Teck Digital EHSC — Contractor Safety Approvals Across Mine Sites

Challenges Addressed

The client asked us not to copy the Excel forms but to give them “a more modern approach”. The platform had to:

1. 01

   Give external contractors their own secure logins

2. 02

   Guide contractors through a long safety plan

3. 03

   Route each plan to several approvers, in parallel

4. 04

   Track every change made after approval

5. 05

   Produce printable copies for use on site

6. 06

   Meet corporate security rules to scale across sites

Our Role

Orion was the engineering and delivery team behind our agency partner, who managed the client relationship

1. 01

   Requirements and estimates for every change

2. 02

   Wireframes, UI design and clickable prototypes

3. 03

   ASP.NET development and SQL Server data design

4. 04

   QA, regression testing and UAT support

5. 05

   Deployments, server management and security scans

6. 06

   From 2024, a dedicated developer on monthly retainer

Solution Overview

A secure ASP.NET and SQL Server web application that takes each contractor safety plan from invitation to approval, with a full revision history and printable output for the field.

1. 01

   Initiate: Teck staff create the job with PO#, site and approvers, and invite the contractor.

2. 02

   Complete: The contractor fills the plan tab by tab, saving progress as it goes.

3. 03

   Approve: Approvers review in parallel; a rejection requires comments.

4. 04

   Revise: Edits after approval are highlighted and sent for re-approval.

5. 05

   On site: The approved plan is printed for the crew and closed out on completion.

Key Capabilities

1. 01

   Multi-section safety work plan: Summary and personnel, risk assessment, emergency response, documents, EPWP and equipment mobilization.

2. 02

   Risk assessment matrix: Categorized hazards with pre and post control rankings set from a 5x5 risk matrix.

3. 03

   Roles and permissions: Super admin, Teck admins, Teck users, contractors and sub-contractors, and additional contributors.

4. 04

   Approval workflow: Parallel approvals, rejection with comments, approver replacement and re-approval after changes.

5. 05

   Revision tracking: Version numbering, a revision log and colour highlighted edits in each approval round.

6. 06

   Duplicate and re-submit: Contractors reuse an earlier plan as the starting point for new work.

7. 07

   Site specific content: Emergency contacts and muster points configured for each mine site.

8. 08

   Appendix forms: Pre-Job Meeting and Contractor Performance Review forms linked to each plan.

9. 09

   Search, exports and news: Advanced search, CSV downloads, user and company management and a home page newsfeed.

Reporting and Data

1. 01

   Automated daily reports: Emailed as CSV extracts, including the HPRC report and a work plan completions report.

2. 02

   Scale of data: By December 2021 the HPRC report covered 8,000+ entries across 1,300+ work plans.

3. 03

   Power BI access: Read-only database access so Teck’s analysts could build dashboards.

4. 04

   Annual data exports: In 2025 Teck’s analyst used a full year of data to report on the program’s impact.

Scaling to Enterprise

1. 01

   Corporate security review: Orion answered Teck’s 26 point cloud security questionnaire, documented security policies and set up monthly Qualys and SonarQube scans.

2. 02

   Hardened operations: Restricted database access, weekly log and patch reviews, SSL monitoring, daily database backups with 15 day retention and monthly server maintenance reports.

3. 03

   Performance tuning: Excess background requests were replaced with a timer based session check. The Contractor Jobs listing dropped from about 11 seconds to 1 or 2 seconds.

Separation to Elk Valley Resources

When Teck’s coal business became Elk Valley Resources in 2024, the platform had to move to a new brand and identity without losing history.

1. 01

   New environments: EVR pre-production, staging and production set up alongside the existing Teck environments.

2. 02

   Users and data: About 2,000 user accounts migrated to EVR email addresses, with approvers on active plans reassigned.

3. 03

   Configurable branding: Hard coded Teck references replaced with configuration, plus new logos, content and EVR email delivery.

4. 04

   Cutover: Historical plans archived as static PDFs, followed by a planned cutover in a scheduled maintenance window.

How We Delivered

1. 01

   Milestone based build: Delivered in milestones MS-01 to MS-07, with client feedback after each one.

2. 02

   Estimated change requests: Every enhancement scoped and estimated in hours, then grouped into numbered work schedules.

3. 03

   Release discipline: QA builds, release notes, UAT documents and walkthrough videos for each release.

4. 04

   Controlled deployments: A documented deployment process with rollback steps, Monday night release windows and respect for Teck change freezes.

5. 05

   Transparent support: Monthly server reports and, on retainer, daily updates with hours reporting for audit.

6. 06

   White-label partnership: Delivered behind our agency partner’s brand, using their tools, process and client channel.

Technology Stack

Application

ASP.NET MVC, C#, jQuery

Data

SQL Server, Stored procedures, Power BI access

Hosting

IIS, Windows Server

Services

SendGrid, Google Analytics

Security and monitoring

Qualys, SonarQube, Site24x7

Environments

Separate development, staging, pre-production and production, with Teck running its own UAT

The Outcome

• From spreadsheet to platform: A paper and Excel process became a secure web workflow for Teck staff and thousands of external contractors.
• Built to last: Seven years in production, more than 10,000 safety work plans, and a platform the client kept extending year after year.
• Ready for corporate change: The platform carried its users and history through a major corporate separation to Elk Valley Resources.
• Data the business can use: Daily reports and read-only Power BI access gave Teck’s analysts the data to track work plan trends and close-out.