Tag Archives: EHS

IIoT and the Continuing Evolution of Safety Management Systems

Posted on by
Reply

Safety management systems, like other performance-based systems, have evolved over the years. The establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971 was a catalyst for a renewed emphasis on health and safety in the workplace, driven mostly by compliance. As a result, the 1970s saw a focused drive toward compliance and physical controls for hazards in the workplace. 

As EHS programs began to mature, the 1980s saw an evolution of behavior-based safety, which utilized a scientific approach based on the theories of Herbert William Heinrich in his definitive book Industrial Accident Prevention, A Scientific Approach. (Heinrich, 1941) Behavior-based safety is a broad term used to describe everything from employee behavior audits and feedback to a comprehensive safety management system designed to change a company’s safety culture. 

The 1990s saw a resurgence of knowledge and capability training combined with new methods of transferring information, such as online training. … Read more...

Seven Leading Indicators to Drive Safety Improvement in Your Organization

Posted on by
Reply

The safety profession has a fixation on measuring using purely negative values. OSHA recordable and lost-time injuries spring to mind—both are lagging (negative) indicators.  

“Once they occur, there is nothing that can be done but to investigate and hopefully learn enough to avoid similar incidents in the future,” says Carey Usrey, Process Improvement Leader at Predictive Solutions in the Insight Report “Seven Leading Indicators to Drive Safety Improvement in Your Organization.” “But even these metrics are flawed, in that a lack of injuries or incidents does not necessarily equate to a safe workplace. It could be a matter of just being lucky.” 

For almost 20 years, Predictive Solutions has helped companies move from “just being lucky,” or in many cases, having not been lucky at all, to saving lives by predicting and preventing workplace injuries. 

According to Usrey, safety experts have made a sound case to adopt leading … Read more...

The Evolution of EHS: How Times Are Changing – And How to Change with Them

Posted on by
Reply

A new eBook from Environment + Energy Leader, The Evolution of EHS: How Times Are Changing – And How to Change with Them, sponsored by Intelex, shares insights from EHS experts and Intelex insiders on justifying your costs to the C-suite, building or expanding a successful EHS program, and using software to solve EHS complexities. They discuss the changing role of the EHS manager and how to incorporate new responsibilities into an already complicated mix. 

The eBook points out that an effective EHS program is built on a few key elements: people, processes, and – to varying degrees – technology. 

“I am a huge fan of the idea that, the better we ‘build’ people, the better our organization performs,” says Scott Gaddis, VP and EHS practice lead at Intelex, who was interviewed for the article. He says that in the organizations where he has led safety, such as Coveris … Read more...

Performance and Why It Matters

Posted on by
Reply

Improving safety performance is a team effort that is based on data that easily can be monitored and measured to prioritize where safety programs can have the most impact.  When it comes to improving performance in Health and Safety, this webinar, “Performance and Why It Matters,” sponsored by Intelex, explains why organizations must leverage their most important asset - their tools and data - to improve future H&S performance. 

Better tools and processes give workers the power to improve their performance through data-driven decision-making and enhanced situational awareness. The result is a stronger EHSQ practice that drives improved overall business results and revenue. Tomorrow’s businesses will rest on a strong foundation consisting of rigorous EHSQ performance, singular dedication to customer satisfaction, and a passion for innovation.   

You will hear from Kanwer Kahn, CSP, CRSP, QEP, P.E., who is Vice President, Environment, Health, Safety and Security for SUEZ North America. In his … Read more...

How the Data Revolution is Changing the Safety Professional’s Role

Posted on by
Reply

The safety professional’s goal in an organization has not changed significantly since its inception. The mission of the safety professional is to safeguard workers and contribute to the goals of the organization by anticipating, recognizing, evaluating, and controlling workplace hazards. What has changed is the way we collect data and the data we collect. 

Organizations always have tracked data, looking for trends. Your organization may be most interested in tracking market and economic trends, but you probably focus on data related to leading and lagging indicators, such as near misses, audit reports, training records, and injuries and illnesses. Until very recently, tracking leading and lagging indicators of safety performance has been a matter of paper documents that either were filed in a cabinet or entered into a spreadsheet or rudimentary software program. The process of collecting the information was time-consuming, and the amount of information that could be collected was limited by available resources, namely, how much “spare” … Read more...

Change Your Culture by Making Employees a Part of Safety Strategy

Posted on by
Reply
New webinar explains why employees support proposals and programs they help to create and offers guidance on achieving employee buy-in for your safety management initiatives.

For excellence in any operational category to be recognized, it is imperative employees make decisions and behave in alignment with the intended strategic direction. Strategy is a framework of choices an organization makes to determine how to capture and deliver sustainable value. How value focused are your efforts, and do the customers of your safety strategy agree with this? 

In a new September 25 EHS Today-hosted webinar, sponsored by Intelex, Terry Mathis, the founder and CEO of ProAct Safety, an international safety and performance excellence firm, explain why safety is not a standalone strategy within a business; it must be an integral part of the overall operational plan. The webinar is scheduled for 2 pm on Sept. 25, and registration is open now.

Mathis … Read more...

EHS Management Lags in Digital Transformation Involvement

Posted on by
Reply
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...

Health & Safety is a Team Effort: Industry 4.0 and IIoT

Posted on by
Reply

 
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 are forcing companies to rethink their approach to health and safety. Digital transformation uses innovative IoT endpoints and their data to improve the company’s core business, but they make health and safety more complex than ever. When properly deployed and integrated, sensors, endpoints and devices improve the individual safety of workers and identify additional areas for process improvement. 

More connected workers, more devices, more data — this massive influx of information and capability requires an end-to-end solution that addresses new and evolving EHS challenges. A solution that can capture the data produced from edge devices, analyze it and organize it in meaningful ways to improve health and safety programs and processes. Intelex Technologies and Honeywell are working together to create an integrated EHS solution that solves the challenges posed by Industry 4.0 and IIoT.  

The Number of Connected “Things”  

The global IIoT market will grow to $310 billion USD by 2023, and some of that growth will be from the increase in the number of “Connected Workers.” This means that the average industrial worker is going to be wearing and carrying multiple devices to help them do their job. Deployment, management and training … Read more...

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Posted on by
Reply

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...