The Oil & Gas Automation and Technology Week will be held 14-15 February in Houston, TX and will see industry experts sharing their valuable insights. Captain Daniel Alcantara Chief Solutions Delivery Officer at Magellan X will speak at the event on the topic ‘Leveraging IIoT for Worker Health and Safety,’ highlighting the importance of worker safety and how digital frameworks using wearable technology can be deployed in oil and gas, and shipping Industries.
Fatal and non-fatal worksite injuries and accidents are rising in both the public and private sectors. Such accidents could result in severe personal injury or property damage. Mining, chemicals, energy, and maritime are the few sectors which are prone to severe worksite accidents.
The Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB) issued guidelines since 2018 to develop sustainability journeys and reporting for health and safety. GSSB is the independent Standard-setting body of GRI and has developed best practices in occupational health and safety management and reporting. Despite these efforts, there is a very little change over the past decade. Worksite incidents and injuries continue to grip several sectors, resulting in a huge loss of resources.
Reasons for re-occurrence
No matter how safe a worksite is, accidents are inevitable. Companies claim that worksite incidents are on the rise for the past decade and the devastating effects result in huge human and economic costs. A global oil company claims that they have not been able to eliminate fatal incidents involving its employees and contractors.
Most companies overlook the underlying cause of the accidents and tend to concentrate on the direct causes. Accidents reoccur despite employee training and awareness programmes. While these sessions educate them, it fails to guard them against anomalies and unforeseen circumstances during the actual event. It is important to take an employee’s behaviour into consideration while assessing the cause of an incident.
Experts believe that certain defects in the overall safety structure of an organisation could result in an unsafe or hazardous worksite. Therefore, it is imperative that the management has safety solutions backed by digital frameworks in the worksite to minimise accidents.
Transforming safety with the digital framework using wearable technology
Wearable technologies help in optimising worker data and improving the work environment and processes. Wearable technology as a tool to curb worksite accidents is becoming popular and is adopted by various industries to create a safer work environment. They can minimise such accidents at the worksite by helping the organisation with real-time alerts during an incident. Some wearables not only prevent accidents but also assist employees in their day-to-day work.
Today, wearables like SmartWatches detect anomalies and prevent accidents. Organisations can track employees working in remote and dangerous locations such as mining fields and ships.
Wearables are game-changing technologies when it comes to worker safety. Equipping employees with cutting-edge solutions assist companies to fulfil their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) obligations. The strategy mandates proper working conditions for the employees in any organisation. Also, owing to the increasing number of accidents, and compensations, many organisations look forward to a new technology which would help them to prevent fatal injuries and reduce claims. For organisations that emphasise on safety and well-being of employees, wearables could be the perfect tool as they are versatile and still evolving
