Working as a mechanical engineer is rewarding for many reasons. For one, being a mechanical engineer allows you to have a wide range of career choices, such as aerospace engineering, marine engineering, and automobile engineering. Mechanical engineers are also exposed to global opportunities, get to spend their lives amidst technology, and become a jack of Read more
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Working as a mechanical engineer is rewarding for many reasons. For one, being a mechanical engineer allows you to have a wide range of career choices, such as aerospace engineering, marine engineering, and automobile engineering. Mechanical engineers are also exposed to global opportunities, get to spend their lives amidst technology, and become a jack of all trades.
For you to succeed as a mechanical engineer, you need to look after your health and safety at all times. Mechanical engineers often visit various worksites and utilize different devices, such as heating and cooling systems, industrial machinery, and robotics, which can be risky at times.
If you’re an aspiring mechanical engineer or are already working as one, always follow these health and safety tips.
Acquaint Yourself with OSHA Standards
Maintaining your health and safety can come off easier when you acquaint yourself with the OSHA standards. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration or OSHA sets the bar to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for employees by creating and implementing standards and providing education, training, and other forms of assistance.
In short, OSHA is the agency responsible for outlining best practices aimed to guarantee the safety of employees in different work environments. It also requires companies and employees worldwide to act in ways according to their set standards.
As a mechanical engineer, you must learn about OSHA standards before employment. Doing this will serve you two purposes: one, it ensures that you’re well-aware of your responsibilities, making it easier for you to complete tasks at work; two, it educates you on what companies should do when workers are injured or hurt at work. The second one is crucial because it helps you identify any compliance violations your employer might commit.
Familiarize Yourself with the Site
It’s common for mechanical engineers to work on different sites. You might be working in an office for one week, inside a plant for the next week, and then on a construction site for months. Every working environment poses different risks, which is why it’s important to familiarize yourself with the area.
Take some time to inspect your working site with someone already familiar with the area. Have the person accompany you as you conduct a walk-through to determine possible hazards. Make sure to raise some questions if you have queries about the site. For instance, you should know where the emergency exits are or what each sign means in the area.
Knowing where the fire extinguisher, eyewash station, and defibrillator are in the area will also make it easier for you to act out when emergencies arise. If you’re unaware of the emergency procedures of the site, make sure to ask.
Maximize Safety Training
Given the risks mechanical engineers have to face when working, employers are required to provide safety training to their employees. And while some view safety training as dull, dry, or time-consuming, it’s essential to your job as a mechanical engineer.
Participate in every safety training offered to you, regardless if it’s funded by your employer or facilitated by other organizations. These pieces of training are great resources for you to learn more about operational best practices and issue reporting. These can also teach about what you should and shouldn’t do the moment you experience an accident at work.
Use Personal Protective Equipment or PPE
Being familiar with your working environment or the tools you’re using isn’t enough to show up to work without any safety gear. Accidents can happen anytime and leave long-lasting consequences.
As a mechanical engineer, wearing your personal protective equipment or PPE should be a priority at all times. The proper use of PPE is mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to protect workers from health and safety risks at work and reduce their exposure to various hazards.
Generally, a mechanical engineer’s PPE is composed of the following:
- Protective face shield: Protective face shields are highly necessary to protect against sprays or splashes of hazardous liquids. Some face shields are also designed to protect the eyes and face from radiation.
- Safety glasses: This equipment protects your eyes from splashes or debris when working in a hazardous environment without compromising your comfort. There are many varieties of safety glasses and goggles available. Therefore, it’s essential to choose the correct safety glasses for your task and work environment. For example, some safety goggles are designed for use when working with chemicals, while others are suitable to wear while welding.
- Earplugs: Being exposed to machines that often create louse noises (usually above 120 decibels) can damage your hearing. Wearing high-quality earplugs can prevent this from happening as these can protect your hearing.
- Hard hats: Hard hats offer protection from falling, impact and penetration hazards, and electrical shocks.
- Steel-toed shoes: Wearing high-quality steel-toed shoes prevents different injuries, especially those caused by falling objects. Steel-toed shoes also prevent cuts and lacerations, punctures, burns, and slip and fall accidents.
Practice Good Housekeeping
Mechanical engineers require tools at work. However, these tools can do more harm than good when not kept or stored properly. For example, a vibration isolator left on the floor can cause slip and fall accidents.
To ensure your health and safety as a mechanical engineer, always practice good housekeeping at work. Since you’ll be working with various tools, often in a hazardous environment, you need to:
- Prevent slips and falls: According to the National Floor Safety Institute, falls are the second leading cause of injury-related death for individuals aged 85 years or older in the workplace. Protect yourself from slips and falls by maintaining the cleanliness and orderliness of your workplace. This should include keeping the passageways, service rooms, and storerooms in sanitary conditions.
- Eliminate fire hazards: Combustible wastes should be stored in metal receptacles and disposed of every day. If your job description requires you to use combustible materials, these should be kept in the work area only in small amounts. Flammable materials should be stored in a location away from ignition sources.
- Control dust: Dust covering at least 5% (about as thick as a paper clip or dime) of the room’s surface can become an explosion hazard. Prevent fire and dust explosions in your workplace by vacuuming dust from surfaces. You can also use wet methods and blow-downs with compressed air to remove dust.
- Clear clutter: Clutter will not only prevent you from working properly; it can also put you at higher risk of accidents and injuries. Make your workplace safer and healthier by clearing clutter regularly. This means that you should store tools after using them and dispose of items that you no longer need. Aisles, emergency exits, stairways, and electrical panels should also be free from clutter at all times.
Read All Safety Signages
Working as a mechanical engineer for years doesn’t exempt you from reading signages in your workplace. Regardless of how familiar you are with your workplace, reading safety signages should be part of your routine every day.
If you see any safety signage at work, don’t disregard them. Instead, pay heed to their location, what they mean, and how they will impact your work. For example, if you see warning signs in yellow, be wary of the dangers present in your workplace. If you see safety signs in blue, follow the actions indicated. Some examples of these signs include “Fire Door Keep Shut,” “Eye Protection Must Be Worn,” and “Protective Footwear Must Be Worn.”
Take Care of Chemical Substances
Mechanical engineers typically use chemical substances at work. Depending on the nature of your job, you might have to use petroleum products, caustic substances, acids, or glues. Chemical substances tend to create health and physical hazards and can be explosive, corrosive, flammable, or toxic when not stored properly.
Maintain your health and safety in the workplace by properly handling and storing chemical substances. You can achieve this goal by:
- Don’t move chemical substances that are visibly degrading. Instead, report these to your supervisor or investigator.
- When transporting chemical substances, place bottles inside a leak-proof secondary container to reduce spillage and breakage. For instance, if you’re going to move four-liter glass bottles of solvents or corrosives, place them inside a plastic tote bag.
- Always label chemical containers before storing them. If possible, include the expiration date of the chemical substance.
- Flammable liquids should only be stored in approved cabinets. For small amounts of flammable liquids, you can store them in an open room.
- When storing chemicals, use a designated refrigerator. These shouldn’t be stored in the same refrigerator where you store food. These chemicals produce vapors, which can contaminate food.
- Never store large and heavy containers of chemical substances in high cabinets or shelves. Ideally, these should be stored in places at shoulder level or below.
Prioritize Your Health and Safety
It’ll be challenging for you to make a name as a mechanical engineer if you compromise your health and safety at work. Instead of excelling in your field, you’ll end up losing money due to hospitalization and medical bills.
Always prioritize your health and safety when working as a mechanical engineer by incorporating the tips mentioned here into your daily routine. Sure, this will require you to be more cautious about your surroundings but doing so will be worth it in the end!
When an employee makes a mistake on any building site, punishments like suspension, revoked duties, and all manner of other procedures can seem like the most obvious way to stay safe. Unfortunately, while it’s not unheard of for poor staff members to create dangerous situations, a deeper look at these issues may reveal that management Read more
When an employee makes a mistake on any building site, punishments like suspension, revoked duties, and all manner of other procedures can seem like the most obvious way to stay safe. Unfortunately, while it’s not unheard of for poor staff members to create dangerous situations, a deeper look at these issues may reveal that management is actually to blame a surprising amount of the time.
After all, a team is only ever as good as the people in charge and, while management may be more than happy to take credit for their team’s successes, it’s also vital that they realize the wider implications of their inadequacies. As such, while disciplinary action may still be necessary to remove risky workers in the moment, it’s also important to consider the following ways that their mistake might actually be more of a reflection on management than anything else.
# 1 – Lacking training
In the vast majority of cases, manufacturing mistakes can be traced back to a lack of adequate training, be that in the use of machinery (which we’ll discuss more in the next step), or through generally poor training in crucial processes including bricklaying, welding, and so on. As such, whenever an employee makes a mistake, it’s crucial to consider whether a simple lack of knowledge that you should have supplied is at fault and, if so, where improved and trackable training can be implemented moving forward to avoid a recurrence in the future.
# 2 – Inexperienced use of equipment
If teams are left to their own devices where equipment is concerned, then management must take its share of responsibility for accidents or mishaps. After all, as much as you need to ensure OSHA compliance across your onsite equipment, safety during usage is also reliant on the hiring (or training) of staff members with an extensive understanding of proper usage across even heavy machinery. Overseeing that every team member is applying safe and informed usage at all times is particularly a management responsibility, and this ongoing presence is guaranteed to reduce risks or mistakes based on things like improper safety equipment, rushed usage, or usage that cuts crucial corners such as expected steps for machinery, etc.
# 3 – A rushed work ethic
Speaking of cut corners, team members who are always pressing for time can not only create inadequate results but also leave themselves at a far higher risk of onsite injuries. While some team members will simply be keen to get the job done at the cost of quality, this most often happens as a result of unrealistic timelines set at management level. As such, instead of automatically blaming team members for things like shoddy workmanship, it’s also worth considering the timeframes you provide for every job, and whether or not those realistically provide time for the safe and quality handling of often demanding tasks.
Poor performance is never something you should overlook, but it is something that should have you considering whether you’re really offering the management your team needs to succeed on every possible level.
Object detection software could save lives on construction and work sites around the world. Construction, the trades, and the maintenance industry all face the challenge of protecting workers on the job. Careers in these professions are highly rewarding but tend to come with more risks than some other fields. With object detection software, team leaders Read more
Object detection software could save lives on construction and work sites around the world. Construction, the trades, and the maintenance industry all face the challenge of protecting workers on the job. Careers in these professions are highly rewarding but tend to come with more risks than some other fields.
With object detection software, team leaders can protect workers from some of the most common dangers on-site.
What Is Object Detection Software?
Object detection is part of the field of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). It combines image recognition and machine learning to autonomously detect what objects are and how close they are to other objects. This technology is already used in many applications, such as the computerized backup cameras found in mid-range and luxury consumer vehicles.
Object detection software programs are created by training a machine learning algorithm to recognize objects in images. This can be a lengthy process, but the results are incredible. Today’s object detection software can detect objects with extremely high accuracy and tell exactly how close an object is. By connecting a computer with this software to cameras, object detection can be applied to live footage.
Improving Visibility and Awareness
One of the most common causes of accidents on job sites is being struck by an object, such as a passing vehicle or a piece of equipment. One of the first steps toward reducing this risk is wearing adequate PPE, including a high-vis vest. Object detection software can help improve drivers’ awareness, though, which will significantly reduce the likelihood of this type of accident.
For example, object detection software can be integrated into site vehicles. This will enable drivers to increase their awareness and visibility of their surroundings, both of which are a challenge in large construction vehicles. This software would alert the driver the moment they come within range of certain objects, preventing accidents.
High-visibility vests and hard hats come in handy with object detection software. Since these particular objects are so easy to identify, image recognition algorithms can be extremely accurate and responsive when trained to spot them. An algorithm could even tell a driver if a nearby worker is wearing earmuffs, which would prevent that worker from hearing an approaching object.
Object detection can also be used to monitor activity around job sites. This can help keep workers out of potentially risky situations. For example, object detection software can track how many people are in a certain zone, ensuring capacity limits aren’t broken.
Object detection can also pick up actions like running, slipping, and falling. This is invaluable for keeping track of potential accidents in real-time, ensuring a swift response. Having object detection software in use may even help enforce safe behavior since workers are aware that a computer is monitoring them.
Safety on Tech-Powered Job Sites
Job sites in numerous industries are becoming increasingly powered by technology. Object detection software is an important part of this widespread digital transformation. Any digital transformation in construction, maintenance, and the trades should start with improving worker safety. While there are many technologies capable of doing that, object detection software stands out.
One of the most important benefits of object detection software is its accessibility. Since the technology has been around longer than some other safety technologies, it is more readily available to teams at any level. Small contractors can easily invest in a smart backup camera for one of their vehicles to instantly improve job site safety. Likewise, a manager for a large job site with numerous vehicles can equip their whole fleet. This is an extremely scalable technology.
In the future, object detection software will only grow in its accuracy. More pre-programmed algorithms and cameras will come to market designed specifically for job site applications. Soon enough, there may even be wearable object detection systems that can be clipped to vests or hard hats.
Next-Gen Safety With Object Detection
Job sites are evolving to improve safety through technology. Advances in image recognition and machine learning have made object detection software one of the best safety technologies available today. The capabilities of object detection will only grow in the years to come. By implementing this highly scalable technology on job sites, team leaders can reduce accident rates and protect workers from major day-to-day risks.
April Miller is a managing editor at ReHack.com who specializes in engineering and construction technology. You can find her work published on sites like Open Data Science and The Society of Women Engineers.
As a trade professional, you are always fighting a battle against time. Yes, you need to perform jobs and tasks to the highest quality possible, but all of your clients want things to be done swiftly. Therefore, you are trying to perform tasks faster, but without compromising their quality. This leads you to an interesting Read more
As a trade professional, you are always fighting a battle against time. Yes, you need to perform jobs and tasks to the highest quality possible, but all of your clients want things to be done swiftly. Therefore, you are trying to perform tasks faster, but without compromising their quality.
This leads you to an interesting situation whereby you must look for clever ways to cut down on time. But, there is one simple solution that will make you way more productive – and it doesn’t alter the quality of your work.
If you’ve already read the title, you’ll know we’re talking about a storage system. There are many types of storage systems you might need/use. Some trade professionals will have a warehouse racking system, while others will have a smaller storage system in their vans. In either case, here’s how some smart storage ideas will boost productivity.
Get quicker access to tools
If you have a good storage system in place, you will instantly have better access to tools for your jobs. Let’s say you’re working as a plumber and you visit a client’s house. They’ve got a leak, and a quick look around shows you the issue is a burst pipe. Immediately, you can hop in the back of your van and find the tools needed for the job. It stops you from wasting five or ten minutes rooting around for something.
As a result, you can fix the pipe in a matter of minutes. Your client is happy, and they’re likely to leave a positive review. This now gives you more time in the day to fit in more clients, possibly allowing you to earn even more cash!
Gather all the right materials right away
Similarly, let’s say you have a warehouse or other business premises where you keep a lot of materials for jobs. You don’t want to carry them all with you in your van as it weighs the vehicle down and you won’t use everything for every job. As such, time is wasted before you even attend a job as you’re looking through your warehouse for all the right materials and equipment to bring.
Again, having a better storage system will make life easier. You instantly know where to go to get things like paint or a specific type of cladding. It allows you to prepare for jobs faster, so you can get there quicker, keeping your customers happy.
Store off-site
For some items at least, you might find that the best solution is actually to just store them in a distinct storage location. This is obviously best applicable to anything that you don’t need to have access to all the time, and it’s likely that you are going to want to think about this if you are keen on making your storage as good as possible.
To do this, you need to find some storage solutions in your area and make sure that they are safe and accessible. Then it’s just a case of working out what you can store there and what you need on-site. Do it right, and it will make a huge difference.
Enhance organization
Another vital aspect to consider is the design and construction of your storage system. Self-storage engineering and construction play a pivotal role in maximizing the efficiency of your workspace. A well-engineered storage solution can be customized to fit the specific needs of your trade, whether you’re a plumber, electrician, or carpenter. By incorporating tailored shelves, drawers, and compartments, you can ensure that every tool and material has its designated place. This level of organization not only speeds up your workflow but also reduces the risk of misplaced items. Investing in a professionally designed storage system might seem like a significant upfront cost, but the long-term benefits in productivity and time savings are invaluable.
Speed up maintenance
Productivity doesn’t just revolve around the jobs you do. As a trade professional, you need to maintain all of your tools and equipment to ensure they continue to operate correctly. If you don’t have a good storage system, this is harder to do. You waste time looking for tools and might not even find the ones you need to maintain. Thus, you have to do on-the-job maintenance when you discover that you forgot to clean a particular tool.
Storage solutions will let you easily see your tools and pick out which ones have been maintained or not. Therefore, you never have to worry about wasting time cleaning things while performing a job.
In short, you need to focus on developing a great storage system as a trade professional. The easier it is for you to find your tools/equipment/materials, the more efficient and productive you can be at your jobs.
The rapid development of computing and digital technology has dramatically accelerated the development of Artificial Intelligence. This industry is very young, so all significant discoveries are still to come. However, in this article, you can find several important achievements in modern manufacturing even today. The World of Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence is the ability of Read more
The rapid development of computing and digital technology has dramatically accelerated the development of Artificial Intelligence. This industry is very young, so all significant discoveries are still to come. However, in this article, you can find several important achievements in modern manufacturing even today.
The World of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence is the ability of technical tools to perform creative functions traditionally considered humans’ prerogative. It goes to speech recognition and understanding, solving engineering problems, tracking situations, making decisions based on identified changes, and other intelligent functions. It’s the next, noticeably higher stage of automation development.
Traditional controllers and mechanisms operate on simple logic: they form a specific control action when any parameter changes. However, AI technologies allow considering hundreds and thousands of factors, generating many solutions, and choosing the most effective ones. And here, the skill to “choose” is of particular importance. Indeed, you can solve the same problem in different ways.
For example, there’re three options for reducing the supply airflow rate in a particular facility:
- Сreate additional resistance in the network by partially closing the control valve.
- Reduce the speed of the fan.
- Open the parallel control valve so that the flow rate in the alternate direction is increased and the flow rate in the desired order is reduced.
The first method seems to be the simplest. But it’s also the least efficient since it increases the system’s energy consumption. It decreases in the second and third options, but there will be a risk of unbalancing. And here, the fourth solution is also possible. It would be a combination of the three proposed above: reduce the fan speed and adjust both dampers so that all facilities get the right amount of air.
And if you want to learn more about each of the ways, you can order a paper from Rated by Students, which will save you from searching for information on your own. Hardly any service technician would risk such a solution because it would take more than one working day to solve the problem.
But with an intelligent controller and all the necessary actuators, he can meet the challenge instantly. So, AI operates with large amounts of data, knows how to solve problems by different methods, evaluates the efficiency of each of them, and chooses the best option.
A Few Simple Examples of AI
Infrared sensors that detect a person’s location in a room for optimal temperature control and airflow direction can be considered a successful example of artificial intelligence. Air conditioners with such functions track the motion and activity of a person. The compressor rotations are reduced if the sensors do not observe movements during a specific period.
Moreover, if a person sleeps, the conditioner switches to energy-saving mode. And if there’s nobody in the room, it turns off. Besides, optimizing an operating way in the nighttime is possible when the heat is much lower. These innovations save up to 20% of electricity consumed by the air conditioner.
If you want to learn even more about other innovations, check out Top Writing Reviews to keep up with the latest developments related to AI. For example, similar sensors can be integrated into the ventilation system. Then it can automatically switch off if a person has left the object and switch on when a person comes back.
If a person goes to one room and enters another, the system will continue to ventilate both. Likewise, when a person has left the building, the ventilation system will continue to work as if nothing had happened. So AI eliminates such inefficiencies due to motion, infrared, and carbon dioxide sensors.
AI in Ventilation and Air Conditioning Systems
The calculation of ventilation and air conditioning systems is usually made for each room separately. But in practice, the objects practically never work in the design mode. It’s because all company employees have the right to leave, on average, one month a year. To be more precise, 28 days out of approximately 250 working days. It means that at least 11% of the time of the year, a person is not in the workplace.
Considering sick days, business trips, meetings, telecommuting, and other factors, the average length of time a person stays at work is no more than 70% of the time. So the remaining 30% of the time the climate systems work for that person is wasted. In addition, rooms at the facility can be working and auxiliary. Workrooms include offices, cabinets, the lobby with a reception desk, and others.
Nowadays, ventilation and air conditioning systems are calculated to assume that people use all these rooms to the maximum. If a person works in his office, it’s evident that he is not in the meeting room or kitchen at that moment. But the building’s engineering systems are not aware of this.
In the case of air conditioning systems, the operation of indoor and outdoor units is adjusted. In the absence of people, the indoor units go into economy mode and shut down after a while. However, when people appear, the operation of the air conditioning system resumes.
Use of Night Cooling
The higher the outdoor temperature, the higher the air conditioner’s energy consumption. However, the outdoor air temperature varies significantly during the day: it’s lower at night and higher during the day. Thus the most significant load on the premises appears during the daytime when air conditioning systems work with the least efficiency.
The device of cold accumulators can help increase the efficiency of air conditioners working in the daytime. In the most straightforward configuration, such a system is a chiller or outdoor unit of a freon system with a water-cooled condenser and a water circuit, including an outdoor storage tank and a driver. Coldwater from the tank is used to cool the condenser, and if it’s insufficient, water cooling is initiated by the dry cooler.
Water from the storage tank can also be used to cool the supply air, providing a tangible benefit. For example, during the day, the air cooler of the air handling unit cools the air from +28 to +22°C, which is 6°C. If the outdoor air has cooled the water at night to +20°C, the system can handle all the heat gain. In other situations, water will help cool the air to 23-24°C, saving 60 to 90% of the chiller’s power consumption.
AI at the Building Level
Many engineering systems function simultaneously in every building. So their mutual coordination and efficient operation require special attention. As a rule, serious problems arise when systems with opposite purposes operate (air conditioning and heating). In practice, there are situations when the effect of one system is neutralized by the other.
It causes double energy losses and a significant decrease in the energy efficiency of the object. Needless to say that the increased intensity of the heating system requires additional costs, and the work of air conditioners only increases them. Thus, it’s evident that a computer analysis of the situation would not allow such a waste of resources.
Conclusion
The widespread use of various sensors to control engineering systems will significantly reduce the energy consumption of ventilation and air conditioning systems. The next task here is to create a self-learning building management system. And the work in this direction is already underway. Thus, self-training algorithms have been created to recognize faces, images, speech, and handwriting. We should expect the introduction of similar algorithms in the engineering and manufacturing industry soon, with the prospect of a fully automatic system.
Lafond Wanda is a professional content writer, copywriter, content strategist, and communications consultant. She started young with her writing career from being a high school writer to a university editor, and now she is a writer in professional writing platforms— her years of expertise have honed her skills to create compelling and results-driven content every single time.