Laakkonen
- also uses PRO24 in the Group's quality work
Autotalo Laakkonen Oy and Veljekset Laakkonen Oy are responsible for the Laakkonen Group's automotive business. The companies make more than 36 000 car sales annually and carry out a total of more than 250 000 service visits. The group's 22 garages use Protect's PRO24 system for a wide range of safety and quality work.
The cooperation between Laakkonen and Protect started in a situation where all safety data sheets concerning chemicals were to be placed in one place within the Group. It was decided to purchase the PRO24 system for use by the repair shops, which is now used in a variety of other ways for the Group's other needs.
Cooperation has been excellent
Seppo Keränen, Aftermarketing Manager, has played a major role in the planned expansion of the system at Laakkonen.
-I started to study the system and became thoroughly familiar with it to facilitate my own work. The cooperation with Jussi Pesonen from Protect has been excellent. Jussi has trained me and a few other supervisors, and I have been out in the field training the staff," says Keränen, giving an example of how PRO24 makes everyday life easier when it comes to chemicals.
-Each site has its own list of chemicals in the system and a direct link to it. The link can be given to the occupational health service, for example, so that they can see the chemicals in the site when they want to find out about exposures, for example.
Chemical safety data sheets are entered into the system by Protect Group employees, in turn, can access the up-to-date safety data sheet for the chemical of their choice via the PRO24 intranet.
In addition to the current electronic format for site emergency plans, the PRO24 system is used for risk assessments for garages and car dealerships. Near-miss and accident reports, ideas for improvements, operational anomalies and the findings of the next safety walk are also entered into the system. 
In the Laakkonen Group, the use of the PRO24 system has been boldly taken to new areas under the leadership of Seppo Keränen, Head of Aftermarketing. Photo by Joonas Nieminen
Three desks set
The desktop structure, designed to meet the needs of the Group, is a special case in point.
PRO24 has three desks in all locations; an emergency plan desk, an ISO desk and an occupational health and safety desk. For example, the emergency plan desk has buttons behind which you can find, among other things, the documents needed for fire inspections in each site. The ISO 14 001/2015 documentation is built into the ISO desk.
-The ISO documentalist was also surprised when we went through the documents related to the audit, because we never had to leave the room. Everything we needed could be found in PRO24 at the push of a button," says Keränen with satisfaction.
In addition to the three desks visible in the offices, PRO24 has a corporate desk. It contains, among other things, the Group's ISO audit documents. Seppo Keränen is pleased with the way Protect has developed the system in line with the customer's wishes.
-For example, the notification section has been adapted to work perfectly for our needs. Likewise, the chemical issues are easy to manage and the information can be found quickly.
-One of the next steps is to transfer all the information and contracts related to the maintenance of the properties to the system. It will then be easy to find out who is responsible for, say, property maintenance, fire alarms or HVAC," says Keränen.