With the continued digital transformation occurring in the manufacturing space through technological breakthroughs and disruption to the everyday routine, new initiatives have become critical for successful evolutions in the new world of advanced manufacturing. A critical initiative that advanced manufacturing leadership across the board are taking on today is that of worker safety. Learn how critical it is to consider how advanced manufacturing and worker safety can work closely together to protect and support workers:
Worker Safety Matters
As advanced manufacturing leadership continues to look to the market for ways that technology can be seamlessly integrated on the floor to make operations more productive, implementing technology that can seamlessly make operations safer is just as, if not more, critical. Safety on the floor is an employer’s leading priority. Lessening and hopefully completely preventing workplace injury, illness, and death is, of course, every advanced manufacturing leaders goal. Knowing one’s company is implementing all possible safety protocols is critical for employee well-being and security while working in a potentially dangerous environment.
Outside the priority of workers safety, implementing advanced technology to improve worker safety is also beneficial to the bottom line. In fact, the annual cost to U.S. businesses from lost-time workplace injuries is greater than the gross domestic product of over 90 countries.
Beyond the fiscal cost to the business from injuries and potential death, studies reveal that 83% of manufacturing leaders saw increased productivity after implementing safety programs. Other key findings of the study indicate the trend across the industry is to move towards more regular and priority safety protocols across all aspects of the manufacturing floor.
Overall, worker safety is primarily important for the physical and emotional well-being of employees in your workforce and in addition to providing that well-being to your employees, worker safety can also provide additional benefits to the bottom line and general business success.
How Technology Can Help
While it’s clear that worker safety is a critical and pressing priority for advanced manufacturing leadership, understanding how technology can best solve safety problems at hand can be a tricky first step to approach.
In general, digital transformation within an organization can be tricky and when dealing with the sensitive and priority topic of safety, it can feel difficult to take the right first steps towards implementing safety initiatives in advanced manufacturing. High-level, advanced manufacturing technology for safety can help:
Compensate for Human-Error
Advanced manufacturing safety technology often can work much quicker than humans on the job can. When safety procedures and processes typically handled on paper or by an in-person supervisor are digitized or aided by technology in some way, their is less room for missed steps or lax checks. The processes are run the same way every time. Additionally, some tech, like wearables or sensors may even be able to anticipate or compensate for unexpected hazards, effectively preventing a safety issue before it even occurs. The power of technology can add a layer of extra intelligence and digital eyes and ears to the hard-working, human-driven actions on the floor today.
Streamline Processes
With many traditional safety processes like forms and checklists occurring verbally or with paper forms, reviewing and double checking that all safety protocols are completed can be tedious and time consuming. When advanced manufacturing technology is brought in and companies undergo a digital transformation for their safety processes, streamlined more efficient and consistent safety efforts are the result.
Learn with Data
When advanced manufacturing leadership chooses to invest in advanced manufacturing technology for safety, they provide themselves with the opportunity to not only benefit from the culture and business benefits of these programs, they can also learn about their business from the data produced by these investments. Technology provides a digital transformation of the real-time data occurring on your manufacturing floor everyday. Capturing safety processes on a tablet or computer instead of paper and pen allows patterns and trends to more easily emerge. Safety hardware captures signals and movements that can be reviewed. Wearables share insight into workers decision making and movement data. By quickly and more efficiently capturing all of this data, advanced manufacturing leadership can draw insights that they may have been missing before to continue radically, and quickly transforming their business.
Anvl Can Assist With Worker Safety
Anvl can assist as you step up your advanced manufacturing worker safety initiatives. The Anvl solution can help identify hazards before they become a reality and ensure workers have proper certifications before operating machinery. Click here watch our demo and contact us to discuss your needs with one of our experts today.
