Author Archives: Contributor

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GAS HAZARDS AND THE COVID VACCINE

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COIVD-19 vaccine and gas hazards

The latest blog by industrial Scientific (below) examines how the methods for storing and transporting the COVID-19 vaccine come with invisible hazards.  

I write this while sitting in a bed in the ER because it’s that urgent. We need to get 14 more of the O2 GasBadge Pro monitors… ASAP.”

This rush order was a request from an EHS leader at a world-renowned medical center.

The order came on the heels of the FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine and the distribution of those vaccine doses to health care facilities across the United States. The vaccine, manufactured by Pfizer, must be kept extremely cold at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius and methods for storing and transporting the vaccine come with invisible hazards.

Both processes hinge upon the cold temperatures that are necessary to properly sustain the vaccine doses. Gas detection is a crucial element of ensuring safety in the distribution … Read more...

Emerging Tech for EHS&S (Infographic)

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In the Trends in Emerging Tech for EHS&S report from the National Association for EHS&S Management (NAEM), IT and EHS&S practitioners from leading companies provide their insights into the current state of play for technology adoption.

Companies that participated in the survey indicated they utilize technologies such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and more. These emerging technologies have the potential to revolutionize the environmental, health, safety, and sustainability (EHS&S) fields.

This infographic offers the key takeaways from the report and the specific emerging technologies that companies are using to grow their environmental, health, safety and sustainability efforts.

What is driving the need for technology adoption? What are the emerging technologies that companies are currently using or planning to use? What are the budgets for emerging technologies?

All this and more can be found in the infographic!

… Read more...

Driving Next Level Safety Outcomes – Trends Oil & Gas Safety Professionals Need to Know About

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New decade, new perspective. Do you know the five major trends forecasted to hit the Oil and Gas industry in 2020 and how they might affect you, your safety management system, and your company?

During the webinar “Driving Next Level Safety Outcomes – Trends Oil & Gas Safety Professionals Need to Know About,” Bobby Bourque of Industrial Scientific Corp. and I will discuss actions you can stay on top of these trends while future-proofing your safety initiatives and operational performance overall. We’ll also cover ways to protect your organization against any negative impacts the trends may pose and discuss how solutions from Intelex, Industrial Scientific, and Predictive Solutions can play a positive role in your safety management system. Whether you’re a seasoned safety professional or new to the job, we’ve designed the webinar for EHS professionals looking to stay ahead of the curve through technological adoption and intelligent management.

Although … Read more...

Build Once, Deploy Anywhere: Accelerate EHSQ App Development with Intelex Application Builder

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At some point along your digital transformation journey, you’ll have to make a critical technology decision. Do I buy commercial off the shelf applications and attempt to customize for my specific business needs? Do I develop applications from scratch, which involves time and assembling the necessary budget and resources to develop, test, QA and deploy? Or do I leverage a platform approach to build applications without coding and with enterprise security and governance controls baked right in?

Application development doesn’t have to be this complex. Consider a platform approach to application development built for business users to go from app idea to deployment rapidly, with the power of the Intelex platform capabilities including workflow and security built right in. Hundreds of Intelex customers have leveraged the power of Application Builder to build enterprise-grade business applications on the Intelex EHSQ platform.

No application development experience? No problem. With Application Builder’s intuitive … Read more...

Can You Benefit Professionally from a Working Vacation?

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Most health and safety professionals that I’ve had the opportunity to speak with did not start their careers in Health and Safety. The profile that I see most often is a former line worker or supervisor who was personally impacted by a preventable incident and wants to make a positive change for their coworkers.

This shift in career focus can be both rewarding and intimidating. Becoming a Certified Safety Professional (CSP) may seem like a daunting task. After all, you’re done with school. Shouldn’t exams be ancient history? 

I can certainly relate to this mindset. Nine years ago, when I got my CPA at 23, I thought this would be the last exam I would ever write. Surely this designation was all I needed to succeed! 

Two years later, when I got my MBA at 25, I thought that would be the last exam I would ever write. Armed with … Read more...

The Power of a Robust Safety Culture

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If you doubt the power of a robust safety culture, you’ll want to learn more about the turnaround at the Goodyear Innovation Center Manufacturing (ICM) plant in Akron, Ohio.

Over a period of about five years, the facility, also known as Goodyear’s Racing Division, turned a litany of challenges and a long list of substandard performance metrics into a finely tuned, prosperous, and continuously improving operation.

And it all started with safety.

Describing the Racing Division business as it was in the fall of 2013 when Goodyear Corporate began an initiative to redouble its continuous improvement efforts, Dave Coleman, finance business partner and continuous improvement (CI) leader, resorted to several lists. During a presentation to a group of CI practitioners at a recent AME Cleveland Consortia event, he noted that from the outside view, ICM had:

• The worst safety record of all Goodyear manufacturing businesses.
• Run through five … Read more...

Adopting ‘Lean’ Safety Takes You Beyond Compliance

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How to embed safety into every minute of every day—and continuously improve it.

Robert Hafey, a 25-year lean practitioner and consultant with 10 years specializing in safety, is working to change how business leaders think about workplace safety. He’s trying to help them understand how much more effective “lean safety” is, compared to “compliance safety.”

Writing in a recent issue of Target magazine, the quarterly publication of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), he explains the difference. Compliance safety, he writes, “focuses almost exclusively on following OSHA or other regulatory agency rules.” In organizations that focus on compliance safety, he explains, “practices are ‘pushed’ from regulatory agencies to safety professionals, who then take the new or changed requirements to their management team and eventually to those who perform the work.”

While this approach is right as far as it goes, Hafey asserts that this top-down directive approach often causes safety … Read more...

EHS Management Lags in Digital Transformation Involvement

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By Patricia Panchak
Here’s why you need to get on board, along with some tips for doing so.

As industrial organizations race to deploy the latest digital technology innovations, to achieve “Industrial Transformation (IX),” recent research suggests that EHS functional leaders are among the least likely to be involved. Compared with their counterparts in 18 functional areas, EHS management placed 15th, according to the LNS Research report, “Futureproof EHS Management,” which found:

“Among IX leaders (the 28% of companies that say IX is “working”), only 21% of companies have participation from the EHS business leader. Among IX followers (the other 72% of companies that have not yet achieved results), only 13% have EHS business leader participation. However, among all manufacturers (e.g., not just leaders and followers), fewer than 14% of companies report that EHS is included in the focus of Big Data analytics or IIoT initiatives. That’s shockingly low, considering … Read more...

An Insider’s Guide to Buying Safety Management Software: Part II

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Navigating the world of buying Safety Management Software (SMS) can be quite a daunting task. To help you understand the ins and outs as well as the potential benefits for your organization, we got the facts from an industry expert.

In the first part of this guide we explained how SMS can help your organization ensure employee safety, comply with regulatory and legislative standards, and finally demystified the software industry so you felt comfortable asking the necessary questions so you can make the right decision.

Now in Part II we’re going to walk you through the fee structures and benefits of using software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology, how to maximize your ROI by implementing an SMS solution, and finally how to develop an effective business proposal.

Using the information in this whitepaper, as an EHS professional you will be equipped with the tools and information you need to secure the best solution … Read more...

Knowing When to Buy EHS Software

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At what point does the cost of purchasing and implementing new software become preferable to the cost of maintaining your existing organizational software? It’s an important question, especially when you consider that as much as two-thirds of the cost of the new software is probably going to come from your EHS budget. Like just about anything else, software has an expected service life. For most well-designed systems, their useful life cycle can be as long as six to eight years; for systems that are less well designed or for applications that evolve very quickly, the useful life of business software can be as short as three years.

To maintain workplace safety you need a tool that will provide software solutions for a wide variety of services like compliance management, risk management, safety management, incident management, audits, document control, training management … the list goes on.

According to a 2017 survey … Read more...