SA Water team wears safety innovation

SA WATER TEAM INNOVATION wears safety

An innovative safety initiative is breaking new ground in the Australian water industry, with 15 of SA Water’s field-based staff donning a range of smart wearable devices to explore how new technology can lead to greater health and wellbeing outcomes.

Researchers from the University of South Australia have teamed up with SA Water to pilot the new study, which will see them analyse physiological data captured in the field, as well as identify opportunities for early detection and intervention of potential safety issues.

Wristband sensors and smart shirts are among the devices being tested by staff from SA Water’s Kadina Depot on the Yorke Peninsula, along with Trade Waste and water sampling teams.

SA Water’s General Manager of People and Safety, Kylie Johnson, said the results of the trial will help determine whether the safety initiative could have broader applications across its state-wide workforce.

“With a vast water network, our people are often performing challenging physical tasks in a range of weather conditions, and our trial will explore how technology can improve their health and wellbeing,” Ms Johnson said.

“Working together with the University of South Australia, our people will undertake specific work activities, such as driving prolonged distances and pipe maintenance, to explore how their bodies respond, measure their vital signs and monitor the effect of heat, fatigue and sleep.”

The wearable devices provide the opportunity to capture mental and physical wellbeing insights SA Water hasn't been previously able to.

“For example, the wristband sensors our Kadina team are wearing can quantify sleep deprivation and the resulting effect on alertness, focus and mental health,” Ms Johnson said.

Biometric smart shirts with sensors embedded in the textiles monitor the cardiac and respiratory system to capture greater knowledge about physical strain.

These collective insights can lead to improved situational awareness and allow certain work activities to be altered, postponed or optimised, creating better safety outcomes for staff.

“The idea to trial these devices was conceived by our own people, who are adopting an innovative mindset to explore how we can go beyond our current safety measures and pioneer the use of emerging technology,” Ms Johnson said.

The data and learnings captured by the University of South Australia will be used by SA Water to assess the feasibility of adopting each device and help to understand which teams could gain value from their use on an ongoing basis.

SETTING A NEW SAFETY PRECEDENT

The project’s lead, UniSA Research Professor Jill Dorrian, an expert in occupational safety, fatigue and sleep, said findings from the study could set a new precedent for proactive safety practices.

“Our research continues to find that issues such as fatigue and sleep are prevalent across industries and can often increase the risk of workplace incidents. This new study could open the door for the use of innovative technologies that support an even more proactive approach to safety and wellbeing,” Ms Dorrian said.

“Literature from researchers overseas demonstrates that the use of wearable devices can increase employee satisfaction, while providing early detection and intervention for improved decision-making around how physical tasks are performed or managing individual workload to avoid burnout.

“We’re delighted to partner on this project with SA Water, who have shown a genuine emphasis on safety and improving their people’s wellbeing.”

Ms Johnson said while there have been early explorations overseas into how wearable devices could deliver useful health and safety data, there’s still work to do in translating data into practical outcomes for water professionals in Australia.

“We want to take this area of research to the next level and turn it into practical guidance around how work practices could be enhanced across our business, and the wider water industry,” Ms Johnson said.

“There is also a need to explore the data within our own local context. Our climate and geography is diverse, as is the range of tasks our people complete, so the trial will be collecting data from staff engaged in a broad range of in-field tasks within different environmental contexts.

“We now have a team of people across three different business units, including field operations and pipeline maintenance, water sampling and trade waste, who are helping us test this wearable technology.

“They will all be testing different scenarios and work activities in a range of climates and geographical areas across South Australia.

“Knowing how people's bodies react at certain times of the day, in certain temperatures and while performing specific activities, can help us schedule our work based on those insights to achieve peak outcomes, while keeping everyone safe.”

As part of maintaining and enhancing Australia’s second largest water network, SA Water's staff collectively travel, on average, around one million kilometres by vehicle each month.

Ms Johnson said that while the water industry emphasises designing out, reducing or controlling hazards as much as possible, it’s important to pursue more sophisticated and beneficial work safety outcomes for staff.

“We need to continually stay on top of the ways we can improve, learn more, reduce and help manage identified risks, and the promising outcome from capturing this data is the potential for early intervention on an individual level,” Ms Johnson said.

“Gaining insights into the physiological reactions our staff have within different circumstances may help our ability to detect people at risk of danger due to fatigue, and intervene to prevent any harm from occurring in the first place.”

CONNOR PETERSON