Custom software for Seveso inspections and findings
A Seveso inspection is not a visit from a single inspector. A team from the Netherlands Labour Inspectorate, the safety region and the environmental service arrives, often joined by others, and together they have drawn up a programme. The findings that come out of it land with different departments, and the summary is made public.
How the inspection is organised
Inspection runs through a cooperation programme in which the Netherlands Labour Inspectorate, the safety regions and the environmental services work together, joined by parties such as Rijkswaterstaat, the water boards, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate, the Public Prosecution Service and the State Supervision of Mines. They inspect jointly, so that three inspectors do not turn up three times with three verdicts.
For each site, those inspectors draw up an inspection programme together. That programme is not static: it is revised on the basis of national themes, the results of earlier inspections, policy changes, recorded violations, complaints, near misses and incidents. What happened at your site last year therefore partly determines where attention is directed this year.
And then the point that is often underestimated: a public summary is published of every routine inspection. That practice has existed since 2014. This means your follow-up is not an internal matter but something a local resident, a journalist or a client can read. An open finding is therefore a different kind of problem from one that has been closed.
How we build this
Here the finding is the unit, not the visit. An inspection produces points that must still be closed months later, often by someone other than the person who was present.
Each finding with its origin, the inspector who identified it and the article it rests on. As long as this is a row in a report, it disappears.
A finding without a name and a date is only an intention. We link every finding to a person and a deadline, and make visible what is happening to it.
Not just that something was done, but what, by whom, and what proves it. That is what gets checked at the next visit.
The inspection programme is adjusted based on earlier results and on incidents. Whoever keeps track of their own near misses will know sooner where attention is heading.
What the software actually does
The findings register carries the whole. What else you need depends on your size and on how many inspectors visit you.
Findings with their origin
Which inspector, which part of the programme, which legal basis. With a joint inspection that distinction is needed to know who must receive the answer.
Follow-up with cause and evidence
A measure without supporting evidence does not count at the next visit. We record what was done and what demonstrates it.
Deadlines tracked per finding
A finding whose final deadline has passed is a harder conversation than the finding itself. That should not have to sit in someone's diary.
Patterns across inspections
The recurrence of the same cause is what inspection watches for. You only see that when findings from several years sit in a single register.
Preparing for the programme
The programme is adjusted to themes and to your own history. We make visible which parts have not been addressed for a longer time.
Integration with your asset management system
Findings affect your inventory of materials, your scenarios and your maintenance. We bring these together through integrations with what you already use, including the registration of inventory and asset management system.
Who we build for
The scale of an inspection trajectory varies greatly. Four situations.
Chemicals and process industry
Major hazard sites with a safety report and an extensive inspection programme. This is where most findings and most supervisory bodies come together. See also chemical safety software.
Handling and transfer of hazardous substances
Less complex processes, but more movement. Findings here tend to concern housekeeping, segregation and record-keeping rather than installation safety.
Businesses just below the threshold
Not a Seveso site, but still visited by the environmental service and the Labour Inspectorate. The same follow-up question, under a lighter framework. Where explosion risk is present, there is ATEX software.
Safety consultants and advisory firms
You guide several sites through the same process. A single environment per client saves reconstructing a file at every visit.
Test your idea first: a working prototype in 1 day
With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.
Explore OneDayBuild →Technology and integrations
Supervisory themes and legal bases change; since 2024 the obligations also sit in different legislation. Everything related to that should be configurable and kept with its history.
Why Appfront
One visit, several supervisory bodies
For each finding we record who identified it and on which legal basis. Without that, you don't know who should receive the response.
The deadline is the real risk
We monitor deadlines per finding. An overdue date weighs more at the next visit than the original observation.
The summary becomes public
We structure follow-up so you can show what has happened, because that account will be made public.
Recurrence is the pattern inspectors look for
We keep findings together over the years, so the same root cause stands out before an inspector spots it.
Security and privacy
A findings register records where things were not in order at your site. This is information you want to keep strictly confidential and be able to separate by department. We set access by role and by location, give an external adviser only their own scope, and log every access.
For this subject, history carries great weight. At a later visit or following an incident, the question concerns the situation at a given moment: which finding was open at that time, who was responsible and what had been done. We therefore keep every change to a finding or its follow-up with the time and the person responsible, and show an amendment alongside the previous value rather than over it. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside go through our CVD policy.
Frequently asked questions about the Seveso inspection
A joint team. The core group consists of the Dutch Labour Inspectorate, the safety region and the environmental service; depending on your situation, Rijkswaterstaat, a water board, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate or the State Supervision of Mines may also take part. They work together in a single programme rather than visiting separately.
A public summary is published for every routine inspection; this practice has existed since 1 May 2014. This means your follow-up matters not only to the supervisor but also to local residents, customers and the press.
Inspectors draw up a programme for each site and review it periodically. National themes, the results of earlier inspections, policy changes, violations, complaints, near-misses and incidents all feed into it. Your own history is therefore one of the ingredients.
The BRZO software covers your own substance inventory, the threshold assessment and the safety management system. This page is about the process with the regulators: the programme, the findings and the follow-up. In practice, you bring them together on one register.
Not in the regulations. The Dutch Major Accident Risks Decree 2015 (Besluit risico's zware ongevallen 2015) was withdrawn on 1 January 2024, when the Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) came into force, and the obligations now sit in the regulations under it. The term is Seveso establishment. In practice, many businesses and advisers still use both terms interchangeably.
It comes back at the next visit, and then the conversation is no longer about the original shortcoming but about why nothing has been done. Regulators have enforcement powers, and repetition weighs heavily in those decisions. The deadline is therefore more important than the finding itself.
Yes. We give an external safety specialist or advisory firm access to the scope they are working on, with their own role. That is usually more practical than sending findings back and forth by email, where no one knows which version applies.
That depends on the number of locations, your layout and how much has already been recorded. A findings register with deadline tracking is usually quick to become useful and removes the biggest risk; integrations with the asset management system cost more. We'll give you a reasoned estimate after the discovery phase.
Knowing what is still open?
Take the report from your last inspection and, for each finding, look up who owns it and when it must be closed. If that takes more than a few minutes, that is the gap. We build this as a standalone application and as part of a wider custom software project.