wider custom app development or custom software development project.