With the processing of oil and gas comes many inherent hazards, from the combustibility of the products themselves to harmful or even deadly gases.
These hazards, coupled with a diverse variety of applications that involve the use and manufacture of highly dangerous substances, meaning that the continued improvement of worker and worksites safety should always be a priority.
Matt DeLorenzo, Business Director for Safety io, an MSA Safety company, explains how technology – including its Grid services – is improving industrial safety starting by the gas detection program and how gas detectors connectivity is transforming worker safety within the industry 4.0.
In the fourth industrial revolution, improvements in safety, both in practice and equipment, essentially stem from one thing: the availability of good information. In the past, that learning was often observational, based on talking to individuals, or derived from scrutiny or analysis of historic written and pictorial hard copy records.
Today, thanks to the advances in digital data capture and recording by sensors and devices, information is a commodity that is not in short supply. The seamless connectivity driving the Internet of Things is already touching workplaces globally. The latest gas detection devices typically offer the ability to log performance and environmental data. But translating that into tangible learnings and improved safety outcomes is not always easy.
The Big Data challenge
Due to the sheer volume of devices and test requirements, processing and intelligently analyzing large data volumes, particularly when gathered from “real-time” streams, is now one of the oil and gas industry’s biggest challenges. And for data to be meaningful, it has to provide real insight. That starts with being able to automatically detect, highlight, interrogate and share those events that are most relevant and significant to the operation of a device, or the ability of an operative to complete his or her work safely.
Recent advancements of AI-enabled automated reporting tools allow safety managers to look beyond just managing safety compliance towards changing how workplace safety really works. The ability to analyze and review historic logged data and extract actionable information to reduce risk and improve workplace safety is transformative.
Insight to plan ahead
Data analysis and proactive maintenance can help to streamline the day-to-day monitoring of equipment, eliminate the potential risk of human error, and free up time for safety managers to concentrate on driving meaningful behavioral safety improvements. Automatic notifications, for instance, can highlight when equipment components are likely to require maintenance or replacement, allowing pre-emptive action. Worker safety is improved, and costly downtime or operational delays minimized.
Gas detectors, for example, rely on sensors that have a finite lifetime. Analysis of usage data can automatically highlight that a sensor’s end-of-life is approaching, and a replacement should be ordered. Similarly, correct detector operation is verified by using bottled gas testers before use. If the gas runs out, detectors cannot be tested. Safety protocol dictates that operatives cannot work. Yet by providing automated alerts about remaining capacity, spare cylinders can be ordered in good time. The ability to instantly track equipment and its location digitally, without resorting to lists on clipboards, also offers significant savings in time and loss of assets.
Streamlining turnarounds safely
Turnarounds (or TARs) are essential – yet extremely expensive – periods of regeneration for plants and refineries. Taking an entire part of an operation offline while plants are inspected and/or revamped can cost millions a day and workforces can double or even triple from say 500 on a typical downstream site to over 1,000 to get the job done as quickly as possible.
This huge influx of workers undoubtedly increases safety managers’ reliance on technology. They simply cannot comprehensively keep track of the functionality of their gas detector fleets and the workers using them without it.
Cloud-based platforms for managing the health of portable gas detection help to mitigate the administrative and management burden on safety managers at these challenging times, ensuring that their fleets are available, functioning correctly, ready for use and compliant. What’s more, these systems are a key driver behind helping to achieve compliant operational practices, flagging whether operatives aren’t following strict standard operating procedures. With many, many new contractors on-site, the ability to identify those posing a risk, and swiftly move to re-educate or retrain them is vital.
An essential record
Historically, daily data would remain on each device and be routinely overwritten, unless an event prompted a sporadic download or a written report. Today, maintaining historic central archives of detection device data - sometimes spanning decades - provides companies with an invaluable record. Any exposure incidents or toxic breaches can be thoroughly analyzed and documented.
For workers, the advent of real-time monitoring during operations via live feeds is revolutionizing safety. Data streaming can provide safety controllers and colleagues with situational awareness, physical status and the ability for workers to issue individual or team evacuation alarms and even mobilize first responders should a situation arise.
Engineering value, not innovation, first
Developing next-generation safety technology is of course hugely dependent on innovation but truly listening to and understanding customer needs and feedback to engineering the necessary hardware and software functionality is of equal importance. It’s listening carefully to customers’ feedback and applying those learnings in an innovative way that produces next-generation safety technology.
Adoption will stand or fall on the ability of solutions to add value to multiple stakeholders without completely changing the way safety management and procedures work. Seamless integration and easy, the intuitive operation only come from extended testing by everyone involved - from safety managers to supervisors to operatives. Of course, innovation is meaningless unless the underlying outcome offers a real-world, practical benefit.
Expect the best
There is no doubt that technological advances are having a huge impact on the world as a whole. All things considered, health and safety managers should embrace the opportunities new technologies provide to keep workers connected, thus providing an additional layer of safety through technology.
MSA’s mantra is certainly to encourage the industry to ‘expect more’ from gas detection programs. The whole reason behind the creation of Safety io is to pioneer technology advancements, with the ultimate goal of improving decision making, reinforcing best practices and pursuing a safety-first, injury-free workforce. It’s too good of an opportunity to miss.
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About Safety io, an MSA Safety company
In the case of the latest solution platforms developed for gas detection by Safety io, we conducted many thousands of hours of customer interviews and prototype and interface testing to ensure the most meaningful and actionable value. One of the major goals was to ensure that information delivery was carefully prioritized: that customers received the critical information they needed when most relevant. It’s also about recognizing when data is useful; whilst gas levels in an area may not reach compliance thresholds, the detection of a low-level anomaly can indicate whether investigative work may be warranted.
The result was two complementary solutions: Safety io Grid Fleet Manager, a cloud-based-based platform for managing the health of fixed and portable gas detection devices; and Safety io Grid Live Monitor, a real-time alert and incident management tool that tracks operatives and their status as they work. One of the exciting opportunities MSA is embracing is the ways technology can enhance its wide safety equipment portfolio. In addition to portable gas protection devices and fixed gas and flame detection, MSA also offers Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus, head protection, fall protection systems, PPE and more. The ability for technology to confer automation, intelligent reporting and data archival promises both to increase user safety and significantly reduce the current manual workload surrounding mandatory audits, reporting, compliance, and inspections.
As a subsidiary of MSA, Safety io combines real world-class experience with the speed and innovation of a start-up. Safety io is focused on developing software that improves safety outcomes. The Safety io business center is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while the software development centers are in Berlin and South Africa. The Berlin center has 50 employees, and the center in South Africa has 15. Safety io is truly a global team, featuring employees of 14 different nationalities.
