How an Inspection App Transformed Safety at Imperial Brands

Imperial Brands is a fast-moving consumer goods company based in the UK, specialized in tobacco production and home to major brands including JPS, West, and Winston. It's the fourth-largest cigarette company and the largest producer of tobacco in the world. We spoke with David Franks, Group Occupational Health and Safety Advisor at Imperial Brands, who joined the company as Health, Safety and Environment Advisor in 2013 before moving into his current role.

The Challenge: Staying Connected Across a Global Workforce

As an international organization, Imperial Brands has employees spread across many locations, and a large share of them, particularly sales representatives, are constantly traveling. That made it difficult to equip distant workers with the right tools and skills to carry out inspections consistently. It also raised the stakes on making sure every investigation, inspection, accident, and near-miss got reported, since that reporting is what lets the company act when something needs attention.

"We See Capptions as a Real Game-Changer for Us"

David described the introduction of the software as genuinely eye-opening. Real-time data from employees gave the company insight it simply didn't have before. Imperial Brands was one of the first clients to launch a branded app, "I own safety," released on both the Apple and Google app stores.

The biggest benefit, in David's words, was real visibility: who is conducting investigations, who is reporting what, and what they are inspecting. The software also helps Imperial Brands stay on top of legal compliance, a critical requirement for any organization at this scale. He noted that the transition to using the app was smooth, praising it as user-friendly, easy to learn, and quick.

Stronger Engagement, Both Ways

Employee engagement rose noticeably after the "I own safety" app launched. David described it as something tangible, employees could actually touch and use it, and that encouraged more reporting and more observations than before. The app also works both directions: employees report to management, and management can respond back. That two-way loop strengthened the relationship between employees and managers, contributing to what David described as a more family-like feeling within the business, something Imperial Brands values.

Across Imperial Brands' international factories, in both domestic and international locations, the rollout was well received. David emphasized that safety is a key priority for the business right now, and that ensuring safety within their factories matters deeply to the company. There's been a real shift in enthusiasm too: where David once had to actively encourage people to engage with safety, employees now come to him about the app.

"We Find It an Incredibly Efficient System"

Before Capptions, Imperial Brands ran a largely paper-based system for inspections and administration. It was inefficient by design: reporting an incident meant waiting to get home, finding a computer, filling in a form, printing it, and delivering it to a manager in person, and that's assuming everything went smoothly, which it often didn't.

The Capptions app changed that entirely. It gave the company traceability and cut the time spent on reporting and inspecting dramatically, the whole process now takes about one minute, done on the spot, at the location. David also highlighted the management dashboard, which lets the team review how an inspection or observation was carried out and pull data at whatever level of detail they need. Having real-time data available anytime, anywhere was a core requirement, and David said the app delivers exactly that.

Where Imperial Brands Is Headed

Imperial Brands continues pushing to be the best in its category, and David believes Capptions supports that ambition directly. The company is in the process of a full roll-out across operations on all continents, having already extended the app from UK operations into continental Europe and Australian operations. Beyond mobile workers, Imperial Brands has also installed information kiosks running the app in office environments, giving anyone the ability to record observations and increasing overall visibility.

David's conclusion is straightforward: he believes the software will continue improving safety performance at Imperial Brands as the rollout matures.

Companies managing safety across dispersed, high-volume operations, including sites classified under the EU Seveso III Directive (2012/18/EU), face a version of the same challenge Imperial Brands solved: getting consistent, real-time reporting from people who aren't all in one place. See how Capptions supports inspection and reporting at scale at why generic safety management software falls short for Seveso III companies.