“Don’t be afraid of all of these new technologies and artificial intelligence,” said Dr. John Howard, Director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. “Learn about them...make them yours so you can guarantee a bright future for safety and health and a bright future for yourself.”
Dr. Howard was one of the three distinguished panelists for “Tech Trends: The Rapidly Changing World of Safety” session at the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP) Safety 2020 conference that was held virtually from June 23 to 25. Over the three days, a number of timely sessions were held covering a range of safety topics including pandemic planning, calculating safety risks, and in this case, how technology can enhance a company’s efforts to protect its workers while improving performance.
According to the experienced panel, which also included Colin Cagney from KPMG and Dr. Jason Gillette from Iowa State University, technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are going to play a larger role in the safety of our workers and operations.
Facilitating remote tracking
Gillete, who has done ground-breaking work in the use of exoskeletons in manufacturing and construction, says that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, wearable technology will be a pivotal piece in remote tracking.
“I think when it comes to taking data, we’re going to be asking health questions going in – not only of the worker but also of the researcher,” he says. “I think that when there are concerns, we’re not going to be doing as much face-to-face research, we’ll be doing a lot more that is remote tracking in terms of injury types of data.”
Cagney added to this, saying that technology, as a remote tracker, could be used to protect workers by monitoring data like temperature and contact tracing. He speculates that we will see an increase in smart sensors and wearable technology focusing on maintaining the proximity of workers on the worksite, reducing the congestion on construction sites.
Predicting accidents before they happen
Everyone on the panel agreed that not only will the data from wearables protect workers from possible COVID-19 infection, but this information could be used to predict accidents before they happen. Utilizing wearables as well as AI technology, Cagney said that in the past, his company has predicted construction safety accidents with 89% accuracy, three days in advance, allowing companies to reduce incidents by about 30%.
“I think (sensors) are going to be really important because they’re going to increase the amount of information that we have,” speculates Cagney. “If we can better understand how something’s operating, more closely and in more real-time, the greater predictive capability (for incidents) we will have.”
Wrangling mass of data
While he agrees that this data will help foresee incidents before they happen, Dr. Howard says that a major challenge will be interpreting this mass of information. He believes that traditional scientists, doctors, and occupational safety professionals will need to be “data wranglers” and data scientists to process this data in ways that will be useful to protect the workers.
“It’s clear from our discussion that the link between technology and safety is strong,” concluded session moderator John Johnson.
About Safety 2020
ASSP’s Safety 2020: Virtual was a unique learning experience during the extraordinary times of the COVID-19 pandemic. ASSP partnered with a premium platform provider to develop a robust virtual conference, providing high-quality content to help companies achieve the highest levels of performance and advance professionals’ careers.
About Scatterling
Scatterling is a cloud-based worker safety monitoring and management tool for employees exposed to low- and high-risk environments and employees working alone. When every second matter, Scatterling is an automated system available 24/7 on your connected devices, with features such as missed check-in alarms, panic-button integration, and man-down detection, empowering workers to get help even when they can’t call for help themselves