Written by Dr Daniel Thomas, Chief Technology Officer

For modern workplaces, duty of care and employee safety are essential: Not simply from a compliance perspective, but ethically. As technologists, our role is to assure that an effective and secure solution is available to keep people safe before they arrive, and after they leave the front gate.

Before the Internet of Things (loT) was a buzzword, many heavy industry groups, particularly mining, resources, oil and gas, leveraged electronic monitoring systems to keep track of machinery, vehicles and other infrastructure. This has grown exponentially over the last decade.

By 2025, the total data volume generated by these devices is set to reach a staggering 79.4 zettabytes. For perspective, just one zettabyte equal to a billion terabytes: physically, a zettabyte would be equal to a stack of over 55 million 18 Terabyte hard drives 1,128km tall!

With so much information, it is no understatement that organisations are drowning in data.

How can we leverage data to create value, particularly in the safety of our workforce?

In recent years companies are leveraging telematics data feeding “Digital Twins” helping to manage organisational assets, smart cities infrastructure and vehicles. However, effective asset management is only part of the story: Knowing that an asset is “safe” does not mean an employee is safe: There have been incidents in recent years where an employee was in distress, but vehicle telematics reported “everything is fine” (for the asset), leading to delays in responding to an incident.

Having vehicle or device telematics on its own is not enough.

When combined with safety information for an employee however, telematics data adds additional value by providing near real-time location information for rapid response to incidents.

Taking this further, combining vehicle telemetry, rosters, journey management plans and employee safety information, companies can gain deep insights about employee fatigue management helping to improve productivity and maintain a safe working environment.

This is especially important for companies with remote and isolated workers: The combination of telematics, satellite connected devices and journey management creates an integrated and powerful safety infrastructure giving peace of mind to managers and frontline workers.

Instead of drowning in data, we can surf this insight to greater organisational value and safety!

Telematics systems offer powerful data for many situations in the workplace, but in terms of employee safety, it only tells part of the story. To respond swiftly and effectively to safety incidents, modern workplaces with employees in remote and isolated work environments need more. By combining telematics data with journey management, SafetyIQ creates a safer, connected world.

If you would like to learn more about how SafetyIQ helps with managing your vehicle and people data, please contact us today or check out our IVMS Integration page.