In an earlier post, How Digital Transformation Can Impact Compliance for Environmental and Safety Regulation, I shared some safety examples. Emerson’s Marcio Donnangelo explored specific examples more deeply in his 2023 4C HSE conference presentation, Safety Showers and Location Awareness – Improving Safety with Wireless Monitoring.
Marcio opened describing three ways to help create a safe environment for all plant personnel. Through geolocation, zones can be created to keep contractors safe and efficient working only in their designated work zones. For all personnel working in the processing areas, they can be kept safe by creating zones of known hazardous locations and providing warnings when entering.
Another very important application for safer operations is location tracking to help know where plant personnel are and that they are safe and accounted for at designated muster points. This location tracking can also help identify fallen personnel are located to quickly dispatch emergency responders.
Adding wireless location sensors to personnel and locations enables the collection of data to drive safety-specific key performance indicators.
These KPIs help to achieve reduced emergency response time and a safer environment and identify improvement opportunities based on the history and analysis of the ongoing data collected.
Marcio next described how safety showers and eye wash stations are traditionally alarmed with sirens and flashing lights. They work only if another person is in range to hear or see the alarm. Showers that are hard-wired with sensors are typically looped with other showers to reduce installation costs. Wireless sensors enable a better solution to monitor activation, water pressure & temperature to make sure the stations will operate properly when needed. The sensors can be connected to the existing WirelessHART network where the process wireless instruments are located.
From a safety documentation and reporting standpoint these sensors provide historical tracking records.
Visit the Plant Safety & Security section on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to drive improved safety performance.
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