Chapter 1: Seven Garbage Bags to Audit-Ready in Under 30 Days
Updated: 1 day ago
Their customer drew names at random. Theirs came out, and they had less than a month.
The Name That Came Out Of The Hat
Cancun Express Ltd. hauls crude oil and treated water in the Peace River oil sands. It is a family business with 12 trucks, run by owner Isaak Thiessen. Fleets that size keep the field moving, and very few of them can pay for a compliance department. Cancun did not have one.
One of Cancun's customers ran a carrier audit program. Every so often it drew carrier names at random and put that carrier through a mock National Safety Code (NSC) facility audit, run to the real standard on the customer's schedule. Future work sat on the other side of the result.
One day the name that came out was Cancun's.
Seven Bags in a Basement
When we walked in, the entire safety and maintenance program was seven black garbage bags of paper, sitting in a basement in no particular order.
What surprised us was what was inside. Most of that paper was real. The inspections had been done. The maintenance had been done. Cancun was doing the work and losing the proof, and an audit only accepts what can be shown.
The audit was less than a month away.
Building The Rest of the House
We sat down with Isaak and went through every bag, page by page. He remembered what had happened and when, and his memory is the reason this took weeks instead of a year.
Underneath the mess sat a real program with holes in it. Samuel Elkins, our founder, still describes it the same way: the underpinnings were in there, and we just had to build the rest of the house. That meant three jobs.
Rebuild the driver and maintenance files to the standard.
Sort what was missing from what was only misfiled, then fill the gaps.
Move the whole program out of the basement into a digital, cloud-based system, so the next request from a customer or a regulator gets answered from a laptop.
We were in the room for the audit.
Passed with Flying Colours
Cancun passed with flying colours. The operation was never shut down and never paused. Seven garbage bags became an audit-ready program in under 30 days.
“We knew we were doing things right, but our paperwork was a mess. Sam and his team came in, got us straightened out, and we've been with them ever since. It's been over ten years now, and I don't have to worry about that side of the business. They take care of it, and I can focus on keeping the trucks running.” Isaak Thiessen, Owner, Cancun Express Ltd.
Ten Years On, We Still Run the File
That audit was more than ten years ago, and Strategic HSE still manages Cancun's program. We sit in their client meetings, audits and inspections, and we handle their insurance renewals and insurance audits. Today Cancun is one of the top carriers in the Peace River oil sands for compliance, safety and production.
Isaak has sent many carriers to our office since. They usually walk in with a version of the same sentence: "We want you to do for us what you do for Cancun."
Nobody Picks The Day
Nobody picks the day someone opens the file. Cancun did not pick theirs. Their customer drew it out of a hat.
If your biggest customer drew your name tomorrow, would you hand them a binder or a bag?
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