A holistic approach to health and safety monitoring: Framework and technology perspective

Existing H&S monitoring methods are manual, cumbersome, time consuming and issues with safety compliance and use of PPE remain a concern. With the existing manual H&S processes, there are significant delays and, in some cases, even failure to report incidences, resulting in no or slow improvements to safety. This paper proposes a prototype PPE access monitoring system which combines smart PPE and an indoor/outdoor personnel location monitoring system. The paper also proposes a generic framework to be used for smart gateway services within a manufacturing site to augment and enable smart PPE, separating areas of high and low risk. The prototype automated PPE detection gate presents a practical use of the framework and demonstrates a suitable method for assessing workforce/visitor PPE compliance. Its secondary function is to act as a location waypoint system to support other location tracking methods, identified in the literature and throughout the testing protocol. The system could be further adapted to support augmented personnel within the Operator 4.0 paradigm to improve site safety, monitoring and control.