VelocityEHS®, the global leader in enterprise EHS & ESG software solutions, has recently been awarded five patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its pioneering use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to help prevent workplace injuries and incidents. The company also published two scientific papers detailing its innovations in the prestigious journal Nature.
Innovations covered in this latest round of patents will help EHS professionals reduce musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and chemical risks and strengthen incident prevention. The new AI/ML capabilities empower companies to advance their EHS activities along the EHS maturity curve, which moves from reactive -> preventative -> proactive -> predictive, with increasing efficiency and effectiveness.
“While patents and peer recognition are gratifying, our AI team’s driving force is the chance to protect workers and save lives,” said Dr. Julia Penfield, VP of Research & Machine Learning at VelocityEHS. “Most of these innovations are commercialized already or launching soon. Collectively, they have the potential to significantly reduce injuries, lost productivity and related costs for our customers.”
Papers Published in Nature
Nature published its first VelocityEHS paper, titled A Machine Learning driven automated system for safety data sheet indexing, in February. Authored by Aatish Suman, Misbah Khan, Veeru Talreja, Julia Penfield, & Stephanie Crowell, it covers the automation of indexing chemical information from SDSs using ML and natural language processing (NLP), as detailed in recent patents.
A second Velocity paper was published by Nature in April, titled Automatic identification of incidents involving potential serious injuries and fatalities (PSIF). Authored by Pulkit Parikh, Julia Penfield & Marc Juaire, the paper proposes the first ML system for automating the critical task of PSIF identification from incident data to enable better risk assessment and prevention of serious workplace incidents.
“Our team’s pace of innovation is accelerating thanks to the scale of our investment into AI and close collaboration with customers and Velocity’s team of certified EHS experts,” said Matt Airhart, CEO of VelocityEHS. “On the customer front, we are grateful for the quality of our research partners and humbled by their trust in us and our R&D team. This work doesn’t happen without them.”
Patent Awards
Velocity was awarded three patents on the ergonomics side, including two for new methods of delivering root-cause analysis and controls, and one with the use of natural language processing. A third patent was for the use of computer vision to determine force exertions as part of an ergonomics risk assessment, which can be done simply by uploading a video taken with mobile device of a worker performing a task.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the U.S. alone, work-related MSDs account for one-third of non-fatal occupational injuries.
Two more patents were awarded for Velocity’s groundbreaking method of indexing and extracting information from digital records. Applicable against a wide range of EHS problems, these innovations enable users to harvest key data that would be too time-consuming and costly for organizations to collect manually, such as the indexing and extraction of chemical ingredient information from safety data sheets (SDSs).
A key benefit of indexing with AI is scalability, which is required for driving maturity and performance in programs that depend on SDS content, such as green chemistry and industrial hygiene qualitative exposure assessments.
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