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By utilizing the data produced by monitoring devices, organizations are presented with fact-based evidence of gas readings over time. So, instead of simply reacting to high gas levels in real-time, data enables safety teams to proactively forecast exposure trends. This enables organizations to make tangible adjustments to practices based on fact, mitigating exposure threats in the future and, therefore, strengthening safety programs.
Faster Decision Making
Being presented with fact-based data helps organizations make decisions faster and more effectively. There’s no need to depend on subjective opinions over the course of weeks when data from monitoring devices provide insight in real-time on whether safety measures were effective after a couple of days.
Further, many organizations still take the pen-and-paper approach when conducting Flame Ionization Detectors (FID) surveys, where a monitoring technician manually measures gas concentration at various points across a worksite. By utilizing monitoring devices for these surveys instead, teams can gather gas levels quickly, cohesively and often much more accurately, allowing for decisions and adjustments to be made faster and with greater confidence.
Stronger Sustainability
In addition to ensuring worker safety, the data produced by monitoring devices can also serve as a meaningful part of a company’s sustainability program. Organizations in industries such as waste resource, oil and gas, power generation and more, play a key role in environmental responsibility and stewardship, and therefore often must remain in compliance with climate-control regulations in most areas around the world.
Data can be a useful tool for monitoring and reporting metrics that contribute to these efforts, such as measuring gas capture rate or methane emissions across worksites. Since this data is grounded in evidence, it’s a good idea to consider including these metrics as part of your reporting to environmental or regulatory agencies, when appropriate. For some organizations, this data has also been a key part of their annual sustainability reports, in which they can show tangible improvements toward their environmental goals.
Using Data for the Greater Good Whether it’s aiming to improve gas capture rate or limit exposure to VOCs, capturing and analyzing the data from monitoring devices will provide signifificant return on both your safety and sustainability objectives.
Implementing any change to existing processes and procedures could present various internal and external challenges. Safety should not be a competitive advantage, and that’s why the sharing of best practices, experiences and ideas
across industries to solve challenges, both on this topic and others, should always be prioritized for the common good. We do this through a network called Blackline Collective. With the Collective and other companies, we’re working to break down competitive and industrial barriers and advance workplace safety for all with the ultimate goal in mind: keeping our people safe.
Mark Silvester is the CEO of Enovert. SENSIDYNE
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