System That Never Forgets: Iteco Brings Smart Compliance Control to Refining Operations
Iteco Group's Industrial Digitalization Center, working with LUKOIL-Ukhtaneftepererabotka, has expanded and enhanced an electronic permit-to-work approval system in just five months, adding automated compliance controls for hazardous work operations.
The upgraded platform now automatically tracks training deadlines, certification validity, and medical examinations for both company employees and contractor personnel at the refinery. It also stores supporting documentation and distributes notifications before work authorizations expire. The system has now entered full commercial operation.
A Compliance Ecosystem
Where compliance previously depended heavily on manual oversight, the upgraded platform removes the human factor from routine monitoring. In addition to tracking authorization periods for both employees and contractors, the system now supports several functions applicable across industrial operations. Its electronic reference database has been expanded to consolidate information on the validity of required qualifications in a single location. Document management has also been streamlined by allowing scanned certificates, inspection records, medical clearances, and other supporting documents to be uploaded for secure storage and rapid retrieval. Notification priorities are assigned automatically, with urgency increasing as authorization expiration dates approach.
IT and Industrial Expertise Working Together
Industrial safety, occupational safety, and environmental specialists participated throughout the project, enabling the customer to fine-tune the platform to operational requirements. The solution is built on a platform developed by Iteco and is already listed in Russia's Unified Register of Domestic Software as a system for automating permit-to-work approvals in accordance with regulatory requirements. The newly introduced functions represent the platform's next stage of development.
Iteco was selected as the implementation partner based on three decades of experience, during which the company expanded from delivering local projects to implementing complex infrastructure programmes combining engineering, construction, and IT expertise. Over the years, Iteco has established partnerships with major technology vendors, launched research centers, including one at Skolkovo, and developed its own technology brands. Today the company delivers solutions for IT and engineering infrastructure, software development, startup support, outsourcing, managed IT services, consulting, and enterprise business applications. Iteco is also included in Russia's list of systemically important organizations in the information and communications sector and maintains a portfolio of products registered in the Unified Register of Domestic Software.
Identifying Weak Points Before They Become Risks
For LUKOIL, the new functionality represents another step toward creating a unified digital environment for occupational safety and industrial process oversight. The company already uses electronic safety briefings, digital permit-to-work systems, video monitoring of hazardous operations, and mobile industrial safety applications.
Iteco is now evaluating opportunities to scale the platform across additional refining facilities. Success at one site can therefore serve as the foundation for deployment across other companies within the group and eventually adjacent industries. Looking ahead, the platform could evolve beyond issuing reminders to predicting operational risks. By analyzing historical data, it could identify recurring weak points associated with specific occupations or categories of hazardous work where compliance deadlines are missed more frequently and recommend preventive measures. The system could also be integrated more closely with other enterprise platforms, including human resources management systems and industrial process control systems.
Solutions for the Market
One industry example of automated compliance management is Gazprom Shelfproekt, which automated industrial safety processes in 2024, including the management of training records, competency verification, safety briefings, and other mandatory compliance activities.
During the same period, Gazpromneft-Khantos introduced a tablet-based digital permit-to-work system integrated with digital site maps, operational statistics, and hazardous work planning tools.
The growing demand for import-independent automation of routine industrial processes is reflected by the inclusion of EAE-Consult's Elektronnye naryady-dopuski (Electronic Permit-to-Work System) in Russia's domestic software register in 2025. Against that backdrop, the Iteco and LUKOIL-Ukhtaneftepererabotka project forms part of a broader industry transition from electronic permit management toward integrated industrial digital platforms.
