LACI’s Advanced Prototyping Center uses Safety Spot platform for team communication

Safety Spot, Inc.
Aug 24, 2017 · 5 min read

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LACi’s Advanced Prototyping Center uses Safety Spot platform for team communication

Safety Spot is a platform for organizations that makes interaction within a complex facility practical and safe. We operate on an Integrated Learning Management System (LMS) that links training to people, facilities, and equipment. Safety Spot helps companies promote safety and de-risk operations and compliance through (1) Integrated notification and communication system for hazards in laboratories and shops; (2) Chemical onboarding and tracking for shared labs and dedicated labs; (3) App enabled system for in lab and shop usage to pull data sheets on equipment and log opportunities for improvement; and (4) Passive safety interlock system that energizes equipment only for certified and qualified individuals that have the proper OSHA or GHP training to access equipment.

Safetyspot.com serves as a system of record for site activities and promotes transparency, collaboration & clear processes for site access, equipment use and expectations for organization, culture, safety and cleanliness.

Safetyspot.com platform was originally built specifically for hard-tech focused incubators and facilities with labs, shops, assembly space, cranes, forklifts and associated complex facilities that have a high risk of damage to capital equipment and life if not properly controlled in an non-obstructive manner to communicate and educate facility users about the hazards of said complex environments. The purpose of safeytspot.com is to enable creative and collaborative innovation in the hard sciences and engineering without getting in the way of creativity, while ensuring a clean and safe work environment for entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, students, federal agencies, state agencies, county agencies, city departments and associated corporate and small business owners. Safety Spot’s platform includes a community center, training center, as well as management of equipment and chemicals.

LACI is one of our biggest clients. There are over several hundred users on safetyspot.com at LACI and now over 6,000 users on the platform. Kay Yang from LACI says her company uses Safety Spot to communicate on a daily basis.

In 2015 LACI team initially conducted a thorough software system review for labs, shops, assembly, chemical safety, CalOSHA, learning management systems, certificate systems, card/badge access systems, safety interlocks, lock-out/tag-out systems, hazard communication systems, maintenance systems, membership payment systems and equipment reservation systems. Based upon the team’s search there were multiple systems to address LACI’s needs, but it would require purchasing software from 10+ different vendors and then separate purchases of content required for training. Based upon these findings, Brandon Iglesias, asked Diego Diaz, an M.Sc. Mechanical Engineer with CFD programming experience, if he could program an enterprise software system to merge all of the disparate systems into a platform to keep everything in one spot. Diego agreed. He then moved to Silicon Valley for a crash course in programming and started working what would later become known as safetyspot.com. Brandon Iglesias agreed to provide feedback on the program and software as well as provide initial seed funding out of his own pocket, provided the software would be free for LACI to use as well as other nonprofits and incubators focused on educating builders requiring access to labs, shops and shared facilities.

The safetyspot.com platform ensures seamless onboarding of new members to the LACI Advanced Prototyping Center and provides a system of record. Without safetyspot.com the LACI Advanced Prototyping Center would require at least two additional personnel simply for paperwork. Safetyspot.com is great at doing paperwork and providing time for key personnel to be in the shop and lab to interact with the community and not serve paperwork to the community. Kay Yang mentioned there was no communication platform for members of her company. Using the Safety Spot platform daily, members now have an instant tool for communication with managers and team members.

Kay’s role is Director of Advanced Prototyping Center, where a team of full-time technicians, interns and student volunteers work with her team within their assigned and designated areas. Kay is able to assign rooms and equipment via safetyspot.com to the full-time technicians and easily check-up on facility status and equipment status via dashboard to ensure the site is operating in a safe state.

With Safety Spot, Kay and technicians, Diana Kim and Andrew Fortus, are able to log and notate member behavior and safety warnings that may increase the risk level to the organization. Kay and her team are able to track safety violations on a per member basis and perform corrective action with a system of record should the individual need to take a refresher training or have access levels adjusted to the site. Members are able to schedule equipment so that all team members are made aware when equipment is not available. We know time is a precious resource for a startup or entrepreneur.

The wet laboratory has shared bench space and LACI members book lab bench space ahead of time using safetyspot.com to ensure seamless access to/from lab and offices on-demand. The system also notifies members when a piece of equipment is out of service as well as when it goes back in service by communicating the equipment state through a red light, green light and yellow light system.

Grinders and rotating equipment are connected to safetyspot.com’s energizers, which ensure a not authorized member or person cannot simply walk-up and start using a grinder. The energizers passively lock-out the dangerous rotating equipment until someone that has been trained with the appropriate credentials schedules the equipment on-site.

Safety Spot’s community center allows organizations to create teams in which to communicate with. It ultimately serves as an online community of members of your organization. With this feature, team members can communicate with managers and vice versas. Safety Spot’s training center is a platform for training managers and trainers to create, assign, and manage trainings necessary for an organization. Training may be required for new hires or to gain access to restricted job sites and equipment. Safety Spot makes is easy to create and assign these trainings to individuals and teams within your organization. The Safety Spot platform serves as a control hub for equipment, chemicals, and sites within an organization. Managers may set restrictions on certain equipment or chemicals, or open/close a particular job site. This up-to-date platform makes communication simple and efficient. Keeping track of working equipment and equipment needing maintenance are just two uses of the Safety Spot equipment and chemical managers.

Safety PPE Gear is at times a cost burden by the hosting facility; through safetyspot.com, members have access to non-profit pricing for safety gear and associated best practices, informational videos for their businesses and a pre-screened quality product selection of face shields, goggles, safety glasses, gloves and a plethora of other fire, life and safety gear for their businesses.

Safety, communication, training, as well as purchasing safety gear is all made simple on the Safety Spot platform.

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Safety Spot, Inc.

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Safety Spot is a platform-based software as a service (SaaS) that makes organizations and communities safer & more efficient through user interaction.

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