Glossary

What is a Permit to Work (PTW)?

A permit to work is a written authorisation allowing high-hazard work in a defined place, for a defined period, under defined conditions. It documents what will be done, who will do it, what controls were put in place before starting, who authorised it and who closed it. It is not paperwork but a mechanism ensuring someone accountable verified the conditions before work began.

Glossary Published September 15, 2026 3 min read

01Why it matters

Why it matters

High-hazard work shares one characteristic: its effects are not limited to whoever performs it. Welding creates an ignition source in surroundings that may hold flammable material, excavation can strike buried services, confined space entry endangers whoever attempts a rescue. The permit exists so that someone outside the working crew verifies those surroundings before work starts.

Its second function is preventing overlap. When the site knows welding will take place in a given area between specific hours, other work can be kept out of that area during that window. Without it, each crew is safe on its own and hazardous to the other.

02Examples

Work that usually requires a permit

Hot work: welding, cutting, grinding, and anything generating sparks or heat.
Confined space entry.
Excavation and below-ground work.
Work at height outside fixed protected platforms.
Work on energised or pressurised systems.
Heavy lifting over active operational areas.

03The lifecycle

The permit lifecycle

Request

Describing the work, the location, the duration and the crew.
Assessment

Reviewing hazards and surroundings, and defining the controls required before authorisation.
Issue

Signature from the authorised party, with an explicit time window.
Execution

Work only within the stated scope, duration and conditions — any change suspends the permit.
Closure

Verifying the area is returned to a safe state, isolation removed, and closure documented.

Closure matters as much as issue. A permit left open after the work has finished means the site believes an area is under active work when it is empty — or the reverse, which is worse: work continuing past its window with nobody aware.

04In a Saudi context

In a Saudi context

On sites running several contractors at once, the permit is the only instrument that sees the whole picture. Each contractor knows its own work; nobody automatically knows what is happening twenty metres away. Scheduled maintenance windows — when a large volume of work is compressed into a few days — are when weaknesses in a permit system show most, because time pressure pushes towards hurried issue and late closure.

06The product connection

How this relates to SquintPRO

A permit defines a scope and a time window — which are precisely what can be represented as a zone and a duration in the platform. Activity inside the scope outside the authorised window then becomes a case raised to the team, and every permit gains a visual record of what actually took place within it. Read about the platform.

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