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workers thanks to automatic status updates. With these automatic status updates, workers can focus on the job at hand, improving their safety and productivity—and safety personnel can rest assured that no alert will go unnoticed. While deep insights are important for your safety program, the ability to access real-time data, such as gas readings or emergency alerts, from anywhere with emails and texts is key in ensuring you aren’t leaving workers high and dry. Tracking Alerts 24/7, Even When You’re Off the Clock Real-time alerts and notifications are great when they can be acted on instantly; but what happens if a safety professional is in a meeting or dead cell zone? What about when safety teams are off the clock and enjoying their free time, but there are still workers who operate around the clock? What happens to employees in different time zones? Some companies aren’t equipped with staff that can guarantee reliable monitoring and response times if something happens to their around-the- clock workers. However, by adding a 24/7 professional monitoring service, in addition to IIoT-backed equipment and other live monitoring solutions, industrial hygienists and safety managers can easily fill this gap. A service like 24/7 professional monitoring can vary wildly based on a facility’s needs, so how does it work? In general, once the service is connected to an IIoT-backed device, any alerts will be sent to both on-site safety managers as well as the professional monitoring service, which will respond according to a user’s established escalation plan. Formulating an Escalation Plan When creating an escalation plan, it should be determined by the facility’s safety managers and industrial hygienists to ensure that every alert is addressed exactly how they want—including plans based on who the user is, which type of alarm has gone off and more. For example, it could be established that if there is a man-down alarm or a panic alarm, the professional monitoring service will call the user’s cell phone. If there’s no response, then they will call 911 and provide the user’s last known location. In other instances, the established escalation plan could look like calling the user’s phone and if there’s no response, calling the team lead, supervisor, etc. until the situation is appropriately handled. Those satisfied with their current state of real-time gas detection have been skeptical and have shied away from live monitoring, citing concerns about the reliability of wireless gas detectors and other equipment in safety applications. In their minds, equipment used in safety applications must be 100 percent reliable, 100 percent of the time.It’saclassicexampleoflettingperfect get in the way of great—and it puts workers at unnecessary risk. In the end, no system, no equipment and no user can offer that perfect level of assurance, but implementing a professional monitoring service, in addition to live monitoring solutions, can help ensure everyone stays safe on the job—no matter the time of day. Cynthia Horn is an Application Specialist at Industrial Scientific. MAXimizing Health & Safety Guaranteed. INDUSTRIAL VACUUM CLEANERS Portable • Continuous-Duty • Central Systems VAC-U-MAX offers a full range of ATEX certified, compressed-air operated, industrial vacuum cleaners for flammable liquid, combustible dust & reactive powder. Fill out RFQ at vac-u-max.com/vacuum. Flammable Liquid Combustible Dust Food / Pharma 30-Gallon VAC-U-MAX.COM Combustible Dust 55-Gallon Combustible Dust 15-Gallon (800) VAC-U-MAX COMPRESSED AIR OPERATED Reactive Metal Powder www.ohsonline.com JUNE 2023 | Occupational Health & Safety 87