IoT-Aware Architecture to Guarantee Safety of Maintenance Operators in Industrial Plants

One of the most important factors that influence people’s daily lives and their well-being at work is the so-called “worker safety”. Different literature works demonstrated the positive effects on worker mood and well-being brought by the awareness of being in a safe environment and, consequently, less prone to accidents. Every working environment should guarantee safety protection to employees and operators both in normal operations and extraordinary duties (e.g., maintenance operations), however, the industrial domain is the one that is more exposed to risks for workers. Different technologies already accomplished such requirements in “normal” operations, nonetheless, the literature still lacks solutions to also monitor and guide operators during exceptional and dangerous operations (e.g., maintenance). The combination of IoT and Industry 4.0 can guide the research toward the resolution of the maintenance-related exposed problems. This paper proposes an IoT-aware architecture for the industrial domain to support maintenance operators. It was designed to guide them step by step while real-time monitoring plant, machinery, and other employees working in the same area. During the maintenance procedure, the operator is guided in the proper execution of every single step required by maintenance and an autonomous IoT system monitors the status of the different parts of the plants and machinery to, then, authorize and show, the next steps foreseen in the maintenance process. To test the feasibility and usefulness of the proposed system, a prototype was developed and functionally tested through the exploitation of a machinery simulator and a real lathe machine.