Five questions about your site entry, and how other plants answered them

The auditor wants one name

A customer audit runs to plan until the auditor opens the contractor list and picks one name: a service technician who replaced the bearings on a press in March. The auditor asks to see which safety induction was valid for him that day, and where his signature is. The EHS manager walks to the gatehouse for the March binder and leafs through the sheets by date.

How long that walk takes says more about your site entry than any policy. So we wrote down five questions we ask on first calls. For each one, we give what we heard from plants, or what international studies show.

The numbers come from our analysis of sales calls with 94 manufacturing and logistics plants, which also explains how we counted. The sample is not representative, so every number says how many plants it comes from. For international studies, we say who paid for them.

Who comes in, and how

Does the plant have electronic access for employees? Of the 64 plants where we know how both employees and visitors are recorded, 97% do. On its own, this question doesn't set plants apart. The next one does.

How does a visitor or contractor sign in today? At 66% of those same plants, on paper or in Excel. In automotive, 11 of 17 plants use paper; in engineering and metalworking, 17 of 22. Access cards for employees and paper for contractors, both at once, is the setup at 62%. The person who knows the site is recorded electronically. The person who knows neither the way nor the risks signs a paper log.

Who staffs the entrance? A person, at 49 of the 61 plants where we know: an in‑house guard or security from an agency. They check induction validity by hand, in paper and email, at the window with a queue behind. In the ASIS International study published with FacilityOS in 2026, 56% of security managers estimate that checking in one visitor takes 1 to 5 minutes. That is their estimate, not a measurement.

What you can prove when someone asks

Can you prove within a minute that a given contractor completed the safety induction? Here we have no numbers of our own. Try it yourself: pick a technician from last month and time how long it takes to find his signature and the version of the induction he signed.

The 2025 Rapid Global study is based, according to its publisher, on answers from 504 UK EHS managers and 503 workers. Of those asked, 27% said gate checks are so slow that contractors sometimes start work before they are approved. 37% said employees get more thorough training than contractors. Rapid Global sells contractor management software.

How many people besides employees come through on an ordinary day? The median is 15 non‑employees a day (31 plants where we know). In an evacuation, you need them on a muster list by name. In the EHSLeaders survey for FacilityOS in 2026, 64% of 114 EHS professionals rely on hosts during an evacuation. 25% complete the roll call within five minutes. And 18% have no formal contractor onboarding.

Where the induction record takes longest to find

Plants answer the questions about access cards and who staffs the entrance without thinking. Where employees have access cards and contractors sign paper, the answer sits in the March binder. If finding a signature takes you longer than a minute, start with the induction record.