With every passing day, the concept or thought-process that “Employees are the most valuable assets of any business firm” becomes stronger. Nowadays, every organization, irrespective of its scale of activities or industry type, puts a keen focus on creating a safe, hygienic, positive, conducive, and enjoyable workplace environment for their staff.

The sector where this mindset is being adopted on an accelerating rate is manufacturing as organizations operating in this sector have a large workforce. Though manufacturing units rely heavily on machines and automated systems, the fact that workers are still at the centre of the processes cannot be ignored.

Ensuring that workers feel safe is on the top of the priority list of manufacturers as the occurrence of workplace accidents is a common scenario in this sector. Organizations have been using technology to improve various metrics, such as efficiency, productivity, and cost-benefit ratio to achieve the best results for all the internal and external stakeholders for the past many years.

The same approach is now being implemented for improving safety at manufacturing facilities, thereby making the staff work with increased convenience and peace of mind.

The Role of IoT in the Manufacturing Sector

The latest revolution in the field of industrial safety in the manufacturing sector is IIoT, which stands for Industrial Internet of Things. IIoT is a part or subset of IoT, i.e., Internet of Things, which is not a new term in the corporate world.

As per researches conducted by various international bodies, more than one lac workers suffer an injury at a workplace every year in the manufacturing sector. Therefore, making the workplace safe is extremely crucial for ensuring that manufacturing or production activities run uninterruptedly. Manufacturers derive solutions from the Internet of Things (IoT) to create safer workplaces without much human intervention.

In simple words, the Internet of Things or IoT is a system or network which comprises interconnected physical objects, mostly in the form of machines and devices that function and interact with each other using the Internet. These inanimate objects send and/or receive information, i.e., they get involved in data transfer over the Internet. The most amazing fact is that they don’t require human intervention or manual assistance at all.

IoT helps to Boost Safety at Manufacturing Facilities in the following ways:

Wearable Sensors

Workers are provided with wearable gadgets which act as sensors and collect information regarding the body temperature, heart rate and other factors related to their health. This data is transmitted to the cloud software where base data against which the accumulated data gets analyzed is already stored.

When unusual figures, such as fast heartbeat or high temperature are recorded in the IoT safety systems in the manufacturing unit, the managers or supervisors get notified, and the immediate action is taken to prevent the workers from getting affected by the adverse effects of fatigue, overheating and other health issues.

Machine Preventive Maintenance

The major contributor to workplace injuries are the automatic and semi-automatic machines used in the manufacturing plants. As everyone knows, irrespective of its condition or cost, a machine can get damaged anytime. Therefore, organizations have learnt to stay extra vigilant when it comes to relying on machines.

IoT has made it easy for the manufacturers to monitor the performance and condition of different machines and equipment used in their facilities. Thus, whenever a defect arises in any machine, the IoT applications predict the machine failure and warn the responsible personnel. Then, preventive maintenance is carried out on the machine or equipment.

Final Thoughts

While conventional safety practices, such as inspecting equipment and machines on a frequent basis and wearing safety boots, safety goggles and other protective equipment can make the working conditions safe in manufacturing units, advanced systems and applications led by IoT can make ensuring the safety an extremely smooth and fast procedure for the manufacturing organizations.

The role played by the IoT or the Internet of Things in different manufacturing industries, including automotive, electronics, oil & gas, plastics, food processing and many more has increased in the recent few years. The scope for the growth of IoT technology and its participation in the manufacturing businesses is expected to increase in the future.