Manufacturing companies face constant pressure to recruit skilled workers, improve supply chain performance, adopt new technologies, and increase ROI. Computer vision technology can really help manufacturing companies achieve all of these goals. It enables them to establish safe working conditions for their workers, thus reducing employees’ health-related costs.
The amount spent on ensuring workers’ well-being significantly impacts a company’s budget and undermines its ability to invest in new ventures. Businesses spend a whopping $170 billion a year on costs associated with occupational injuries and illnesses and these expenditures come straight out of the company’s profits (OSHA).
An unsafe workplace environment severely impedes workers’ productivity levels. Since workers are unable to realize their full potential with compromised safety, it can directly affect your company’s ROI. In fact, lost productivity from injuries and illnesses costs companies $60 billion each year (OSHA). Production delays also compromise your relationship with your customers and negatively affect your reputation.
Ensuring workplace safety should be the number one concern for manufacturers. But the real question is how can you safeguard your workplace while staying on budget. An automated computer vision-based industrial monitoring system is the silver bullet.
Not only does it help to eliminate risks, but it also ensures OSHA compliance for your company and helps avoid hefty fines.
Here are 5 ways computer vision can keep your factory floor secure.
Detecting Spillage of Hazardous Materials:
Workers in a production facility have to handle different kinds of hazardous materials on a daily basis. This puts them at constant risk of developing several health hazards such as permanent damage to DNA and living cells or evisceration extra in case of spillage.
Computer vision can help you to keep health hazards at bay by detecting the spillage of hazardous materials in real time. In case of a spillage, the system will immediately detect it and send an alert.
You can then ask your workers to evacuate that area and take appropriate measures to control the situation. This will considerably reduce health risks without compromising worker productivity.
Even if you have a reliable security system in place, there are many ways through which unauthorized workers can gain access to these areas. Some of the most common ones include tailgating, weak doors, and hacked smart cards extra. Accessing such an area can result in serious injuries or accidents.
Computer vision can effectively resolve this problem for you. Each time a worker enters an unauthorized territory, the system will immediately detect them and send alerts so that the worker stays out of that area.
Hence, the chances of workplace accidents will be significantly minimized.
Monitoring (Worker) Location:
Handling dangerous machinery and transporting heavy goods on the factory floor also pose a threat to workers’ safety. If you have a fairly large production facility, the risk can get multiplied if the appropriate monitoring mechanisms are not in place.
Through computer vision, you can keep a track of your workers’ whereabouts in real time. If a worker is about to handle dangerous machinery or transport heavy goods, you can take timely measures to ensure their safety.
Through AI-based monitoring, you can also determine whether the worker has returned in time after the break or not. If the latter is the case, you can send someone to check up on this particular worker’s safety.
Detecting Safety Gear:
Not wearing the recommended safety gear at the workplace exposes workers to various kinds of diseases, chemical burns, electric shocks, cuts, and punctures extra. But manually keeping track of workers’ safety gear compliance can be both costly and difficult.
On the other hand, a computer vision-based innovative safety gear detector can detect PPE with high accuracy and low response time. In a single shot, a bounding box will ensure the presence of the PPE. In case the PPE is not present, the detector’s algorithm will generate alerts and send them to workers to make them comply with the safety regulations.
Automating Attendance:
One of the most common reasons behind the spread of diseases at a workplace is having multiple contact points. Even if these contact points are frequently disinfected, the possibility of transmission can’t get fully eliminated. So, production facilities should have minimal contact points for maximum protection.
A facial recognition-based attendance system can significantly minimize the need for contact points. It can do so by marking worker attendance from a safe distance. By ensuring zero contact, you can prevent the spread of dangerous diseases. An automated attendance system can save worker’s time and boost productivity by offering the following benefits:
- Register a worker quickly on a GPU-based system
- Manage the record of attendance information
- Minimize the chances of proxy
Conclusion:
An industrial monitoring system based on computer vision provides you with a virtual map to effectively analyze your factory floor area. You can use it to take adequate safety measures to protect your workers against potential hazards.
From detecting spillage of hazardous materials to tracking workers’ whereabouts in real-time, Xavor has the capabilities and the expertise to cater to the manufacturing industry’s monitoring needs.
Xavor has been delivering quality AI/ML services to its customers for the past 25 years.
Get in touch today and level up your industrial monitoring with artificial intelligence.