Serving as a safety manager for plant operations is a huge role, especially when you consider that it almost always includes influencing workers and their behaviors in addition to keeping the plant running smoothly. Add the critical responsibility of protecting workers while also improving productivity and controlling costs, and it can often feel like an uphill battle.
The good news is there are gas detection tools that can give you real-time insights on hazardous gas levels, worker status, location, and more – all using your plant’s existing wi-fi infrastructure.
Keep a Finger on the Pulse of Operations
Adding real-time monitoring to your gas detection program gives you the insights you need to act fast in emergency situations. And if you already have in-plant wi-fi, you can add live monitoring with minimal investment. All you need is a wi-fi connection and a Ventis® Pro5 Multi-Gas Monitor with a wi-fi battery to instantly transmit data to iNet® Now Live Monitoring. Add iAssign® Technology, and all live alerts will also include the worker’s name and location.
With this configuration, you can gain total visibility into your operations and receive instant text or email alerts with worker name, location, and alarm status for gas hazards, panic, and man-down situations. This enables you to respond faster and more accurately in an emergency.
On a typical workday, it might look like this: Mike starts his shift and heads to the tool room to pick up a wi-fi enabled Ventis Pro5. He taps the monitor to his iAssign tag, and it registers his name to the device. Next, Mike heads to the tank farm to take a sample. He walks past an iAssign Beacon, which registers that he is near Tank 2. While taking the sample, Mike’s gas monitor detects high levels of H2S and goes into alarm. Mike’s name, location, and gas data are instantly transmitted from his monitor to iNet Now via wi-fi, and you receive a text message with that information. You check that Mike is safe and can send help straight to Tank 2 if needed.
After the fact, you can follow-up on alarm events faster than with traditional gas detection data software. Investigate in the moment rather than days or weeks later, then create reports with the most up-to-date gas detection data. With a plant-wide monitoring program, you’ll also have access to historical data to pinpoint trouble areas and prioritize maintenance projects. These practices and other connected safety solutions can help you improve safety, reduce operational costs, cut downtime, and improve compliance.
Streamline Equipment, Save Money
Traditional live monitoring solutions usually require additional equipment to support every few dozen gas monitors. But if your plant already has wi-fi infrastructure, you can avoid this extra equipment with the wi-fi battery for the Ventis Pro5 monitor. For plants that already use Ventis Pro5 monitors, there’s no need to buy new instruments. You can easily swap your existing batteries for our new wi-fi batteries. The wi-fi batteries run for 16 hours on a single charge and remain compatible with existing chargers and the DSX™ Docking Station. This gives you easy, cost-effective access to live monitoring.
While direct wi-fi connectivity can drastically reduce the amount of extra equipment you need, in-plant wi-fi can pose some connectivity challenges. For example, confined spaces, outer edges of tank farms, basements, or other work zones outside of the main plant can have weak wi-fi signals. In these cases, an RGX® Gateway can seamlessly transmit live data from monitors in these hard-to-reach areas if a device loses wi-fi signal. This also means you can rely on a handful of RGX Gateways when wi-fi signal is weak instead of one RGX Gateway for every 24 employees within 100 meters under traditional live monitoring solutions. Regardless of your specific situation, our application engineers can work with you to solve any connectivity challenge.
Learn more about the Ventis Pro5 Wi-fi Battery from Industrial Scientific.
