This is an enterprise specializing in the operation and maintenance of power facilities and the management of new energy stations. It manages more than a dozen wind farms and photovoltaic power stations with a team of over a hundred people distributed across different sites. Inspection, maintenance, and engineering modification are daily routines, but accompanying every process is a mountain of paper documents—inspection records, equipment maintenance forms, hazard rectification forms, engineering visa forms, and safety briefing records. Safety compliance is the lifeblood of this industry. Regulatory standards in the energy sector are extremely strict—power safety regulations, environmental emission standards, and inspection cycles for special equipment; every item has clear specifications and penalties. Once a violation occurs, fines often reach hundreds of thousands of yuan, and in serious cases, it may involve production suspension for rectification. The head of operations and maintenance summarized the team's dilemma in one sentence: "What we fear most is not equipment failure, but that data cannot be found, hazards are not closed-loop, and records cannot be produced when inspections come."
Pain points repeat in every inspection cycle
Inspection records are the most basic yet most headache-inducing part. Inspection personnel at each station must fill out inspection forms every day—equipment names, operating parameters, anomaly descriptions, and processing results, all handwritten. A medium-sized wind farm produces dozens of pages of inspection records a day, amounting to thousands of pages a month. "Inspection staff spend most of the day climbing wind turbines and checking equipment. When they return to the office, they have to spend one or two hours filling out forms. Sloppy handwriting and missing items all require rework during filing at the end of the month," the operations supervisor recalled helplessly. Even more troublesome is the closed-loop management of hazard rectification. An inspection finds a hazard—for example, oil leakage in a box transformer or insufficient ground clearance of a line—a hazard rectification form must be filled out, then transferred to the maintenance group for handling, and finally accepted by the safety officer after completion. The entire process relies solely on paper slips and WeChat groups for follow-up. "Last month there was a hazard. It was discovered during inspection, the rectification form was filled out, and the maintenance was done, but the acceptance form was forgotten to be signed. It was counted as 'not closed-loop' during the end-of-month inspection, and assessment points were deducted," a safety officer mentioned with frustration. There is also the organization of safety compliance materials. Every year, various safety inspections—Spring Safety Inspection, Summer Peak, Flood and Typhoon Prevention, Autumn Inspection—require the organization of a large number of system documents, training records, drill records, and rectification reports. The head of risk control has to stay up all night preparing materials before every inspection.
Attempted methods were difficult to sustain
They tried using Excel to manage inspection ledgers. However, the table formats of different stations were inconsistent and the filling was non-standard. After aggregating to the headquarters, a large number of formatting errors and missing fields were found, which actually increased the workload of verification. They tried purchasing inspection apps. However, the network signal at the site was poor, and the app often failed to synchronize; moreover, the app could only manage inspection check-ins, but not the closed-loop flow of hazard rectification, let alone the accumulation of compliance data. "It's not that there are no tools, it's that the tools only cover one part of the process. Inspection is an app, hazards are WeChat groups, compliance is Excel, and safety training is paper signatures. Information is scattered everywhere, and in the end, we still have to rely on people to string them together."
Two major concerns during selection
When they first looked at Docify, the team had very specific concerns. One was the recognition rate of handwritten inspection forms—the handwriting of field inspection personnel is generally sloppy. If OCR cannot even recognize the characters accurately, it would be better to keep handwriting. The second was the concern that O&M personnel are older and have low acceptance of digital tools. After the trial, it was found that both problems were solved. OCR can recognize handwriting; even if the handwriting is sloppy, key fields can be extracted. Operationally, just take a photo—no training is required. "The 50-year-old masters at our station learned it after taking one photo and uploading it."
AI strings inspection, hazards, and compliance into one line
AI OCR is the entry point and foundational capability. After filling out the paper inspection form every day, the inspector takes a photo. AI automatically recognizes fields such as equipment number, operating parameters, anomaly description, and processing results, and stores them structurally in the system. Previously, it took 15 minutes to fill out and enter an inspection form into the system; now it takes 5 seconds to take a photo, and there are no more secondary errors from manual entry. More critical is the closed-loop management of hazard rectification. After AI OCR recognizes an anomaly in the inspection form, it automatically generates a hazard rectification form and pushes it to the head of the maintenance group. After the maintenance is completed, a photo of the maintenance record is uploaded, and AI automatically routes it to the safety officer for acceptance and closure. The entire process no longer requires group messages or manual reminders. "Previously, it took an average of 5-7 days from discovery to closure of a hazard because the intermediate transfer relied entirely on people. Now the system transfers automatically, and it can basically be completed within 3 days. Moreover, every link has records. During inspections, data can be called up directly without flipping through paper slips." The O&M Knowledge Base solves the problems of compliance data accumulation and employee training. All safety regulations, equipment operation manuals, emergency plans, and historical inspection reports are uploaded to the knowledge base. After new O&M personnel arrive at the station, they don't have to wait for veteran masters to pass on knowledge orally—they can directly search in the knowledge base for "box transformer inspection key points," "high-altitude operation safety belt hanging point requirements," or "manual braking steps for this wind turbine." "It used to take a month for a newcomer to work independently, and the teaching quality of veteran masters varied. Now newcomers go to the station and check the knowledge base first, and then search if they encounter problems. They can start working in two weeks." AI Agents automatically aggregate inspection ledgers and generate weekly reports. Previously, the operations supervisor spent half a day every week collecting inspection data from various stations, organizing O&M weekly reports, and summarizing hazard rectification progress. Now the Agent can help analyze the day's inspection data and hazard processing status, and automatically generate weekly reports. "I used to fear Mondays the most because I had to spend half a day urging stations to submit weekly reports and aligning data. Now I just open the system and perform simple operations, and the Agent has already placed the report in front of me. I just need to review and confirm."
Real feelings from different positions
O&M Head: "The biggest change is from 'people chasing things' to 'system pushing things.' I used to have to chase people and ask 'has that hazard been handled?' Now the system pushes it to me automatically, and I can see it clearly at a glance." Safety Officer: "What I am most relieved about is that I don't panic during inspections anymore. Before, every time a superior came to inspect, I had to rummage through filing cabinets, supplement materials, and check ledgers several days in advance, for fear of missing something. Now the data is in the system and can be called up at any time." Station Inspector: "Filling out forms used to take up my time after work. After the inspection, I had to write reports and transcribe data, often until six or seven o'clock. Now it's done with a photo, and I can leave work as soon as the job is done." A pragmatic path for digital transformation in the energy industry The core challenge for energy companies is not a lack of systems or processes, but that systems rely on paper, processes rely on manual labor, and knowledge relies on experience. These three "reliances" determine that the efficiency ceiling is very low. There is no need to implement a full set of digital platforms in one step. Start with inspection record OCR—digitize the most frequent and basic actions, then let the hazard rectification flow automatically, and use the knowledge base to accumulate the experience of veteran masters—significant efficiency changes and risk reductions can be seen within three months. If your team is also facing:
- Mountains of inspection documents, with archiving and verification consuming many man-hours
- Hazard rectification relying on manual reminders, with long closure cycles and easy omissions
- Staying up all night to prepare materials before safety compliance inspections
- Slow onboarding of new employees and inability to retain veteran masters' experience Start with the photo recognition of an inspection form, and let the data run by itself, instead of letting people's legs chase after the data.
