Can AI be a Safety AND Productivity Solution?

Managing the Hidden Threat to Safety and Productivity: Fatigue

Safety is a great concern on every worksite, and fatigue is detrimental to safety. According to NIOSH (the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health), one of the strongest predictors of the potential for a worksite accident is worker fatigue.

Among the threats are a reduced capacity to focus and slowed reaction times. As fatigue increases, it has a negative impact on concentration, can impair judgment, and is detrimental to short-term memory. The sensations of tiredness or weariness, and a lack of energy can significantly reduce a worker’s ability to produce.

Compounding the challenge, fatigue is not always easy to recognize. Management and supervisors need to employ a new kind of intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, for effectively predicting and managing fatigue before it can undermine safety and productivity.

How Safety and Productivity are Linked

As fatigue progresses, it can negatively affect an employee's performance regardless of industry or occupation. Fatigue compounds stress and interferes with mentally and physically demanding tasks. That’s a double-whammy on high-risk, high-stakes worksites such as oil and gas, mining, construction, manufacturing, large-scale assembly lines, and related.

Predictive Safety allows every operation to accurately predict, manage, and potentially prevent fatigue-related risk. We offer a patented, AI-driven management system that can lead to a safer worksite and a more productive workforce.

Predictive Safety offers the power of PRISM.

Workers Checking in with the PRISM AI Safety and Productivity Solution

AI & PRISM: Changing the Landscape of Safety and Productivity

The evolution of artificial intelligence and its impact on daily life is formidable, although most go about their lives unaware of its ubiquitous presence. Often seen as the “4th Industrial Revolution,” AI has become a valuable tool in mining, oil & gas, construction, and other heavy-duty industries. Many operations now use software that applies algorithms that can investigate, research, and implement solutions that improve productivity.

PRISM gathers and organizes enormous volumes of data related to worker fatigue and then draws inferences and estimates that enable supervisors and management to know who is at risk for becoming dangerously fatigued and when. Its patented process streamlines what would take untold hours to pull together and comprehend manually if it could be done at all.

Any company not utilizing AI to enhance safety and productivity is giving the competition a beneficial edge.

Benefits of PRISM a Safety and Productivity Solution

PRISM offers:

• Notification of risk and potential acute situations of fatigue in real-time
• Reduction in incidents and employee incident severity
• Improvement in worker productivity, morale, and commitment to safety
• Minimizes expenses that result in everything from absenteeism to healthcare costs to ineffective production because employees are not at attention
• Empowerment to managers and supervisors to implement countermeasures as needed
• A significant and noticeable difference in worker confidence that promotes a culture of safety

A company cannot afford to ignore the hazards that come with impairment and fatigue. A specialist at Predictive Safety can show you how to improve safety on your site and protect employees and operations while improving productivity.

Balancing Managing Fatigue With Productivity Demands

Dedicated employees will push through for all the right reasons, taking on additional or double shifts believing they have the stamina to “get ‘er done.” But should they? Fatigue is often invisible, and a component of worker readiness that is not easily seen on the surface.

Extended hours, night work, increased workloads, repetitive activity, and physically challenging tasks are the norm in many high-risk industries. Environmental conditions also play a part. Extreme cold or heat and lack of ventilation are two situations that increase the chances that fatigue will rear its head.

Further compounding the challenge for management are historic levels of high demand coupled with labor shortages, especially highly skilled workers and specialists.

Management is responsible for keeping employees safe and for maximizing productivity. PRISM Monitor can be a powerful ally in that venue. It collates data that workers, supervisors, and management can deploy to develop and employ proactive and simple operations that, in most cases, let workers do their jobs safely.

PRISM, utilizing AI, minimizes the challenges related to sickness, labor shortages, and other related matters that affect production more effectively and without cutting safety corners. With solutions like PRISM Monitor and PRISM Workforce, you know in advance when an employee is approaching a fatigue “red zone,” and in need of counter-measures and support or if they’re ready to do extra hours.

With PRISM Workforce, assessing the alertness of your workers in real time is a simple and cost-effective way to enhance productivity, safety, and job satisfaction. Our AI-driven solutions have been validated in a range of clinical trials. The technology has nine approved patents and has already racked up over 70 million worker hours managed.

Minimizing Your Safety Risk with AI

Here are some stats related to worker fatigue:

• Companies lose over $136 billion a year due to fatigue-related health costs.
• Staying awake for 17 hours is like having a blood-alcohol level of 0.05.
• Over two million Americans have chronic fatigue syndrome.
• Chronic fatigue is most common in ages 40 to 60; that’s over 33 percent of the working population.
• The top causes of occupational fatigue are work conditions and sleep deprivation.
• A fatigued person is three times more likely to get into a car accident.
• Half of night-shifters sleep less than seven hours.
• Night shift injuries are 30 percent more likely than on day shifts.
• Fatigue greatly reduces cognitive performance in 97 percent of employees.
• Employees with sleep issues are almost twice as likely to get injured or cause injury.
• Over 90 percent of employers see fatigue as a safety issue, while only three-thirds of employees agree.
• Less than a quarter of employees have any comprehension of what occupational fatigue entails.
• Workers suffering from fatigue lose almost six hours per week while on the job.

Predictive Safety a Safety and Productivity Solution

Predictive Safety offers the most advanced and proven products for improving safety in operations and safety. The tragedy of the Exxon Valdez oil disaster is still impacting the world 30 years later. At Predictive Safety, we are committed to being part of the solution, utilizing research-backed technology, to prevent another Exxon Valdez, Colgan Air Crash, or Three Mile Island, and to helping every company, reduce the risk of accidents and errors.

The technology behind PRISM Workforce and our other signature product, AlertMeter®, came out of NASA’s exacting psychomotor testing. Our tools allow employers to apply a simple and quick daily exam that calculates an employee's readiness to work. They alert you to impairments, whether it’s a lack of sleep or substance abuse.

We cannot stress enough how important it is to know your employees are showing up alert and ready to get to work and that they remain so throughout their shift. If you’re interested in learning more, reach out to a fatigue management systems specialist today!

More Resources:

The Ultimate Guide to Safety Culture

Workplace Accidents Reporting Prevention and Costs - The 25 Hidden Costs of Workplace Accidents

Predictive Analytics in Workplace Safety - Understanding Leading Vs. Trailing Safety Indicators

Whose Job Is It? The Shared Responsibility for Safety with AlertMeter

Safety, Quality & Productivity Technology

Using Technology to Evolve Safety Culture in the Workplace