Steelmaker SSAB is using artificial intelligence to find the less obvious causes of workplace accidents. The company described the effort on March 5, 2018. It runs as part of an AI project with Business Finland, the agency formerly known as Tekes, and the analytics company Sofor.
The idea is to combine SSAB’s occupational safety data with AI so the company can analyze and predict working capacity. SSAB called it the first project of its kind in Finland. Its first phase covers the company’s operations in Finland and Poland.
Harri Leppänen, head of environment, health and safety at SSAB, said the goal is to become the safest steel company in the world. Basic steps such as mandatory helmets are already in place, he noted, so SSAB wanted to go further. In his view, AI can reveal hidden reasons behind accidents that people would otherwise miss.
Kirsti Laurila, head of analytics at Sofor, explained that AI can take on analysis that would be impractical for humans. For example, it can find similar past accidents and point to the most accident-prone spots in a factory. It can also show which times of day or days of the week see the most incidents.
Free-text reports get the same treatment. Using natural language processing, the system can search written accounts for shared factors, such as in accidents involving cranes and forklifts.
Language is a practical hurdle at a company of this size. SSAB employs around 15,000 people in about 50 countries and works in 24 languages. That said, AI can translate and merge those reports, which means all of the material can be analyzed together.
