UCOR’s Industrial Hygiene team works tirelessly to identify ways to keep you safe in challenging conditions we are faced with while executing our critical cleanup mission. When continued high temperatures, industrial hygiene’s ingenuity keeps our cleanup momentum moving using SlateSafety arm bands.
SlateSafety bands are worn by nearly 250 UCOR personnel daily to provide real-time monitoring of heart rate and core body temperature, minute-by-minute evaluating if an employee is affected by heat strain. This comfortable, accurate, real-time physiological monitoring tool vibrates when an individual shows early warning signs of excessive heat strain, allowing supervisors to step in and intervene with the appropriate cool-down method, either by slowing down, taking a break, or stopping work and exiting the work area with a wingman to rest in a cool down location and hydrate.
SlateSafety bands don’t only apply to cleanup, but they also apply to outdoor activities. Recently, UCOR personnel who attended the national Voluntary Protection Programs Participants’ Association (VPPPA) Safety + Symposium wore them while participating in a golfing fundraiser for VPPPA. The event provided a perfect chance for UCOR to field test new SlateSafety arm sleeves during recent extreme heat waves, showing off UCOR’s safe practices at all times.
The Industrial Hygiene team is researching additional heat stress prevention tools that could monitor real-time hydration, sweat loss, and skin temperature. Look out for new prevention tools in the future.
To promote the use of SlateSafety bands, take a group photo of the bands being worn by your team members—in an area that allows photos—and send it to melissa.smith@orcc.doe.gov. We will feature teams wearing the SlateSafety arm bands to continuously improve safe practices and highlight teams for keeping each other Mission Ready.
Nuclear Operations Safety & Health Manager Chris Thursby, SlateSafety representative Thomas Davis, and Y-12 Alpha-4 Project Manager Brian Hutson
