What Impact Will Industry 4.0 Have On WHS?

There are a number of important trends in AI and robotics impacting health and safety, according to an expert in the area, who explained that WHS professionals need to stay abreast of these trends in order to benefit from them from both a functional and organisational perspective.

One of the trends is paperless solutions which draw on mobile technologies, and these are being increasingly integrated into manufacturing maintenance, quality and production systems, said Kim Fiddaman, Senior Consultant for digital transformation company Nukon (a SAGE Group company).

These solutions can reduce unnecessary monitoring of machinery, instead relying on the app to alert workers when they need to check a machine or perform a quality check.

Fiddaman explained that companies are increasingly interested in applying paperless technology to tighten their safety process and documentation.

“We’re also seeing a surge towards predictive alerts delivered through wearables, which is particularly relevant for the mining sector,” he said.

“Wearables are being used to monitor employee vitals such as heart rate and body temperature, as well as external factors like air quality and moisture.”

This presents significant opportunities for improving safety in hazardous underground environments, said Fiddaman, who was talking about the future of Industry 4.0 which encompasses AI, digitisation, data analysis, robotics, machine learning, wearables, and the Internet of Things.

“The future outlook is getting to a stage where you can pre-empt safety incidents and provide alerts before they occur, which is where machine learning – and then true AI comes into play,” he said.

For example, a machine learning model could analyse a dataset of situational and environmental factors and predict when safety incidents are likely to occur under specific conditions.

Workers or managers could then be alerted to take a break to avoid injury, and Fiddaman said this approach is currently being applied to predict when machine maintenance might need to occur to prevent risk of failure or potential risk to an operator.

In terms of practical implications and impacts on organisations, Fiddaman said that in the near-term, organisations can benefit from digitising their paper-based safety processes to tighten their safety processes and documentation.

“In the mid-term, the use of smart sensors, wearables, smart phones and preventative alerts provides a means to prevent and improve safety response in hazardous areas,” he said.

“Organisations should look to take advantage of these foundational technologies to fully leverage AI in the future, and long-term, this will allow for the prediction of safety incidents based on historical data and AI learning.”

Fiddaman also observed that when talking about digitisation, this involves organisation-wide transformation – which doesn’t happen overnight.

“Many organisations need to adopt the foundational technology and in particular address the change management associated with technology,” he said.

“WHS professionals should be brought in on such projects early and will provide valuable insights for the design stage right through to being involved in change management, training and adherence programs ongoing.”

SAGE Automation will be presenting on AI, robotics & impacts on the future of WHS at the 2019 South Australia Safety Symposium: “Major developments in work health and safety regulation and practice” on Thursday 17 October 2019. For more information visit the conference website.

Article originally published by the Australian Institute of Health and Safety.