The industrial safety platform; What you need to know
Many industries grow and automate to become more competitive and undercut other companies. This has led to larger and more complex operations where each workflow needs to be lean and efficient. The challenge in these working environments is worker safety; and while compliance to safety standards reduces the company’s liability should something go wrong it does not stop safety investigations and a hold up in production. There is a large financial cost that one way or another will impact the business, not to mention the morale of other workers at the loss or harm of the worker. An industrial safety platform is a SaaS application enabling all workers to be connected. A worker is now no longer an isolated open loop variable in the automated system; making it less likely for an incident to occur.
The power of SaaS
A SaaS industrial safety platform will need to track personnel and processes in real time and simulate potential risks prior to notifying relevant users of the system. This takes artificial intelligence that has been trained to identify potential issues and uses it with a person’s telemetry. To achieve this in real-time the application that will need to be accessible on lightweight platforms such as mobile phones, uses cloud-based computing to conduct the artificial intelligence calculations with the power of cloud-based servers.
Reporting
The AI safety platform can do much more than track personnel but it also allows two-way communication which helps ensure each member of the team is aware of incidents immediately. In addition to this the application is a useful way for users to quickly check if they have an adequate permit to work along with checking certifications are up to date. This is critical for welders for example that need to retake their welding certifications regularly. If this is missed and products are shipped without this then the company would be considered liable for any product liability issues that could occur, especially if they cause tort.
During an emergency it is important that an industrial safety 4.0 platform is used not just for reporting but also provides a record of communications between team members. This reduces ambiguity during the review process of larger incidents and reduces the time investigating issues based upon 3rd party requirements. In most industries safety logs must be kept and maintained, with this being a good way to achieve this.
Motivation
Most people become bored with anything related to safety, predominantly because it is seen as common sense and does not get the work done any faster. To help reduce this stigma, an AI safety platform makes the daily safety communications and tasks a game to complete and helps stimulate the user to comply with requirements. These solutions provide a way to change a user’s behavior passively until they become accustomed to complying to safety and best practices in the workplace.
The future
With automation and leaner workflow approaches an industrial safety 4.0 platform for creating a closed loop system. This is exceptionally important for safety as reporting and later investigation is an iterative process enabling a company to add in measures to ensure safety is continually improved within an organization. This type of technology is not only being utilized in safety but also through blockchain technology being used as a decentralized process for managing logistics of a supply chain; ensuring that at each stage of the workflow inventory is audited and ensures that no theft occurs during the supply chain process thanks to edge devices providing accountability. It could be that many years from now industrial safety will go from a centralized SaaS solution to an integrated safety process adopted by the rest of the supply chain’s safety. For instance, if a truck of component A from the primary supplier crashes, then the same component could be ordered from a backup supplier while the truck incident is being progressed and accountable for by regulators and insurance companies all on one platform. While blockchains have been developed and started to be used in this manner for specific companies it is far from a mainstream method. For now, an industrial safety 4.0 platform is a great way for managing safety at the organizational level.
