Page 88 - Occupational Health & Safety, September 2019

CONNECTED WORKER
Technologies Helping to Drive the Future of Jobsite Safety
New products and systems designed to supplement observations and free up managers to be more efficient.
BY RAY MANN AND HEIDI LOPEZ-HIDALGO
In a world where 2 million people die annually from work-related accidents or diseases and a fur- ther 650 million suffer from work-related diseases or accidents each year, HSE managers are always
in pursuit of new options to help reduce these negative outcomes.1 On many jobsites, HSE managers frequent- ly spend their time addressing problems as they are observed or reported. It’s exciting to imagine how new products and systems designed to provide near real- time data from digital dashboards may provide valu- able supplements to these observations and allow HSE managers to work more efficiently, ultimately freeing them up to focus on additional important tasks.
Technologies such as virtual reality and connect- ed devices are becoming ever more popular in the workplace. Their applications are broadening to sup- port communication, visibility, and training across a variety of industries, including general industry and construction job sites. Virtual Reality (VR) training activities may include demonstrations on workplace tasks, safety applications, and other jobsite or facility activities commonly associated within general indus- try and construction jobsites. Connected personal
protective equipment (PPE) devices, such as personal fall protection equipment with embedded sensors, can provide a stream of data that may ultimately en- hance HSE management’s visibility to their workers’ daily PPE usage patterns or the overall status of these critical pieces of PPE.
Virtual Reality
As training evolves, more and more organizations are looking to supplement their traditional training methods with virtual reality (VR) training modules. VR technologies allow workers to experience key sights and sounds, and sometimes even feel motions, of the job task in a safe, simulated environment. Some workers may have already experienced VR in recre- ational gaming applications and may carry new en- thusiasm over to workplace training activities. Hype aside, what are some of the real benefits of VR?
■ Workers can be allowed to learn from mis- takes. In the real world, mistakes must be prevented because the health and safety of all the workers on the site may be at risk. In the virtual world, a worker can be allowed to experience the consequences of their
84 Occupational Health & Safety | SEPTEMBER 2019
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