Page 24 - OHS, June 2020

IH: GAS DETECTION
Leveraging Connectivity in Area Monitoring for Full Worksite Visibility
Area monitors are the latest safety technology to join the cloud-connected digital transformation. BY KIRK JOHNSON
20 Occupational Health & Safety | JUNE 2020
www.ohsonline.com
Connectivity is pervasive across our personal and professional lives, and it is now an ex- pectation of industries to maintain instant connectivity. While the safety industry
has traditionally been slower to adopt new technol- ogy than consumers, we’ve seen this trend take hold across safety programs in personal gas monitors, lone worker devices and other technology designed to make sure workers arrive home safe each day. Area monitors are one of the remaining technologies that have yet to incorporate instant cloud connectivity.
The majority of industrial worksites face the threat of gas exposure, which can endanger the lives of workers and compromise the project at hand. Area gas monitors help by continuously evaluating the safety of jobsite environments to safeguard against gas exposure that could become deadly. Strong, reliable connectivity supports ubiquitous and dependable communication between area gas monitors and em- ployee-worn gas monitors that continuously move throughout the facility and site. Additionally, connec- tivity provides the gateway to relay data in real-time to cloud-hosted software for storage, organization and reporting. These innovative functions enhance safety across worksites to make certain that all workers ar- rive home safe at the end of each day.
What is Area Monitoring?
Area monitors are temporary or semi-permanent gas
detection units that are designed to monitor hazard- ous gases across an entire worksite, providing addi- tional point of monitoring that complement employ- ee-worn gas detectors. These devices are portable and protect workers by providing a perimeter of safety for a number of scenarios, including tank farms, fence lines, oil spills, confined spaces and facility shutdowns or turnarounds. Unlike traditional wearable gas monitors, area monitors are not classified as personal protection equipment (PPE). Rather, they crucially expand the concept of employee protection to an en- tire facility or site.
The primary purpose of deploying an area moni- tor on a worksite is to alert workers to unsafe levels of hazardous gas—before employee exposure occurs—by sounding a local alarm, triggering other area monitors to go into alarm and by notifying their personal gas monitors. In contrast, personal monitors continuously monitor an employee’s breathing zone for potential gas exposure. Personal gas detectors have proven their val- ue at keeping workers safe, but area monitors expand that protection through advanced notice.
The Area Monitoring Landscape
While conventional area monitors have played an important role in worksite gas detection, they also have key limitations that diminish their potential to keep workers safe. For example, area monitors are tra- ditionally supported by star or mesh networks, with mesh networks being presented as the keystone of sophistication. Both approaches pose a couple prob- lems for large worksites and workforces: first, there are limitations on the number of connected devices and service range; second, there are limitations on “network hops” and message transmission. Some Wi- Fi solutions are also available, but these impose addi- tional burdens. Key topics here include provisioning and passwords, sufficient coverage and the typic com- plexity of add-on Wi-Fi gateways that are one more device on the mesh network.
Area monitors using mesh networks only have capacity for a preset number of connected area, and personal gas monitors and are limited by service- able range—limiting their capability for large sites. Some systems are limited to as few as eight devices per network, prohibiting key communication between the number of deployed area monitors, not to mention the workers who continuously move throughout the job-
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