Get a grip: Preventing Slip, Trips, and Falls in Retail facilities with AI.

“Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped”?- they say.

Think about it: When an employee slips, suffering a fracture, can you prevent recurring events if you casually mop the slippery surface without removing the risk factors? Not sure.

It’s best practice to ask:

• Could a leak in the pipework have caused the fall?
• or did improper disposal of packing/wrapping materials cause the slip?

Problem is this approach is reactive. And frankly most employee safety best practices are. It’s the typical event-before-response that’s been described as “waiting” for disaster.

What if there is a better way?

What if there is a proactive way to prevent slip, trip and fall (STF) hazards before they occur?

At BGS, we’ve developed an AI-powered technology that will detect events that might cause STF hazard and alert administrators.

Why do you need AI to prevent slip, trips, and fall in retail facilities

Let’s say you are trying to solve recurring STF problems in your retail store, designing a safety procedure that:

• Identifies STF risks
• Prevents STF by carefully disposing of packing materials, fixing the leak in the pipeline, etc.
• Contains liquid spills with floor mat
• Removes spills with absorbent

…might be a great way to start.

But your safety procedure will still face the obvious human problem. What does that mean?

You know how they say, “a chain is only as long as the weakest link.” Similarly, your STF safety procedure is only as effective as the humans involved.

Why? Because negligence and a poor perception of risk can undo even the most effective safety program, especially when the people involved are operating under pressure.

And this is not just fancy talks; behavioral scientists and HSE researchers confirm that human factors played a significant role in the majority of the slips and trips (PDF). These limiting factors include:

• Lack of understanding of requirements of health and safety legislation to identify and
• control slip/trip risks
• Poor perception of risk
• Failure to identify slip/trip risks
• Failure to report spillages, slip/trip risks, etc. (employees and members of the public)
• Inadequate or lack of reaction to reported problems
• Lack of ownership of health and safety responsibilities
• Lack of understanding of health and safety responsibilities
• Lack of awareness of slip/trip risks

See where we are going with this?

Even if you have a few employees on standby to clean a spill once spotted, the fact remains that the busier and more crowded a retail store becomes, the greater its chances of an employee missing a wet spot on the floor and a customer slipping in the puddle.

Safety is a state of mind. Unfortunately, humans can never be 100% in the right state of mind. Yet a 1% slip in an STF prevention process can cause irreparable loss.

Thus, the rationale for investing in STF prevention with AI is motivated by the technology’s ability to support humans in performing safety tasks more effectively.

How AI-powered STF prevention technology works?

In a nutshell, the technology predicts slip, trip, or fall before they happen. It has been programmed to detect and report liquid spills and obstructed routes through existing CCTV networks, allowing businesses to take proactive measures to decrease liability and avoid personal injury claims.

Source: BGS

With STF prevention technology, you are now relieving your employees of the pressure of perfection in safety through predictive maintenance. Therefore, they can now focus on creative solutions, complex problem solving, and impactful work.

Retail facilities that utilize ST&F detection systems stay more than one step ahead of hazards. The detection system does not only detect leaks or obstacles that may cause falling, slipping, or tripping; it also alerts workers close to the risk.

The STF system can monitor the work environment in real-time, alert supervisors to potential hazards, and pro-actively reduce the time it takes to find, evaluate, and address the root causes of these hazards. Also, the system can identify unsafe working conditions such as inadequate lighting and ventilation, accumulation of combustible material, imminent threats, etc., which can lead to slips, trips, and falls.

This article was previously written for beglobalsafety.com