How EcoOnline is helping Hadley Group and THOR Group replace fragmented safety processes with connected, data-driven risk management.
Ask most health and safety managers what their biggest frustration is, and they’ll likely tell you the same thing: too many systems and not enough visibility. A spreadsheet for COSHH assessments. A separate process for lone worker check-ins. An ESG report that takes the best part of three months to pull together and still leaves the team with more questions than answers.
It’s a problem endemic across manufacturing and the consequences go well beyond administrative headache. Fragmented safety processes create blind spots. And blind spots, in environments where hazardous substances and high-risk work are part of daily operations, are dangerous.
That’s exactly the problem the EcoOnline suite was built to solve. Here’s what that looks like for two manufacturers who are already on that journey.
Hadley Group
Hadley Group is a global steel manufacturer operating across multiple sites, managing hazardous substances, lone workers, and growing ESG reporting obligations simultaneously. As regulatory expectations tightened and customer scrutiny increased, the limitations of managing all of that through fragmented, paper-based processes became impossible to ignore.
Rather than trying to solve each problem individually, they took a different approach. By deploying EcoOnline’s suite across all three areas at once, they replaced paper-based COSHH risk assessments with digital safety summaries that workers use, got real-time oversight of lone workers across sites, and cut their annual carbon accounting process from around 12 weeks to under six.
“It flags risks we might not have spotted for months.”
Mark Pendrey, HSE Manager, Hadley Group
Mark Pendrey, HSE Systems & Compliance Manager at Hadley Group, describes the result perfectly: the platform is “like a living, breathing system in the background doing work for us. It flags risks we might not have spotted for months.” The shift from chasing compliance to understanding what’s happening across your operations is, ultimately, the difference between managing safety and leading it.
THOR Group
Chemical manufacturer, THOR Group, faced a different kind of challenge.
Its manufacturing portfolio spanned biocides, disinfection solutions, flame retardants, and personal care ingredients which demands strict oversight. The company’s initial EcoOnline deployment was centred on an upper-tier COMAH-regulated site, one of the most heavily scrutinised operational environments in British manufacturing.
Before working with EcoOnline, THOR’s key safety workflows were managed through disconnected manual processes like spreadsheet-led reporting and word document-based COSHH assessments which gave no single line of sight across risk. The company chose a five-solution rollout – covering ePermits for high-risk work certification, EHS software, lone worker monitoring, D4H crisis management, and Sypol for COSHH risk assessments – to close that gap.
Peter Hoey, their HSE Manager, was straightforward about what made the difference: “What impressed us most was the ease of use and the breadth of solutions in the suite.” The goal from here is practical: less time on manual reporting, better compliance confidence, and clearer visibility across the site.
What connected safety looks like in practice
Both these deployments matter not just as customer stories but as evidence of something broader happening in the sector.
Manufacturers are under growing pressure from regulators, customers, and within the company’s leadership to demonstrate that safety and sustainability are being managed seriously and not being treated like something to be ticked off a to-do list.
The response to that pressure can’t be more fragmentation. It has to be the opposite. Organisations must give safety professionals better information, faster, so they can act on it rather than chase it.
In practice, that means replacing document-based risk assessments with auditable digital records, connecting lone worker monitoring, chemical management and incident reporting through a single platform, and generating ESG data that informs business decisions rather than just satisfying a reporting obligation.
What Hadley Group and THOR Group demonstrate is that this doesn’t have to mean a disruptive overhaul. Start with the workflows that create the most fragmentation, deploy a connected solution, and build from there. The visibility follows — and so does the confidence to get ahead of risk rather than simply respond to it.
Find out more
Discover how EcoOnline supports manufacturing safety and sustainability for over 2,000 customers.
David Orstad, Chief Customer Officer, EcoOnline
David Orstad is Chief Customer Officer at EcoOnline, leading global customer success, professional services, and support. He brings over 20 years’ experience helping organisations achieve better outcomes through SaaS technology.
Connect with David on LinkedIn.
