Page 19 - OHS, March 2022

it doesn’t have the ability to enable real-time visibility across workers and worksites; nor can it provide meaningful data that can help safety managers identify trends and inflfluence safety-fifirst worker behaviors. With connected workers, on the other hand, safety managers gain visibility into:
■ Worker location, gas readings and alarms
■ Whether the worker is compliant in using the device
■ If the worker is engaged in faulty safety behaviors
■ In-the-field safety behaviors that may indicate a need for
additional training
Connected Worksites. As safety professionals know, it can
be difficult to manage a fleet of assets across a variety of work locations, while also keeping teams productive. Connectivity helps ease the burden with automatic data collection and real-time monitoring—even in unmanned locations and confined spaces. Connected worksites give safety managers greater visibility into:
■ Teams, including worker positions and activities
■ Assets, including device maintenance schedules
■ External or environmental factors, such as temperature and
humidity
■ Intelligent mapping and zone segmentation, automated
digital follow-ups, alarm sharing, and heatmapping to help drive operation-wide safety
Connected Workflows. With traditional PPE and methodologies and the increased demands on workers and safety managers, manual recordkeeping and maintenance processes are prone to inconsistencies and incompletions.
Connectivity, on the other hand, is key to resolving that issue. Take, for example, gas detectors. Local and federal regulations (and perhaps company policies), often require organizations to log and keep calibration and bump-test records. But keeping the fleet compliant with a hands-on, pen-and-paper or even spreadsheet-style recordkeeping process is not only tedious, it also often proves to be an administrative nightmare.
Connected workflows give safety professionals the data and insights they need to improve safety, as well as streamline compliance and productivity. This kind of visibility can allow organizations to automate compliance, decrease false alarms, reduce asset-related risks, lower the cost of downtime, determine if instruments were correctly configured and generate comprehensive reports in an industry standard format.
Proactive Safety
Connected workers, worksites and workflows can empower leaders to create adaptable, proactive safety programs and improve operational efficiencies. Connected solutions can help build and promote an organizational culture of safety in a way that traditional PPE can never do.
Chris Borneo is the Product Platform Manager at MSA Safety.
REFERENCES
1. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/osh.pdf
2. https://www.safetyandhealthmagazine.com/articles/13159-safety-
leadership-neuroscience-and-human-error-reduction
3. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/connected-workers-digital- transformation-future/
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