Mobile phones have become an essential tool for many hazardous area workers over the last decade. They have been used to communicate with each other and keep workers safe while in some of the most extreme environments in the world. More recently, large companies in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical and chemical industry are looking to take advantage of big data and smarter ways of working, to do this they are looking toward smartphones to provide a competitive advantage.
Many companies are now facing a decision when it comes to implementing communication devices in hazardous areas or replacing their current devices. They have to choose between giving their workers standard mobile phones or giving them smartphones. So the key question to this is; how would workers in hazardous areas use smartphones effectively and what additional capabilities do smartphones offer over traditional mobile phones?
Wide Range of Apps
Consumer smartphones have been the driving force behind a wide range of apps being developed on smartphones. With the use of apps, people have managed to streamline their lives, enabling them to work and play with unprecedented ease. This has led many forward thinking companies to consider the potential uses of smartphones and apps in industrial environments and therefore move away from using traditional mobile phones.
The ability to rely on mobile workers having access to a wide range of applications while in the field is a major competitive advantage for companies who are looking to maximise their workforce. With most Android™ 4.4 based phones, there is access to the Google Play Store, which has over 700,000 apps, enabling an increasingly wide range of productivity apps to be installed on the devices. Some common productivity apps enable workers to view plant schematics and add notes to them while in hazardous areas, helping them get more done and helping them communicate their findings more effectively. There is also the ability to install powerful mobile device management software (MDM), which can ensure all the devices a company owns have the same range of apps installed and have the same security protection, designed to block any harmful or unwanted applications.
Scanning Capabilities
When designing smartphones for hazardous and industrial applications, product engineers are considering the various ways in which the device will be used while deployed. This has led them to consider how technology is currently being used in hazardous areas, and how that technology can be improved upon. One application that is key during hazardous area inspection is barcode or RFID scanning, which helps workers to identify assets, locations and items while in the field. Previously, workers have had to carry two devices, a mobile phone for communication and a scanner to collect the data. Now it is possible for workers to rely on one device to do both jobs. With a smartphone, a worker can scan the barcode or RFID tag and, using the 4G LTE connectivity, send any data immediately. This gives workers less to carry when they are in the field and also eliminates the need to work on multiple systems at any one time. This is a big step forward for hazardous area technology as it enables workers to complete multiple tasks on a single device reducing the cost to the company and increasing the efficiency of the user.
Overall, the ability to use a smartphone for a wide range of applications, including lone working and barcode scanning, has enabled users to get much more for a single device than was possible with a standard explosion proof mobile phone. This provides a major incentive for companies to move toward smartphone technology and empower their workers when in extreme environments, allowing more effective and efficient work practices.