Connected Worker Disease Prevention for Construction Sector

Lead Participant: EARTEX LTD

Abstract

This project will develop an Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) software tool for construction workers that will for the first-time prevent disease by accurately calculating individual workers exposure to three key construction hazards(noise/dust/vibration). Provide predictive insights to worker risks by combining disease progression and a regulatory library to minimise worker exposure, improve compliance, and reduce lost workdays (costs UK construction £848M/year).

Eartex (Lead) is an industry leader in developing SMART-PPE and OHS-software for the construction sector, with extensive experience in hearing protection. The Industrial Noise and Vibration Centre (INVC-Partner) are experts in industrial noise, vibration and dust.

The concept to accurately determine OHS-risks of individual workers while performing various workflows within construction arose from direct consultation between Eartex and their existing customers including Galliford-Try and HS2\. Galliford-Try and HS2 have agreed to provide access to site, data and feedback on proof-of-concept, which are critical inputs to the proposed project and demonstrate a customer need for the proposed innovation.

The project will develop a novel software tool that uses Real-time manufacturing and OHS-data to identify high risk processes/workflows and predictive analytics and AI to inform decisions on workflow orders and personal deployment to minimise worker risk. Helping companies adhere to OHS-legislation (ISO45001) and reduce the cost of fines.

Key features/output measures:

* Automatically generate risk exposure model for each workflow/process, highlighting OHS-risk hotspots of the whole construction task.
* Predictive analysis allows users to identify risk hotspots and predict overall OHS-impact for that task, individually or over the full workflow.
* Real-time control monitoring production machines in real-time to identify exposure changes that may negatively impact worker health. Including PPE fit-check.
* Allow companies to calculate the risk to workers and schedule tasks to minimise worker exposure(exposure limit warnings/PPE Fit-check).
* EDI: individual worker exposure logs/disease progression to accommodate different tolerance/exposure levels and/or pre-existing health conditions.

Lead Participant

Project Cost

Grant Offer

EARTEX LTD £434,005 £ 303,804
 

Participant

INDUSTRIAL NOISE & VIBRATION CENTRE LIMITED £65,680 £ 45,976
INNOVATE UK

Publications

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