ModulesShift HandoverWork Control
What the next shift must know, from the live records.One handover per unit, handed over and acknowledged by name.
For shift supervisors and operations managers: the handover is built from the permits, isolations, bypasses, entries and people alone at the unit, not from memory. The outgoing supervisor adds notes and hands over; a different person acknowledges, with questions in writing.
Changed since the hand-over
- BYP-2026-0007
- Restored at 18:58 · waiting for the return-to-service check
| Kind | Item | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Permits | PTW-2026-0142Hot work on T-201 · Active · valid to 23:00 | Fire watch until 23:30 |
| Isolations | ISO-2026-0031P-301 · held · 3 of 3 points proven dead | P-301 isolated, do not restart before PSV-301 is back |
| Bypasses | BYP-2026-0007LSHH-201 · Fully defeated · Limit in 2 h | Proof test finishes before 21:00; check before acknowledging |
| Confined-space entries | PTW-2026-0150T-202 · 1 inside · Rafael Duarte | — |
| Not located | LW-2026-0018Hannah Weber · working alone · planned end 21:00 | — |
- General notes
- Tanker unloading at bay 2 moved to tomorrow 07:00.
One handover, three states. An example unit; the fields are the product’s, the values illustrative.
Where it connects
Also on the handover: Energy Isolation, Confined Spaces, Lone Work and 39 more modules in one workspace.
Method note
One handover for the site, or one per unit? The plant decides.
A small site has one supervisor per shift; a refinery has one per unit, and items that belong to none.
Leandro · Founder, UProcess
One school writes a single handover for the site, so nothing is split between two documents. The other writes one per unit, so each supervisor hands over only what they control. Both fail the same way: work with no clear place, such as a person alone on a round, drops out of every handover.
So each site draws its units, and what cannot be placed is shown to all of them.
- Whole siteA unit with no areas takes every item at the site. The default for small sites.
- By areaA unit covers areas of the site plan; items fall in by the pin of the permit or of their tags.
- Not locatedItems with no pin, and people working alone, appear in every unit’s handover under Not located.
Where Shift Handover usually breaks
Four places a handover goes wrong, and what the record does about each.
Work that spans the shift change is the work that gets lost.
On Piper Alpha the relief valve of the standby condensate pump had been removed, while the night shift believed the maintenance had not yet begun. Poor communication at shift handover is listed among the root causes.
Source: IChemE, Piper Alpha incident summary
In UProcess The handover lists the unit’s live permits, isolations held or in progress, bypasses with their reading, entries with who is inside and people working alone. Each item takes a note.
Tank farm · 19:00 · items
P-301 isolated, do not restart before PSV-301 is back
No rule that a handover must happen.
Investigators of the Texas City refinery explosion found critical start-up information poorly communicated at shift turnover, and no shift turnover communication requirement for operations staff.
Source: U.S. Chemical Safety Board, BP Texas City
In UProcess One handover per unit and shift change, from the site’s shift pattern. Handover due, Acknowledge the handover and Not handed over appear in To do for the unit’s supervisors.
Riverside plant · shift change 19:00
A log with no agreement on what goes in it.
A study of the Buncefield handovers found key information was not reliably passed on, the verbal handover was the default when things were busy, and no one had agreed what information had to be recorded.
Source: Wilkinson and Lardner, Chemical Engineering Transactions 31
In UProcess What the handover covers is not left to memory: it is read from the records of each module and grouped by kind. Notes add what the records cannot say.
Where each group comes from
- Permits
- Permit to Work
- Isolations
- Energy Isolation
- Bypasses
- Bypass Control
- Entries
- Confined Spaces
- People alone
- Lone Work
Read from each module, never written into it.
The incoming shift listens, but never checks back.
Guidance on shift handover asks for it to be two-way, with both people taking joint responsibility, and for the incoming person to cross-check before taking over.
Source: HSE, Human factors: shift handover
In UProcess A different person acknowledges, never the author, with questions in writing. Open questions show on the next handover until answered. Anything that changed after the hand-over is listed first.
Acknowledge · Tank farm · 19:00
Changed since the hand-over: BYP-2026-0007 restored 18:58
- Handed over by
- Ana Ribeiro · 18:52
- Acknowledging
- Carlos Mendes
- Question
- Who runs the return-to-service check on LSHH-201 tonight?
Signed and confirmed · the question carries to the 07:00 handover
Unit Tank farmSite Riverside plantSupervisors Ana Ribeiro, Carlos Mendes, Grace Okafor
| Shift change | Handed over | Acknowledged | Items | Changed since | Questions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Nov · 19:00 | Grace Okafor · 18:49 | Ana Ribeiro · 19:02 | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 18 Nov · 07:00 | Ana Ribeiro · 06:51 | Carlos Mendes · 07:05 | 5 | 1 | 1 answered |
| 18 Nov · 19:00 | Ana Ribeiro · 18:52 | Carlos Mendes · 19:06 | 5 | 1 | 1 open |
The record an auditor asks for.
What the incoming shift was told is fixed at the moment it was handed over.
- Every handover per unit and shift change, with the items exactly as they stood when handed over.
- Who handed over and who acknowledged, each signed and confirmed on the device, with the time.
- The questions asked at acknowledgement, and where they were answered.
- What changed between the hand-over and the acknowledgement.
What’s in a handover
- Unit
- A unit of the site from Company settings, the areas of the site plan it covers, and its supervisors. No areas means the whole site.
- Items
- Permits authorised, active, suspended or handed back; isolations held or in progress; bypasses in progress; confined-space entries with who is inside; people working alone, with their planned end.
- Notes
- A note per item and general notes, written in the draft, which opens at the revalidation window before the change.
- Hand over and acknowledge
- The list freezes when handed over. A different person acknowledges, with questions carried to the next handover until answered. Both steps are signed.
- Changed since
- Items that appeared, left or changed state after the hand-over, shown first to the person acknowledging.
Questions
Does it replace our shift log?
No. It carries the work and the protections that are live at the unit, plus free notes. Production figures and an operating logbook stay where they are.
Who can acknowledge a handover?
Anyone with full Shift Handover access at the site, but never the person who handed it over.
Can a handover be changed after it is handed over?
No. It is never deleted and never edited. A draft that was started by mistake can be discarded.
Where do items without a location go?
Into every unit of the site, under Not located, so they are never in no one’s handover.