Applications of smart technologies for automatic near miss detection in the industrial safety

Smart technologies are been extensively used in manufacturing processes in order to increase overall performance; an increasing focus is outlined also for supporting occupational and industrial safety. Applying smart technologies in the safety domain could contribute to increase performance of several processes starting from workers tracing, environmental monitoring and dynamic risk analysis. This study aims to evaluate potentialities of adopting these technologies in a specific critical process, i.e. near miss management. Near miss events could be defined as a hazardous occurred event, with the capability to lead to an accident if it had not been interrupted; they represent a relevant source of information for developing effective activities to prevent incidents. An automated detection system based on smart technologies will allow increasing the reliability of this process. The study analyses potential contributions of smart technologies in supporting an efficient prevention process with a focus on near miss detection based on a literature review analysis. Further developments will be oriented to define also an economic analysis to evaluate life cycle costs of applying smart technologies for near miss automatic detection.