Industrial Safety: Need For Maintaining Safety And Security For Workers

The market for industrial safety is expected to increase at a significant pace owing to the presence of government regulations focusing on achieving maximum safety at the industrial workplace. Additionally, the growing automation in the industries is further driving market demand.

The growing demand for safety in industries holds immense importance due to growing concerns regarding providing safety to the workers in factories in addition to prevention from occupational diseases as well due to continuous exposure to dangerous fumes or toxic gases. The concept of industrial safety arose keeping in view the direct and indirect costs associated with untoward industrial accidents resulting in huge loss of lives. Direct costs are related to paying huge amount of hospital bills, worker compensation, and a high insurance premium. In addition, indirect costs are loss of productive time due to the injured worker, time for hiring and training a new or a substitute worker till the return of the injured employee. Also, repairing the damaged equipment or machinery takes a huge amount of time and money resulting in loss of the company output. In order to avoid such losses, a need for industrial safety equipment or products which include emergency shut down systems, safety sensors, and safety controllers and safety gadgets such as powered air purifying respirator (PAPR) in order to provide protection to workers against particulates and toxic gases in the working environment has been realized for the smooth functioning of plant operation. Furthermore, to maintain industrial safety, there are strict government regulations as well for providing safety to industry personnel. Following below is the list of initiatives, regulatory acts, and programs by various regulatory bodies and companies promoting industrial safety:

1. Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) which enacted in 1970. The role of OSHA is to help and ensure safe workplaces for men and women in America. Under the Act, the workers receive training and education regarding hazards in workplaces, prevention methods, and OSHA standards applicable to a particular workplace. All businesses are required to comply with OSHA standards.
2. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a federal agency working on the conduction of research and making recommendations for preventing occupational diseases and injuries at workplaces. Usually, OSHA and NIOSH work in conjunction aiming towards the protection of the safety of the worker and their health. The two organizations were created by the same act of Congress, but these are different bodies with different responsibilities.
3. As per the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates, around 2.78 million deaths, which are related to work are recorded each year and out of them, around 2.4 million are related to occupational diseases. The ILO standards for occupational safety and health help in the provision of tools for government, employers, and workers for the establishment of practices that provide protection ensuring maximum safety at the workplace. The organization adopted over 40 standards that deal with the occupational health and safety of the workers and more than 40 Codes of Practice. There are certain ILO instruments which deal either directly or indirectly with the occupational health safety and health issues. Some of the ILO instruments are listed below:

• Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 2006 (No. 187)
• Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155)
• Occupational Health Services Convention, 1985 (No. 161)

1. Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, also laid down certain Acts for industrial safety and health, these include The Factories Act, 1948; The Mines Act, 1952; and the Dock Workers (Safety, Health, and Welfare) Act, 1986.
2. Zarubezhneft, the oil and energy public company, based in Moscow, Russia introduced an industrial program known as "12 Live Saving Rules" in 2015 focused on enhancing the safety of preformed operations and adherence to the prerequisites of the industrial program "12 Live Saving Rules" is absolutely necessary for the company personnel, contractors, and sub-contractors at the time of performing operations at the Zarubezhneft industrial sites for the achievement of the maximum level of industrial safety, labour, and environmental protection. All the Company’s explosive or flammable industrial sites are operated as per the licenses issued by the Federal Service for ecological, technological, and nuclear supervision.
3. Initiatives are taken by the Nissan Company for the management of the health and safety of its employees. The company adopted a basic policy on safety and health providing a huge benefit to its employees by encouraging common practices that aids in reducing the burden of workers and making it convenient for the workers to carry out their work in an easy manner, thus, contributing to both physical and mental health.

The growing trend of industry 4.0 is working on providing a safe workplace for workers with the growing use of automation in industries. One of them includes the use of smart technologies for the detection of problems before the occurrence of failures. Continuous monitoring through the deployment of smart devices helps in preventing incidents that could otherwise be hazardous. Such innovations provide safety and security to workers on the floor, further providing assistance in improving the industrial production on the whole. Also, with the introduction of smart technologies, a change in the manufacturing sector is being experienced where industrial IoT is also playing a big role in providing safety to workers. This is because of the fact that these technologies are capable of giving real-time information and with seamless connectivity. Hence, companies are being highly benefitted due to the provision of unmatched visibility of operations through these IoT devices, further strengthening the industrial safety management. The introduction of robots is further providing an opportunity for the industrial safety market to thrive, as these provide a minimum or no human intervention, this is due to the fact that tough tasks are being handled by the robots. With advancements in robotics technology, the collaborative robots came into being where humans and robots are able to work in collaboration with each other in a much more efficient manner in comparison to the conventional way of working where humans and robots worked separately and the risk of injuries was reduced by using barriers in the form of cages and curtains in order to keep them separate.

The SafeMove2 safety solution by ABB allows robots and humans to work together and help in providing safety to humans and industrial equipment both. Additionally, for a human, a task involving pick and place might be quite mundane or monotonous. In the case of lifting products of substantial weights or in case of any dangerous application, there is a risk of injury to humans, hence, the presence of cobots may prove to be an advantage in simplifying the tasks with no compromise in safety. The cobot technology utilizes the precision, speed, and strength of robots for performing tasks in industry, making it convenient for humans sharing the same workspace with utmost safety.

The world’s first autonomous surface robot for the oil and gas industry is capable of working in an extreme and challenging environment. The robot was developed by Total Company based in Paris La Défense Cedex, the world’s largest energy company producing oil and gas. The autonomous surface robot is a result of the launch of ARGOS (Autonomous Robot for Gas and Oil Sites) challenge in 2013 by the Total’s R&D department. The robot, ARGONAUT (named after the winner team) is currently in the preliminary stage and is expected to work on an industrial level by 2022. The robot is capable of operating under explosive conditions, is ATEX-certified, a certification for operation in potentially explosive atmospheres. In addition, it is highly capable of reducing the exposure of personnel to high-risk situations.

Knowledge Sourcing Intelligence is a market research and consulting firm based out of India. Steered by some of the industry experts, the company provides syndicated reports, custom research, and consulting services.