Greater profitability and worker safety with visual AI
Using visual AI with CCTV cameras can turn the technology into a proactive analytical asset.
Despite strict workplace safety initiatives and regulations, injuries continue to occur on job sites across the US, the National Safety Council (NSC), a US non-profit safety advocacy, reported that the total cost of workplace injuries in 2019 was $171 billion, including wages. Production loss and medical and administrative expenses. Construction has one of the highest rates of workplace injuries, accounting for 15 percent of all workplace incidents.
In the 11 months from October 2019 to September 2020, there were more than 10,000 OSHA violations in the construction industry, costing employers an average of $120,000 per workplace injury and nearly $38 million in fines industry-wide.
The NSC reports that the leading causes of work-related injuries are overexertion, slips, trips, falls, and contact with objects and equipment. Fatigue and stress causes problems in manufacturing facilities, including failure to follow lockout/tagout procedures for hazardous electrical, mechanical, chemical and other energy sources; Exceptionally high respiratory protection during the COVID-19 pandemic; Disconnected machine guards to prevent bodily injury; and incidents involving powered industrial trucks, forklifts and other vehicles.
Although the construction industry has always embraced technological advances that have driven the industry forward, primarily scientific, industrial, and engineering advances, traditional means of processing information to provide real-time action recommendations are inadequate. Additionally, manually handling security audits, inspections, and behavior-based security monitoring is inadequate.
Other areas that affect manufacturers are quality control and operational throughput—these go hand in hand.
Quality control cannot be understated. By adopting processes and creating an environment where management and employees strive for perfection, customers deserve defect-free products that meet their needs. This requires rigorous personal training, creating and adhering to product quality standards, and testing products for statistically significant deviations. Throughput rates are an indicator of factory performance. They are the number one metric for evaluating the quality of a production line. This indicates overall plant efficiency and demonstrates whether the facility is progressing at the rate of customer demand.
