Key Takeaways From Our Industrial Safetytech Panel

As part of London Tech Week 2023, in collaboration with Discovering Safety – a programme of work led by The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – we brought together a panel of UK technology companies who have developed technology in the category in our event “Saving lives with technology – the world of industrial safetytech”.

The companies represented recently took part in the world’s first Industrial Safety Regulatory Sandbox.

The tech panel members each discussed several themes around industrial safetytech, of which we have summarised a few:

A strong business case is the key to getting safety technology deployed

While safety is paramount to most companies, often it is the business case which drives adoption and implementation, which increased safety as a by-product.

According to David Greenberg from Eave, “Flipping the narrative so that it is a business case led by a productivity improvement or an improvement in speed or reduction in cost, and then it’s a happy byproduct that it also improves health and safety. I think that just is the way it is in the industry at the moment, unless there is more or different regulation.”

See the video here:

It is essential to have a safe space to develop technology to iron out all the challenges first

It is essential to get candid feedback from users before implementation – in the case of using robotics for safety, every issues should be ironed out by all parties involves in installation, operation and use of the technology. This is one of the main reasons the Industrial Safety Regulatory Sandbox exists.

Seb Andraos from HAL Robotics had this to say on the topic, “I think it’s really important that we deal with these problems, as they start to expand into the much broader manufacturing, construction and even personal spaces. Having a safe space to be able to develop, experiment and work with our potential clients to develop a solution that is appropriate to their needs is absolutely fundamental.”

See the video here:

Data can now help us understand the problems we can solve with technology, like never before. We need to be able to use it.

We can now understand through data where the pressure points are on workers, to understand their challenges in detail, and develop specific tech which can alleviate these.

According to Shelley Copsey from FYLD, “We are understanding through data where core priorities should be. We’re hearing from some of the construction companies about how they buy, what their pressure points are, what causes them to accelerate… If we understand that, then we can bring our solutions into more companies. I think that we are at a tipping point.”

See the video here:

Download the report: Understanding the UK Industrial Safetytech Landscape