It is big and it is clever

From health and safety apps to fleet management software, the market is seeing the launch of a growing number of products from companies whose experience is typically technology based rather than rooted in health and safety. Equally, familiar names in health and safety are branching out into information technology. (See pages 65/66, May HSM) 

An area of development of particular note is the scope for Big Data to provide business insight. This has been a hot topic across industry for several years now and there has been growing interest in its potential to improve the management of occupational health and safety. This was a subject discussed by John Cherrie at his lecture at this year's BOHS annual conference in April. Cherrie spoke about how the combination of the availability of low cost sensors and the potential to exploit Big Data are allowing monitoring and analysis of the occupational environment and beyond on a much larger scale than has previously been possible. Read the full article on page 10. 

In general effective interrogation of Big Data can help to promote a proactive rather than reactive approach to managing health and safety. Examples are emerging of companies analysing reports generated on site in real-time to gain early warnings of behaviour or environmental conditions that could lead to injury. This allows preventative action to be taken which could have a dramatic impact on rates of accidents and ill health. It's no doubt a subject we will be discussing more in these pages in the future.

Another area of innovation we are highlighting this month is Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). With this issue of Health & Safety Matters you will find a copy of PPE Insight, our brand new guide to trends and innovation in the PPE market. We've picked out some recent key product trends and developments to help you keep abreast of the latest technology and hopefully make it easier for you to do your job.

You can access digital copies of both publications here: www.hsmsearch.com/page_243935.asp

Happy reading and as always we welcome your feedback.