If you Google “What is PSOs in safety?” or “What is an PSOs at work?”, you will find hundreds of theoretical definitions. However, for a safety manager (EHSQ) or a prevention technician in an industrial plant, an PSO is much more than an acronym: it is the real thermometer of the company’s preventive culture.
But there is a problem: in many organizations, PSOs have become a formality of “filling out paperwork” to meet objectives, losing their true value.
In this article, we will not only answer fundamental questions about what PSOs is, but also explain how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rescuing this tool to predict accidents before they happen.
1. Basic Concepts: Answering the most frequent questions
Based on the most common industry queries, let’s clarify the fundamental concepts to align the entire organization.
What is PSOs in safety and occupational safety?
PSO stands for Preventive Safety Observation. It is a key tool within Behavior Based Safety (BBS).
- On the job: The act of observing a person while performing a specific task to identify safe behaviors and risky behaviors (unsafe acts).
- The objective: It is not to control or look for culprits. The objective is to generate an on-site dialogue (feedback) to correct the unsafe behavior in the moment and reinforce the safe one.
What is the difference between an PSO and an Inspection?
This is a common confusion.
- Inspection: Focuses on things and the environment (Is the fire extinguisher charged? Is a guard missing from the machine? Is there oil on the floor?). Look for Unsafe Conditions.
- PSO: Focuses on people and their actions (Does the operator use his legs to lift the load? Does he skip the lockout procedure?). Look for behaviors.
| Appearance | Safety Inspection | Preventive Observation (PSO) |
|---|---|---|
| Main focus | Facilities and equipment (“things”) | People’s actions (“behaviors”) |
| What you are looking for | Unsafe conditions (broken objects, lack of guards) | Unsafe or safe acts (work habits) |
| Target | Repairing the physical environment | Changing culture and behavior |
| Interaction | It is usually a technical checklist | Requires dialogue and feedback with the employee |
Why is it vital in risk prevention?
According to Heinrich’s pyramid and subsequent SBC studies, most serious accidents have their root cause in uncorrected unsafe behaviors. PSO acts at the base of the pyramid: if we reduce unsafe acts through observation and feedback, we statistically reduce the probability of a fatal accident.
2. The current problem: Rich data, hours of analysis and human bias.
Having understood what an PSO is, let’s talk about the operational reality. An EHSQ department in a 300-employee company may receive between 1000 and 5000 PSO cards per month.
This creates a perfect storm that blocks prevention:
A. The bottleneck: Hours of “data chopping” vs. actual prevention.
The main enemy of the prevention technician is administrative time.
- The reality: It can take a technician 3 to 5 minutes to transcribe a physical card into Excel or validate it in hard software. Multiplied by 1000 PSO, that’s more than 40 hours per month spent just “moving data”.
- The consequence: Technicians spend 80% of their time managing the paper and only 20% analyzing the problem.
B. The Human Filter: Cognitive Biases
Even if they had endless hours to read, the human brain is not unbiased. By reviewing hundreds of reports manually, we fall into unintentional psychological traps:
- Confirmation Bias: We tend to pay attention only to PSOs that confirm what we already believe (e.g., “It’s always the night shift that fails”), ignoring data that contradict that belief.
- Decision Fatigue: The quality of analysis of PSO #1 is far superior to that of PSO 200. After hours of reading reports, the brain begins to “scan” and skip over critical details out of sheer mental exhaustion.
- Recency Effect: We give excessive importance to risks that have caused an accident yesterday, becoming “blind” to silent alerts of latent risks.
This is where traditional management breaks down and Artificial Intelligence comes in. The AI eliminates hours of transcription and analyzes the 500th PSO with the same rigor and objectivity as the first, giving time back to the technician to do what he does best: make decisions in the field.
3. How AI revolutionizes Preventive Observations
AI does not come to do the observing (that requires human empathy), but it does come to process the resulting data. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), AI can read and “understand” thousands of PSO descriptions in seconds.
A. Automatic detection of critical risks
If a worker writes in an PSO: “The colleague improvised a platform with pallets because the ladder was broken”, a traditional system would only register “Failure in procedure”. A safety-trained AI detects keywords and context:
- Identified risk: Precarious work at height.
- Action: Immediate alert to supervisor.
B. Sentiment and Culture Analysis
What tone do workers use when reporting? The AI can analyze whether the descriptions denote:
- Rush/Pressure: “He didn’t block because there was an urgency to get production out.”
- Lack of resources: “He didn’t wear gloves because there were none in stock.”
- Fatigue: “Skipped step due to fatigue at the end of the shift.”
This allows the EHSQ Manager to attack the organizational root cause (production pressure) and not just blame the operator.
C. Quality Validation (The End of the “phantom PSO”)
Do your indicators show a lot of PSO but accidents still occur? You probably have low quality PSO. AI can identify infill patterns:
- Duplicate descriptions (“copy-paste”).
- PSO performed in impossible times (e.g. 10 observations in 5 minutes).
- Inconsistencies between the marked risk and the textual description.
4. Case Study: The real impact on Tubacex Group
To understand the potential of this technology, one need not look to Silicon Valley. In the industrial sector, the Tubacex Group faced the same wall as many EHSQ departments: a highly skilled team spending 15 hours per month per technician just on administrative tasks of “data chopping” and manual analysis of observations.
The challenge was not the lack of data, but the inability to process it in time to act.
The headline: 93% less bureaucracy
After implementing Artificial Intelligence to manage their PSO, the operational change was immediate. Data shows a 93% reduction in analysis time, freeing up technicians to move from the office to the plant floor, where they really add value.
However, time savings is just the tip of the iceberg. What was truly disruptive was how AI enabled:
- Eliminate subjectivity in risk assessment.
- Measure preventive leadership quantitatively, something impossible with traditional Excel.
How did Tubacex manage to transform a reactive process into a predictive knowledge source?
We have prepared a detailed Case Study where we break it down:
- The complete “Before vs. After” comparison.
- How this impacted the fulfillment of its 2030 Challenge.
- The direct impressions of your Prevention Service Coordinator.
5. Frequently Asked Questions about AI in PSO management
Here we respond to the operational concerns of prevention managers by modernizing this process.
How can AI help analyze massive Precautionary Safety Observations (PSOs)?
The system uses natural language processing (NLP) to read thousands of observations and group them by actual themes, not just by predefined categories.
Is the IA valid in auditable processes of PRL (ISO 45001)?
Yes, ISO 45001 values evidence-based decision making (Clause 9). Using AI to analyze data demonstrates a deep commitment to continuous improvement. The important thing is to maintain traceability: that the system keeps the original record (the PSO made by the worker) and that the AI analysis serves as a tool to support management.
Does AI reduce the administrative burden on prevention technicians?
Drastically. It is estimated that technicians spend up to 40% of their time transcribing and categorizing data. AI automates categorization, chart generation and alert sending, freeing up to 93% of the analysis per technician.
What are the risks of using AI and how are they controlled?
The main risk is the “false positive” or “false negative” (that the AI misclassifies a critical observation). Control: The system must operate under the Human-in-the-loop concept. The AI proposes and prioritizes, but critical actions (work stoppages, penalties, engineering changes) must always be validated by a human expert. The AI is the co-pilot, not the captain.
Conclusion for EHSQ managers
Knowing What is an PSO? is only the first step. The real challenge today is not to get workers to fill out paperwork, but to extract intelligence from that information to save lives.
Safety observations are the “voice” of your workers. If today those voices are trapped in a spreadsheet that no one reads, you’re losing your best preventive asset. AI allows you to listen to those voices at scale, identify hidden trends and move from reactive to truly predictive prevention.
