Industry Challenges: Ensuring Safety in Confined Spaces

Challenge 1

The current procedure for identifying confined spaces risks is lengthy and complex, involving several tasks that are independent from each other, with no information flows between each. This can contribute to certain information being overlooked and mistakes being made. This challenge focusses on keeping workers safe when we know in advance they are going to be working in a confined space and ideally provide alternatives to human entry.   

The Safety Accelerator seeks dynamic remote inspection technologies to tackle this challenge. Startup solutions should be capable of potentially removing the need for a person to enter a confined space, or novel gas sensing technology that can effectively monitor changes in the confined space environment, specifically crane legs.

Challenge 2

Working in confined spaces presents risks to workers, whether it’s lack of knowledge that the space is confined before entry, or toxic or flammable gases unexpectedly entering the space. It can be extremely challenging for workers to identify enclosed spaces, or potentially hazardous environments. Similarly, it’s challenging to dynamically warn unauthorised people before they accidentally enter them. As a result, workers may enter the space unknowingly, without the required permit or control measures, thus putting their lives at risk.

This challenge focuses on keeping workers safe when they are unaware of potentially hazardous confined spaces, specifically cargo holds. LR are collaborating with Plug and Play to source a startup capable of preventing a worker from unintentionally entering a hazardous enclosed space in a port-environment, specifically cargo holds.