Originally published on LinkedIn in May 2019; reviewed and updated for this site.
There is no shortage of worksite environments that pose potential danger to workers: factories, construction sites, warehouses, airports, chemical plants, oil and gas facilities. By using emerging technologies such as wearables and cloud connectivity, organisations can pull in work environment data, analyse it, and respond in ways that help keep workers safe and healthy.
What to track
The common points of concern are temperature, humidity, noise levels, hand-arm vibration, air quality and exposure to hazardous gases. By integrating with those sensors, wearable technology can detect out-of-tolerance conditions and alert workers to take action.
That much is useful on its own. But when you connect wearable technology to business applications, enterprise data and analysis engines on the back end, you can achieve considerably more.
What connecting it makes possible
Long-term safety. Analysing data over weeks and months lets you calculate cumulative exposure to hazardous conditions. Integrated with HR and scheduling systems, that can trigger re-rostering to keep exposure below acceptable limits. The same analysis can identify areas of plant that need remedial work or reclassification.
Compliance. Integrated with data on local, regional or national worker safety regulations, you can monitor compliance and demonstrate adherence when asked.
Prediction. Using abnormality detection across worksites, you can find patterns that predict issues before they affect workers.
Context on location. With geolocation and site layouts, you can track workers' locations and alert them — for example, not to enter hazardous areas for which they lack the required training or PPE.
Rescue. In an emergency, knowing precisely where people are, and what conditions they are in, speeds and improves the response.
Why it matters
The technology on a worker is only part of the story. A gas sensor that alarms locally protects one person at one moment. The same sensor, connected, protects the next shift too — because the exposure data changed the roster, the plant maintenance schedule and the training record. That is the difference between wearable technology as a gadget and as safety equipment.