Each year there are hundreds of injuries in the oil and gas industry, with the most common causes including inadequate work standards/procedures and inadequate hazard identification or risk assessment.
Our business, Wearable Technologies (WTL) recognises that Worker safety and the prevention of accidents is of critical importance to operators of high risk environments, due to the social and economic impact of fatal incidents being significant – the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) put the total cost per fatal incident at around 1.6 million GBP.
The following shortcomings have been highlighted by prospective WTL customers in the oil and gas sectors; these limitations of currently available and commonly used solutions have driven WTL’s development of Hazijax:
Exposure risks are associated with multiple gaseous sources: methane, propane, H2S, benzene, CO2, N2 and helium;
Multiple external electronic safety devices (in the pocket or on a belt) are bulky and inconvenient, each having their own heavy battery;
Increasingly complex processes for daily recharging and testing/sign off before use by the worker in safety-critical operations are required;
Most devices cannot pass warnings to a central control room or nearby workers;
Potential customers desire better incident management options, enabling only appropriate workers to respond through better indication of hazards and alert indications.
Hazijax has been developed as a technological advancement and the solution to the above issues, and in further stages of development, we will further develop our proprietary technologies, enabling enhanced worker safety and productivity in industries such as oil & gas, nuclear and mineral extraction, transport and construction.
This will include use of already proven Embedded LEDs for visibility, as well as sensors for environmental hazards and meshed network capabilities to enable real-time monitoring and reporting of hazards to co-workers and control centres.
Embedding gas sensor(s) and associated electronics into Hazijax garments will cost around 60% less than currently available and commonly used personal gas sensors, and deliver significant additional benefits. Cost savings are attributable in large part to the intelligent and novel integration of device components within Hazijax garments.
