HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLBEING
Image credit: Mips - Jonas Kullman
SMART PPE: TRANSFORMING FM SAFETY THROUGH DATA
Ani Surabhi, CEO and Founder of Quin, explores how intelligent technology is redefining the capabilities of safety equipment.
PPE has been the backbone of construction and FM services safety for decades. Hard hats, safety boots, high- visibility clothing and protective eyewear form the essential barrier between workers and workplace hazards. Yet despite widespread adoption and regulatory compliance, serious injuries and fatalities persist across sites.
The question we must ask is this: Are we doing enough to protect workers, or are we simply meeting minimum standards?
At Quin, we believe the answer lies not just in better protection, but in smarter protection. We are not just launching products. We are helping reframe how people think about risk. We are building awareness and exploring new possibilities for what safety equipment can achieve.
The limitations of traditional PPE Traditional safety equipment serves a vital function. It protects workers from immediate physical harm when accidents occur. A hard hat deflects falling debris. Safety boots prevent puncture wounds. High-visibility clothing makes workers more visible to machinery operators.
But this approach is fundamentally reactive. Equipment protects after the incident happens, but provides no insight into what occurred, whether medical attention is needed, or how future incidents might be prevented.
Consider a worker who takes a fall on site. Their hard hat may have protected them from serious head injury, but several critical questions remain unanswered: What was the severity of the impact? Did anyone witness the incident? Should the worker seek medical attention? What conditions led to the fall?
Without answers to these questions, incidents go underreported, near-misses become invisible, and valuable safety data is lost forever.
42 | TOMORROW’S FM
When accidents happen: The critical data we're missing Facilities generate vast amounts of data every day. HVAC performance, energy usage, cleaning routines, contractor movements and maintenance logs all hold potential to improve safety. This data can highlight where risks are building up. Repeated issues in the exact location may indicate poor lighting or cluttered walkways. Contractor access logs might expose blind spots in permit systems. Worker movements, environmental conditions, equipment usage and incident patterns all contain valuable insights that could transform safety planning and incident response.
The challenge is that most of this data remains invisible. Traditional PPE cannot capture or communicate what happens to workers throughout their shifts. Safety managers rely on voluntary reporting, which often misses minor incidents and near-misses that could indicate larger safety trends.
“Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is more common than many realise. The most frequent type is concussion, which makes up around 75% of all TBI cases. What is often missed is that 90% of diagnosed concussions do not involve a loss of consciousness.”
Smart PPE changes this equation entirely. By embedding sensors and connectivity into safety equipment, we can capture real-world data about how workers interact with their environment, when incidents occur, and what factors contribute to safety risks.
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