Personal protective equipment and safety management system for comparative safety event assessment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10997543-B2
Application number	US-201916400738-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 1, 2019
Priority date	May 8, 2018
Publication date	May 4, 2021
Grant date	May 4, 2021

Abstract

In one example, a system includes one or more personal protective equipment (PPE) devices each configured to be worn by a worker, the PPE devices each including one or more sensors that generate activity data indicative of activities of workers operating within one or more work environments. The system also includes a computing device, the computing device configured to: identify, based at least on the activity data, a plurality of clusters of one or more entities, wherein each entity of the entities is associated with one or more of the workers; and output an indication of a difference between performance by a target entity with respect to safety events and performance by the cluster that includes the target entity with respect to safety events.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising: one or more personal protective equipment (PPE) devices each configured to be worn by a worker, the PPE devices each including one or more sensors that provide (i) activity data indicative of activities of workers operating within one or more work environments and (ii) location data indicative of locations of the workers within the one or more work environments; a computing device, the computing device configured to: identify, based at least on the activity data and the location data, a plurality of clusters of one or more entities, wherein each entity of the one or more entities is associated with one or more of the workers, and wherein the computing device is configured to identify the plurality of clusters of the one or more entities at least by being configured to: identify, based at least on the activity data and the location data, a first cluster that includes at least a target entity; and identify, based at least on the activity data and the location data, a second cluster that is different from the first cluster; and responsive to determining a difference between performance by the target entity with respect to safety events and performance by the first cluster with respect to the safety events, output, via wireless communication and to one or more of the PPE devices configured to be worn by one or more of the workers associated with the target entity, an alert to indicate the difference, wherein the alert indicates at least one anomalous occurrence of a safety event associated with the target entity relative to the first cluster, and wherein the one or more of the PPE devices each includes an output device that is configured to output the alert to the one or more workers associated with the target entity.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the activity data comprises one or more of PPE usage data and physiological data for the workers.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the computing device is further configured to: receive entity data for each of the entities, the entity data indicative of at least one of characteristics of the workers and characteristics of work environments that correspond to the entities; and identify, further based at least on the entity data, the plurality of clusters of one or more entities.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the entity data comprises one or more of demographic data for the workers and safety events statistics of the work environments.

5. The system of claim 3 , wherein the computing device is further configured to: generate, from the activity data and the entity data, respective d-dimensional vectors for the entities, wherein each of the d-dimensional vectors has a corresponding value for each dimension of the d dimensions that indicates a value in the dimension for the corresponding entity; and process the d-dimensional vectors using a clustering algorithm to identify the plurality of clusters of one or more entities.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the activity data comprises one or more of time spent at activities by the workers, continuous time spent by the workers per activity, duty cycles by the workers, and activity patterns.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein each entity of the entities is a respective worker of the one or more workers.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein each entity of the entities is a work environment of the one or more work environments in which the one or more workers associated with the entity are operating.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the activity data is indicative of one or more safety metrics for the workers, wherein the computing device is configured to compute, based on the plurality of clusters and the one or more entities, a safety metric for the target entity and a safety metric for the cluster that includes the target entity, and wherein to output the alert, the computing device is configured to output the alert to indicate a difference between the safety metric for the target entity and the safety metric for the cluster that includes the target entity.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the activity data is indicative of one or more performance metrics for the workers, wherein the computing device is configured to compute, based on the plurality of clusters and the one or more entities, a performance metric for the target entity and a performance metric for the cluster that includes the target entity, and wherein to output the alert, the computing device is configured to output the alert to indicate a difference between the performance metric for the target entity and the performance metric for the cluster that includes the target entity.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the activity data is indicative of one or more performance metrics for the workers, and wherein the computing device is further configured to determine whether a performance metric of the target entity satisfies a threshold for the performance metric, wherein the computing device is further configured to, in response to determining that the performance metric does not satisfy the threshold for the performance metric: determine, based on at least on an activity model trained using historical activity data for workers, one or more activities likely to improve the performance metric of the target entity; and output an indication of the one or more activities.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the safety events correspond to a type of activity performed by a respective worker of the one or more workers, wherein the performance by the target entity with respect to safety events corresponds to a frequency with which the one or more workers associated with the target entity perform of the type of activity, and wherein performance by the cluster that includes the target entity with respect to safety events corresponds to a frequency with which one or more workers associated with the one or more entities of the cluster that includes the target entity perform of the type of activity.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the PPE devices is a communication hub that includes the computing device.

14. A computing device comprising: at least one processor; and a memory comprising instructions that, when executed, cause the at least one processor to: receive, from one or more personal protective equipment (PPE) devices within one or more work environments, entity data indicative of performance by one or more entities with respect to safety events; receive, from the one or more PPE devices, location data indicative of locations of workers within the one or more work environments; generate, from the entity data, respective d-dimensional vectors for the one or more entities, wherein each of the d-dimensional vectors has a corresponding value for each dimension of the d dimensions that indicates a value in the dimension for the corresponding entity; process the d-dimensional vectors using a clustering algorithm to identify a plurality of clusters of the one or more entities, wherein each entity of the one or more entities is associated with one or more of the workers, and wherein the instructions cause the at least one processor to identify the plurality of clusters of the one or more entities at least by causing the at least one processor to: identify, based at least on the entity data and the location data, a first cluster that includes at least a target entity; and identify, based at least on the entity data and the location data, a second cluster that is different from the first cluster; and responsive to determining a difference between performance by the target entity with respect to safety events and performance by the first cluster with respect to t

Assignees

• 3M Innovative Properties Co

Inventors

• Asendorf Nicholas A
• Taghvaeeyan Saber
• Jesme Ronald D
• Johnson Justin M
• Shannon Robert W
• Lorentz Robert D
• Tilstra Andrew H
• Lobner Eric C
• Awiszus Steven T
• Casner Glenn E
• Kanukurthy Kiran S

Classifications

• G06Q10/063114

  Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group · CPC title

• G06F1/163

  Wearable computers, e.g. on a belt · CPC title

• H04B1/385

  Transceivers carried on the body, e.g. in helmets · CPC title

• G06Q50/265

  Personal security, identity or safety · CPC title

• G06Q10/06398

  Performance of employee with respect to a job function · CPC title