The white paper, "Predictive Analytics in Workplace Safety: Four Safety Truths that Reduce Workplace Injuries," was released by Predictive Solutions Corp., an Industrial Scientific company. It discusses the research conducted by teams from Predictive Solutions and Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the development of safety analytics and prediction models.
"Many industries and business functions are taking advantage of their 'big data' sets by performing advanced analytics to make predictions about the future. When applied correctly, predictive analytics allows leaders to gain deep insight into their business and deploy their scarce resources in an optimal way," the white paper states. "Predictive analytics is now also available to safety professionals to predict and prevent workplace injuries."
According to the researchers, workplace incidents can be predicted "with high levels of accuracy" – some predictive models yield accuracy levels ranging from 80 to 97 percent.
The white paper identifies actionable insights from the research distilled down to four truths about safety observation and inspection data that form the basis of workplace injury prevention activities:
· Safety Truth #1: More inspections predict a safer worksite.
· Safety Truth #2: More inspectors, specifically more inspectors outside the safety function, predict a safer worksite.
· Safety Truth #3: Too many “100 percent safe” inspections predict an unsafe worksite.
· Safety Truth #4: Too many unsafe observations predict an unsafe worksite.
"Many people have wondered if workplace injuries really can be predicted and prevented," said Griffin Schultz, general manager of Predictive Solutions. "And the simple answer is yes, workplace injuries and safety incidents can be reduced by predicting them before they happen. When the results of the research outlined in this paper are applied to workplace safety, we are one step closer to the vision many of us share of sending every employee home safe, every day."
To learn about the safety truths in more detail and to download the white paper, visit http://www.predictivesolutions.com/reduce-workplace-injuries.