Building a culture of compliance around respiratory protection no longer relies on guesswork. CleanSpace is making it data-driven.
With a continuous glucose monitor attached to her right arm, Judith Waugh can track her blood sugar levels in real-time.
Although she doesn’t have diabetes, her genetic predisposition to the condition meant Waugh decided to actively track changes in her body, establishing credible and regular reference points for herself instead of relying on annual blood reports.
“I’m a data person, and the data always tells the truth,” Waugh told Safe to Work.
It makes sense, then, to have a data-driven person like Waugh leading the implementation of CleanSpace’s most recent innovation, Insights Reporting.
As the respiratory protection provider’s director of commercial solutions, Waugh brings a unique three-pronged take on the new product. While her pharmaceutical and biotech background cements her technical capabilities, it’s the proactive approach to her own health that most clearly illustrates Waugh’s belief in the power of actionable data.
“I’m very passionate about it, because it resonates with me,” she said. “Much like diabetes, respiratory issues have a chronic progression, and I think if there’s a tool at your disposal that allows you to trace certain indicative elements, then why wouldn’t you use it?”
For miners frequently exposed to dust, contaminants and other invisible hazards, that tool now comes in the form of Insights Reporting. The “indicative elements” in mining environments are patterns of exposure, mask use, filter lifecycle and protection gaps, all of which CleanSpace’s reporting platform is designed to reveal.
Developed as an extension of the SMART app – a digital platform that provides an intuitive dashboard for monitoring filter condition, battery charge and protection levels, while also allowing managers to track gas and vapour filter life in real-time – Insights Reporting builds on these capabilities and takes them a step further.
“The SMART app doesn’t store any information, it just gives users a reading,” Waugh said.
“However, Insights uses the app’s interface to synchronise the information to the CleanSpace cloud, and from there we provide clients with a comprehensive report based on that gathered data.”
Essentially, the SMART app offers real-time snapshots of CleanSpace’s powered air-purifying respirators (PAPR), and Insights Reporting transforms this information into something far more powerful: a clear, validated record that supports site compliance and strengthens the broader safety program.
According to Waugh, the shift reflects a wider movement across the industry.
“For a long time, respiratory protection data focused on hazards and exposure limits,” she said. “That information is still critical, but we’re now seeing a real push toward gathering continual data on how equipment is actually used in real working conditions.”
In the past, much of this information was captured manually or assessed infrequently – “more as a periodic, static measurement”, as Waugh described it. Insights replaces those fragmented records with continuous, real-world data drawn directly from CleanSpace PAPRs.
It turns respiratory protection from a standalone piece of equipment into an integrated part of a site’s safety and compliance framework.
CleanSpace has embedded this capability within its CST ULTRA model, which includes a real-time clock. This allows the device to record not just usage but when that usage occurred, providing time-stamped data that can be corroborated and analysed. An algorithm then converts the raw code stored within the respirator into a readable Insights report.
“The report is essentially a summary of everything the device has captured,” Waugh said. “If someone opened a CST ULTRA, they wouldn’t be able to interpret the code, it’s just data. But Insights translates that code into meaningful information a site can act on.”
For operations, the result is a detailed picture of how respiratory protection is being used across a fleet. Sites can review which filters were used, how long they lasted, which respirators were deployed, how many hours they operated and the estimated protection levels they provided.
All information is de-identified at the user level; CleanSpace only sees the respirator serial number, ensuring privacy while still allowing meaningful analysis.
This creates a two-way partnership between CleanSpace and the client. Sites can match serial numbers to their own records and begin to identify patterns; for example, why one respirator’s filters are lasting twice as long as others, whether different workers spent the same amount of time in a high-dust area, or if a device wasn’t used at all on a shift where it should have been.
“As soon as a respirator comes off the face, the data stops saving,” Waugh said. “So we can see, down to the minute, exactly how long it was used. That level of visibility lets sites ask the right questions and close the gaps before they become problems.”
CleanSpace’s new platform arms operators with information that supports not just decision-making but a culture of compliance across the workforce.
“Data is critical,” Waugh said. “It’s not about pointing fingers or telling someone they’re doing the wrong thing. It’s about giving mine managers the ability to look at reliable information over a defined period and ask, ‘How can we use this to make things better for our people?’”
To achieve that, CleanSpace works closely with sites to help them interpret the data and turn findings into practical improvements.
“We all have to work together to make sure that, at the end of the day, the worker is safe,” Waugh said. “People need to trust that their workplace is making the best decisions for their health, and that their employer, their supplier and their equipment provider all know what they’re doing.
“And, rest assured, CleanSpace does. We know our stuff inside out.”
This feature appeared in the January-February edition of Safe to Work.