Developing architecture of a system for the monitoring and management of occupational health and safety, according to state-of-the-art technologies and solutions applied in the area of smart work environment.

Project manager: Grzegorz Gralewicz Ph.D. (Eng.)

Project summary:

The Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute (CIOP-PIB) has undertaken and performed tasks aimed at developing selected technical and organisational solutions concerning the creation of an intelligent work environment. The scope of works covers research focused on the improvement of materials and construction of personal protective equipment as well as development of systems associated with their use and parameter monitoring, including in particular: electronic applications, textronic systems integrated into personal protective equipment to monitor changes in physiological parameters of the user, parameters of the work environment and protective parameters. The works above have contributed to a new project “Developing architecture of a system for the monitoring and management of occupational health and safety, according to state-of-the-art technologies and solutions applied in the area of smart work environment”, which shall include the development of a concept of a smart OHS monitoring and management system. The first step was inventory of selected electronic, textronic, mechatronic and ICT-based solutions which may be potentially applied to safety-related applications in smart working environments has been elaborated on the basis of a thorough analysis of a number of documents, i.e.: scientific articles ( 127 eferences), papers published in the conference proceedings (106 positions), information on results of research projects (29 positions), information materials published by the manufacturers (40 positions). The threshold for inclusion of a given solution into the inventory was based on a demonstrated possibility to make use of the solution to ensure the safety of workers in the intelligent working environment. The selected solutions were classified by assigning them some basic features which may be performed with regard to occupational health and safety, and specifically:

• monitoring of: the working environment conditions (monitoring of the environmental parameters, such as chemical substances, noise, etc.), workers’ physiological parameters (body temperature, heart rate, user’s activity, muscle performance and energy monitoring, etc.), the parameters of machinery (movement detection, location, etc.), protective parameters of personal protective equipment,
• warning and information support for workers (e.g. alarm signal),
• supporting decision-making processes,
• virtual reality-based training and education.

Each solution was also categorised by assigning it to the certain level in the risk management process. The following levels were considered for this purpose:

• Machines level – monitoring of parameters of machines and manufacturing processes;
• Workers level – monitoring workers’ health conditions, hazardous factors of working environment, PPE parameters, etc.;
• Management level – enabling managers to make decisions on the basis of an overview of current workers’ health conditions, factors of working environment, PPE parameters, machines and parameters of manufacturing processes.

The selected solutions were also analysed in terms of their assignment in the hierarchy of risk preventive and protective measures.

Finally we proposed concept of a smart monitoring and management system for occupational health and safety covers two main aspects, i.e. real-time reaction to changes in the work environment and customisation of risk assessment for an individual employee profile, which takes account of his/her physical and mental condition, actual conditions of the work environment and location in respect of machinery.

Technical report: “An inventory of selected electronic, textronic, mechatronic and ICT-based solutions for safety-related applications in smart working environments”.

This report was elaborated by the Central Institute for Labour Protection – National Research Institute (CIOP-PIB) as a contribution to the PEROSH project “Concept of integration of ambient intelligence for safety and health towards smart factories”.

Unit: Department of Personal Protective Equipment

Duration: 01.01.2014 – 31.12.2015