Change Your Maintenance & Monitoring Policies for Safer Automation

The recent Tempe accident involving a self-driving car and a pedestrian was described by police as unavoidable, and that’s true in more ways than one. Not only did the specific circumstances of this incident make the collision hard to think around, a fatality caused by a self-driving car was always inevitable. While the accident is not going to dramatically slow the evolution or adoption of self-driving vehicles on the consumer or commercial level, it is putting more emphasis on safety and humans’ roles with autonomous vehicles. Make sure your company adapts to new tools and AI safely.

Train drivers on the shortcomings of automated tools.

Most AI is popularized in the media as either incredibly advanced or clumsy. It’s either Skynet or a robot not noticing errors of comedic proportions on an assembly line. But neither interpretation is accurate. AI, in terms of both software and the hardware it can control, is making tremendous strides but it still thinks in ways that are different from humans. Train your employees on how all automated tools differ from how a human would perform the task so they know the limits of the tool and the most likely errors.

Revise maintenance and monitoring task schedules.

Smart sensors look for different factors than the human eye. Even an oil sensor might monitor for oil level height and miles since the last oil change while a person would judge the color of the oil and the performance of the vehicle. These sensors mean employees may need to check components less often, but they still need to stay on the schedule. The smart sensors and AI systems themselves also need to be added to the schedule.

Automated tools and at least partial automation in vehicles will become an industry norm over the next several years. Make sure your company has procedures in place to deal with the changes safely; your insurance company will thank you. If you want to make sure you’re getting the best insurance rates and policies based on your proactive safety policies, go to J.E.B. Insurance Services, LLC.. We provide commercial truck insurance in the states of Florida, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.

David Ott

David Ott