Workers Safety : Yesterday's Struggle and Today's Opportunity

The following is an extract from my opening remarks at the Flyability North America Launch Event that took place on May 1st, 2004 in Denver, CO.

Disclaimer : The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Flyability.

As I started to work on this presentation, I was reflecting on the synchronicity of today’s date. May 1st may be a day like any other in the United States, but it is a public holiday in most countries across Asia and Europe, including my homeland, Italy.

Well, I’d like to think that I am here, that we are here, to celebrate workers and their struggles for better working conditions.?

As some of you might know, the birthplace of this festivity was right here, in the United States of America, specifically in Chicago. The year was 1886; on May 4th, a great protest unfolded, following a tragic accident at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, in which one person was killed and many more injured.

Employees from all over Chicago, underpaid and overworked, hit the streets in mass, protesting to obtain an 8 hours working day. Their struggle - and the tragedy that unfolded - came to be known as the Haymarket affair, and became the symbol of workers coming together from all over the world, for a better, safer, more humane working environment.

Today, I would like to tell you how we, at Flyability, are planning to continue this struggle, specifically by addressing the issue of workers in dangerous areas.

This collection of news reports is just from the last 6 months.?

As late as 5 days ago, in El Paso, Texas, a 34-year-old passed away in a waste-water treatment plant.?

Over the last ten years, on average, every four days, a life was lost inside a confined space, very often - too often - due to negligence or lack of training.?

A NIOSH investigation from 2018, revealed in fact that only 31% of deadly accidents in confined space had written entry procedures and in 85% of these accidents, the staff was not trained in confined space procedures.?

It might be downplayed as a ‘fatality’ but ‘fate’ has very little part in these accidents.

However, confined spaces are not the most frequent violation in the workplace.

Work at heights - whether with rope access, ladders or scaffolding - is responsible for more than 10,000 violations in a single year, as well as about 13% of all deaths.?

Removing people by sending drones into dangerous areas has been our company motto - indeed our mission statement - since the very inception of the business, almost exactly 10 years ago. More than that, it has been our credo, our fuel, our inspiration.?

While other robotics companies are proudly announcing their decision to weaponize their drones, we like, we want, we aspire for our drones to be a force for good, every time they are deployed.

And if it feels callous to talk about a commercial solution in the context of accidents in the workplace, it would feel irresponsible and short-sighted and naive not to advertise something that can save lives.

Throughout the last 8 years, across three different and increasingly improved product iterations, Flyability and its partners have brought technology, innovation, but above all safety into thousands of workplaces around the world.

From the cold, remote mines of Alberta, to the sticky, humid refineries of Louisiana, Flyability drones have become a testament to our mission for more safety, less downtime and reduced costs.?

However, and there is a Colorado-size however here, we are still very far away from considering these solutions the default option when inspecting confined spaces.

The Elios 3 might be the Gold standard for indoor drone inspections, but it is still not the standard tool for visual inspections in dangerous areas.

I often get asked : what’s Flyability’s main competitor??

And my answer is always the same : the status quo.

There are still far too many companies that consider drones a toy rather than a tool.

Too many inspectors that consider ‘We have always done it this way’ a reasonable answer to old and new challenges in the workplace.

There are too many managers that are motivated by fear of change rather than the courage of innovation.

Most people in this room are early adopters, visionaries, product champions, ambassadors… Or they are here because they want to be.?

To you, I say : we are going to need all of your time, all your energy and quite possibly a lot of your money, to make the seismic changes that we need to see, that we want to see, in order to make confined space accidents a thing of the past.?

Now, to the main course of today’s menu.?

We are bringing our fight against accidents in the workplace to a new level, with two new solutions that will hopefully help to put a dent into both confined space accidents and falls from height.

By now, you have most certainly heard or perhaps even seen our latest payload, an ultrasonic testing probe that has been a long time coming and that has thus far exceeded expectations, ours and those of our customers.?

Paul Samuel, PhD , one of the key engineers behind this marvel, will tell you all about it in just a few minutes.?

From a sales perspective, it suffices to say that out of the allotted stock that we aimed to sell this year - roughly 150 units - more than a third has already been sold, in less than two months after this payload was first presented.?

That’s right : this probe is selling faster than Taylor Swift’s new album!

There’s a second, remarkable solution that we will be presenting today.?

The Asset Management portion of our software offering is a quantum leap in terms of ease-of-use and ability to make sense of the data collected with the Elios 3.

Alan Curtis Kay, one of the architects behind the success of Xerox, used to say that companies that care about software should make their own hardware.

In the case of Flyability, the reverse holds also true.

Geoffroy Le Pivain , one of the minds behind this elegant solution, will showcase its main features as part of today’s presentation.

But for now, let me just say that if the UT probe is our Taylor Swift, then the Asset Management is definitely our Travis Kelce. They are definitely better together.?

_________________

I would like to conclude on a wishful note : I wish for today to be a celebration of these remarkable achievements, and the even more remarkable people that made them happen.?

I wish for today to be a celebration of all the work that stands behind them and all the work that lies ahead of them. Because we still have many minds to change, many objections to overcome and many lives to safe.

What others called science fiction just a few years ago, it is now our reality…

And we would very much like to share it with you.