Part of the challenge for many health and safety professionals is getting business directors on board with safety management when pitching the importance of safeguarding your employee’s health.
As businesses are profit-making entities it can be beneficial to promote the cost-saving and productivity benefits of good safety management. For many, this is where predictive analytics comes in. This method of data analysis can be used to predict future outcomes of a wide variety of business activities.
What are the benefits of predictive analytics?
Putting forward the right business case for predictive analytics will increase the rate of adoption and make it easier to justify when used in health and safety. Predictive analytics use has benefits for many different areas within workplace management.
More accurate risk management
Reducing risk is a core function in large businesses both in terms of managing health and safety and the long term sustainability of the company. The adoption of predictive analytics has already taken place heavily in the field of finance and insurance with the oil and gas industry stepping up their adoption in an attempt to reduce workplace incidents and increase their profitability.
Better equipment and machinery monitoring
One of the costs of running a business with a reliance on heavy machinery is the monitoring and maintenance of the equipment. As machines become more intelligent with increased recording capabilities, predictive analytics will be able to be increasingly integrated, reducing the amount of human monitoring that needs to take place. This will reduce the contact between the worker and the machine reducing the risk of injury. Additionally, time will also be saved through the fewer human hours that will be needed to monitor and maintain equipment.
Wearable Monitoring
The overall wearables market is expected to be worth around £25 Billion worldwide, and this is reflected through the increased use of wearables in health and safety. However, if no data is extracted and actually used through wearables, they are not being used to their full potential. This is where predictive analytics comes in.
Devices like temperature monitors and hardhat sensors can gather data that can be fed into a predictive analytics model. The results can then be used to predict when a worker may become tired or fatigued due to an extended period exposed to certain temperatures and other parameters.
Allows for more targeted training for workers
When it comes to training safety individuals given the wide range of threats and operational norms in different industries, creating the right targeted and relevant training programs can be a challenge.
Adopting predictive analytics and using it to uncover shortcomings in your businesses’ safety management will help you create more effective training schemes. These can improve your staff and increase the safety of your organisation.
What are some of the future developments of predictive analytics?
Whilst predictive analytics has been used since the creation of early computers in the 40s, the potential application for commercial entities has only been truly realised in modern times. With increased data scraping online, the category and type of data we will be able to gather will develop. This could include more third party data, more data from EHS wearables and more data from smart machines.
