The Future of Turnarounds: Embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Enhanced Safety and Efficiency
In the dynamic world of industrial maintenance, leading the pack requires the adoption of cutting-edge technologies that revolutionize operational capabilities. Artificial Intelligence (AI) stands at the forefront of this revolution, reshaping the potential and execution of digital turnarounds. As pioneers in crafting innovative solutions for enhanced safety and efficiency, our commitment to embedding AI within our offerings is unwavering. This strategic integration ensures that our customers consistently remain at the cutting edge of industry developments.
Typical Hazards and Accidents During Industrial Maintenance Shutdowns
Industrial maintenance shutdowns are critical for ensuring the safety and efficiency of facilities. However, these shutdowns, by their very nature, involve a variety of inherent risks and potential accidents. Understanding these hazards is crucial for planning effective safety measures and ensuring a safe work environment. Here’s a look at some of the most common risks and how they can impact maintenance activities.
Traditional vs. Digital Confined Space Monitoring: Enhancing Safety During Turnarounds
As industries evolve, so do the methods and technologies employed to ensure the safety of workers during maintenance turnarounds. Confined space monitoring, a critical aspect of these operations, has traditionally relied on manual methods that pose inherent risks to workers and managers alike. In contrast, digital confined space monitoring offers a safer, more efficient alternative, mitigating health and safety hazards and improving overall operational effectiveness.
VISICSTraditional vs Digital Confined Space Monitoring
In the ever-evolving landscape of industrial safety, where precision and timeliness are non-negotiable, remote gas detection has emerged as a critical technology. As industries such as petrochemical, oil & gas, energy, chemical, waste, and marine continue to advance, the need to protect lives from the unseen threats of hazardous gases becomes paramount. In this blog, we explore how remote gas detection plays a pivotal role in saving lives and enhancing overall safety protocols.
The Top Hazards During a Turnaround and How to Increase Safety
Confined Spaces: The Silent Danger
Confined spaces, such as tanks, vessels, and storage bins, pose a significant risk during turnarounds. Limited entry and exit points, coupled with potentially hazardous atmospheres, make confined spaces a silent danger.
To mitigate this hazard, the adoption of digital confined space monitoring solutions is crucial. Real-time camera monitoring, remote gas detection, two-way communication systems, and access control units streamline safety protocols, providing continuous insights and early hazard detection.
Most Asked Questions About Digitalizing Confined Space Monitoring
In the dynamic landscape of industrial maintenance, the digitalization of confined space monitoring has emerged as a pivotal strategy for enhancing safety and operational efficiency. As companies explore the possibilities offered by advanced technologies, several questions arise. Here, we address the most commonly asked questions about digitalizing confined space monitoring.
VISICSFAQ’s Digitalizing Confined Space Monitoring
The VISICS Reporting Tool is a web-based safety application built specifically for the needs and challenges faced during turnarounds, shutdowns and outages.
The Reporting Tool digitalizes turnaround reporting with an easy-to-use application allowing safety managers and other stakeholders to have greater insight into their operations. Utilizing the VISICS Reporting Tool allows users to generate detailed digital reports (incident, shift or DOR reports), investigate noted events, identify safety bottlenecks, track critical project data and more.
Problems Solved
In the traditional way of working, shift data is paper-based, meaning information is recorded on paper, collected and then manually analyzed to determine critical information such as project progress/timeline and safety trends.
Utilizing paper in the industrial workplace naturally means:
information gets damaged – environmental conditions, water, dirt, etc.
information is wrongly documented – human error in reporting or reading reports
inability to analyze data – in a timely manner, with evidence of claims
process inefficiency – time-consuming, repetitive work
To combat these challenges, the Reporting Tool boasts features such as:
Standard digital reporting forms, stored centrally
Safety observation tally, to track safety infractions and identify bottlenecks (i.e missing gloves, missing helmet, etc)
Project information dashboard, an overview of the most critical project data such as special PPE requirements
The VISICS Reporting tool is now available for all VISICS projects, worldwide.
To request the Reporting Tool for your next project, contact:
Finding the right personnel to work in high risk industries is becoming increasingly difficult for managers these days. Why not use technology to improve safety and efficiency? The innovative solution called Digital Confined Space Solution we offer that reduces the labor burden while improving monitoring capabilities.
For years prior to the pandemic, energy sector observers warned of the need to attract and retain a skilled workforce. In 2019, the Global Energy Talent Index reported that labor shortages continued to grow due to multiple factors, including retirement and job shifts to more attractive sectors. COVID-19 only made matters worse as workers left the workforce with no intention of returning.
Technology to the Rescue
But like many other challenges posed by the COVID pandemic, labor ambiguity, costs and security measures can all be addressed with digital technologies that allow for greater flexibility, fewer staff and greater efficiency. Take, for example, Digital Confined Space Monitoring (DCSM). Traditionally, confined space surveillance is performed with one security officer monitoring one confined space (ratio 1-1)
Due to a lack of information from the inside of the confined space and historical working methods, traditional security guards are limited in their ability to act. Should an accident occur in a confined space, there are few resources to alert contractors inside and little information available to guide rescue personnel. This also makes it difficult to concretely identify the incident and learn from it.
With these working methods, sites planning for turnarounds must account for not only one safety attendant to every confined space, but also for standby firewatchers and rescue personnel, all whilst needing to reduce headcount, contact, and costs in the growing wake of the labor shortage. This is just a fraction of the new challenges faced by turnaround planners. So, how can contractors, planners, and operators emerge as industry leaders post-pandemic? Well, now, more than ever, may be the time for energy industries to seize digitalization opportunities.
Setting goals
To find solutions to labor shortage challenges, the first step is to identify your objectives. Common objectives shared amid the growing labor shortage during the global pandemic include:
Cutting costs.
Increasing efficiency.
Decreasing headcount.
Increasing safety.
These objectives can seem contradictory at first, especially when applying traditional business rationale, but when innovative thinking is applied and technology is factored in, the possibilities are endless. The trick is to simplify what your tangible objectives are. Digitalization, data, and technology can all be intimidating and complicated words—the results should not be. When thinking back to the example of confined space monitoring, achieving the mentioned objectives under today’s pressures can be relatively simple with DCSM technology.
Becoming a certified VISICS operator, how does this work? It all start at our VISICS Academy
the VISICS academy – the place to be for building and up-skilling your VISICS knowledge, featuring a blended learning approach, allows us to make the VISICS education program more flexible and accessible, as our operations continue to expand across the globe.
Blackline Safety and Access Technology Group Partner for Confined Space Monitoring
Best practice protection for industry’s most at-risk worksite maintenance activities
May 25, 2022
Calgary, Canada — Blackline Safety Corp. (TSX: BLN) (“Blackline” or “Blackline Safety”), a global leader in connected safety technology, today announced it has partnered with Access Technology Group, a Dutch innovator in digital shutdowns and turnarounds, to integrate Blackline’s G7 EXO portable area gas monitors with Access Technology’s VISICS Digital Confined Space Monitoring system.
“Blackline Safety has over 1,000 customers around the world and through this partnership we are now able to link our equipment and live stream gas readings to the VISICS platform to support the new best practices of confined space monitoring and deliver even more value to our customers,” said Brendon Cook, Chief Partnership Officer, Blackline Safety.
Confined spaces are challenging working environments. Identifying the hazards involved then taking proactive steps to prevent them and minimize risks is paramount. Minimizing risks starts with knowing who’s inside a confined space, for how long, and monitoring the atmospheric conditions within it.
The VISICS system takes information from workers’ badges and communication devices to manage and monitor their entries into confined spaces. Live camera feeds both inside and outside the space enable remote teams to centrally monitor each confined space and all activities inside and out.
Now, through the integration of Blackline’s G7 EXO area gas monitors into the solution, the equipment can communicate directly with the VISICS network streaming gas readings sampled from within a confined safety to add another layer of proactive safety monitoring and protection during turnaround and shutdowns.
“Integrating with Blackline Safety is a wonderful opportunity for VISICS as it allows us to offer Blackline’s top-of-the-line technology while maintaining the same familiar look and feel for VISICS operators,” said Rene Slegers, CEO of Access Technology Group.
“Blackline Safety has a loyal client base which we are now happily able to serve during confined space monitoring work,” Slegers added. “By combining the right people with the best equipment, such as Blackline’s, VISICS helps protect CSE personnel from the risks and hazards associated with confined space work, 24/7.”
VISICS is the market leader in digital confined space monitoring, providing services to the most well-known industrial energy clients in over 15 countries through direct business and well-developed local partnerships. Blackline Safety worked with Access Technology Group and its North American distribution partner, InfoSignal, to develop an EXO hard-wired data interface to deliver real-time gas readings into the VISICS network. The technology was then trialled at several customer worksites to ensure a seamless integration.
About Blackline Safety
Blackline Safety is a technology leader driving innovation in the industrial workforce through IoT (Internet of Things). With connected safety devices and predictive analytics, Blackline enables companies to drive towards zero safety incidents and improved operational performance. Blackline provides wearable devices, personal and area gas monitoring, cloud-connected software and data analytics to meet demanding safety challenges and enhance overall productivity for organizations with coverage in more than 100 countries. Armed with cellular and satellite connectivity, Blackline provides a lifeline to tens of thousands of people, having reported over 177 billion data-points and initiated over five million emergency responses. For more information, visit BlacklineSafety.com and connect with us on Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
About Access Technologies Group
Access Technology Group (ATG) is an innovative Dutch company located in the centre of The Netherlands, with a range of subsidiaries. ATG started in 2002 with solutions for wireless infrastructures and public safety and security under Access Innovations BV. In 2005 ICT services were added to the portfolio under Access Communications BV.
As an increasing demand for mobile solutions was sensed, especially in heavy industries with a need for increased safety levels at lower costs, ATG developed VISICS – the innovative and mobile solution for safe and efficient maintenance turnarounds and shutdowns. The first generation VISICS was launched in 2007 under Mobile Shutdown System BV. Since then, ATG has focussed more intensively on this specific industrial application, which has resulted in a mobile high-tech solution providing on-demand state-of-the-art observation, registration and communication techniques. VISICS has sense been deployed actively in over 15 countries for the most reputable energy clients. For more information, visit Visics.eu and connect with us on LinkedIn or Xing.
VISICS is the state-of-the-art and digital solution for increased safety during maintenance turnarounds and shutdowns. Being one of the top innovations in the safety industry, VISICS answers to the demands of enterprises worldwide looking for increased safety levels at lower cost.
