By Becca Dodds, Marketing Manager, Mobile Gas Management, Draeger Safety UK
Safety assurance in the water industry should hold a permanent spot at the top of everyone’s priority list. It cannot be overstated – the importance of ensuring worker safety while maintaining operational efficiency is paramount.
With hazardous gases like methane or hydrogen sulphide present, it’s no secret that working in water treatment plants and the sewage systems network pose a significant risk to workers’ health and wellbeing. Fortunately, this risk can be mitigated through effective and reliable gas monitoring and detection – a critical area of health and safety for every business.
While it may seem that new technology has made gas monitoring and detection processes much simpler and more straightforward than before, there are still complexities. Oversight and gas detection management at an individual-level is challenging due to several factors, such as evolving industry regulations and gas exposure limits or managing diverse teams who are using gas detection equipment across large or hard-to-access remote sites. Including the fact that serious safety incidents could result from seemingly simple errors, like improperly calibrated equipment or incomplete bump testing, these vital safety assets are only truly effective when properly managed.
The Importance of Asset Management
Effective asset management goes beyond ensuring that all gas detection equipment is functioning correctly and providing accurate data to comply with regulatory standards. It also means each gas detection device in your inventory is receiving every critical firmware update, and calibration data is being recorded and uploaded to your monitoring system every time it’s docked. Effective asset management helps to keep each individual team member safe in potentially hazardous settings.
How Smart Systems Can Help
Fortunately, there have been significant technological advancements in gas detection device management which address some of these issues, benefitting users, while also offering peace of mind to those responsible for corporate health and safety.
Smart asset management systems, for example, employ innovative docking technology. The system automatically logs, records, and uploads a complete picture of data captured by each device that includes alarm settings, testing status, calibration history, and any alarms that occurred while the device was in use. Multiple pieces of testing equipment can also be updated simultaneously, with any required updates or settings automatically configured while devices are docked, so the device is fully up to date and compliant the next time it is used.
Consistent Communications
A smart asset management system delivers vital device information to users and managers, sending automatic push-notifications if a device is overdue for testing or needs calibration. The system can even predict device maintenance needs such as replacement sensors and calibration gas bottles. A full operational report from each device (when docked) is available detailing the full status of the device and station.
And because each device’s historic data is stored in accordance with GDPR in the cloud for compliance purposes, reports can be easily searched for or shared via regular email updates – a feature which greatly reduces paper previously needed for maintaining printed test certificates – helping your business achieve its environmental and sustainability goals.
Avoid Lengthy Downtime and Productivity Loss
Recently, one of our UK-based customers in the oil and gas sector recounted a situation where they learned of an immediate requirement for their hydrogen sulphide alarm thresholds to be altered. Without a suitable asset monitoring system in place, they would have previously needed to manually connect and update every one of the operation’s 2,000 individual mobile gas detectors – potentially a lengthy amount of downtime that would have negatively impacted their productivity and profitability. Instead, the update was deployed to each device as it was bump-tested by the user when their shift began.
Conclusion
Asset management can drastically improve safety and compliance in gas detection and monitoring, reducing downtime with automatic device updates and providing peace of mind through vital data reporting and information storage. Ultimately helping create a safer environment for people working in water industry settings where hazardous gases are present.
To explore Dräger asset management solutions, visit draeger.com/en_uk/Safety/Smart-Safety
