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IBM Watson Announces Partnerships To Improve Worker Safety Through Watson IoT

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Today, IBM Watson is announcing major collaborations with several industry partners to improve worker safety in hazardous environments. The new offerings leverage Internet of Things (IoT) technology in conjunction with IBM’s existing Maximo enterprise asset management platform.

The company is working with Garmin Health, Guardhat, Mitsufuji and SmartCone to employ advanced data collection and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to drive significant advances in monitoring and assessing the safety and health of workers in hazardous surroundings. “It’s in the context of a major focus area for us, to improve worker safety using IoT data and AI,” said Kareem Yusuf, PhD, General Manager of IBM Watson IoT.

Previously, the company’s focus with Maximo has been on management of physical assets. “We have a long history in equipment maintenance and reliability management,” Yusuf said. “It’s been around three asset classes – industrial equipment, buildings and facilities, and vehicles. The focus so far was to drive maintenance and work processes around them, for improvements like predictive maintenance.”

With the new partnerships, the same kind of focus will target the well-being of workers. The Maximo Worker Insights platform will receive data from the workspace and from the workers themselves to monitor such potential hazards as heat, height, temperature, and gas levels, and to assess whether workers are exposed to dangers or risks. “It allows our customers to define work zones and set up alerts,” said Yusuf. “They can monitor what matters and link back to our Maximo tool.”

With Garmin, an established leader in wearable technology, the partnership allows customers to gather “near-time” sensor data (gathered and assessed in mere seconds) from workers equipped with Garmin activity trackers. With the Garmin Health Companion SDK data collection tool embedded within the Maximo Worker Insights platform, companies can have immediate alerts of health emergencies or “man-down” scenarios, and can also build historical analytics based on longer-term biometric data.

Image courtesy Garmin

Guardhat, meanwhile, is integrating its Smart Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) wearables with the IBM platform. Their KYRA IoT application gathers data from their IoT instrumented hard hat, monitoring physical conditions to detect and warn of surrounding hazards, and also offers communication capabilities with real-time video and audio. The data and analytical combination provides for remote directional guidance and geolocation, as well as active monitoring and warning of moving object hazards.

Image courtesy Guardhat

In the third collaboration, IBM Watson will track IoT sensor data from the new wearable “shirt,” named hamon, recently launched by Mitsufuji. The hamon device, made from conductive silver fibers, directly collects the wearer’s physical data such as heart rate and temperature, while also monitoring surrounding environmental conditions, including noise and gas levels and air temperature. The Maximo Worker Insights platform can then analyze the data and deliver alerts and alarms for routine events such as breaks and job rotations, or for emergency conditions that could lead to injury or illness.

Image courtesy Mitsufuji

The SmartCone application is built around that company’s IoT-equipped flexible network of location sensors, which can be fixed or incorporated in to portable traffic cone configurations. The sensors monitor hazards in the marked zones, and gather visual data from cameras and other sensor data such as temperature and noise. The company’s data collection and manipulation algorithms integrates with Maximo Worker Insights to provide ongoing indications of environmental conditions, as well as alerts in the event of an accident or injury.

Photo by Mark Holleron

The companies have foreseen the obvious concerns with the technologies, those involving worker privacy and dignity. “This is definitely an angle we’ve considered, and we’ve been working closely with our partners to see what’s top of mind,” said Yusuf. “And it’s not just the clients and workers themselves, but other key stakeholders, such as the union viewpoint. What we’ve found is that when you keep the focus on safety and health, the initial insight is that the benefits outweigh the concerns. And when you maintain very clear lines about who owns the data, and work together transparently, it’s not a big problem.”

Photo by Mark Holleron

IBM Watson sees more such opportunities on the horizon. “Our future is more of the same,” Yusuf said. “With IoT and AI, we can drive advanced insights tied to operating processes. We can help minimize energy consumption, optimize building occupancy – that’s the kind of work we’re focused on, bringing value in the here and now. And with these new applications, we can help people operate more safely.”

Automation is often criticized for its potential to eliminate jobs, but it’s also been shown to improve worker safety by taking workers out of harm’s way. Today’s announcement offers further improvements in that regard; with on-the-job monitoring of potential dangers to health and well-being, they’re another avenue toward reducing the millions of on-the-job injuries workers suffer each year. As a secondary benefit, they can improve companies’ bottom lines, as those injuries cost tens of billions of dollars annually as well.

Yusuf sees a final benefit, in highlighting what IoT advances can offer. “This is an example of real AI at work,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of chatter about AI and its use and usefulness. We’re going to continue to work on ways to link it to processes, and to allow people to be more effective, efficient and informed.”