“Wow!”, exclaimed Kelly, the site supervisor at the large petrochemical plant. “Are you telling me that I can take my iPhone onto the site? It’s safe now? What can I do with it?" Yes, Kelly, you can, IF you have the right phone AND the right case.

As they are in our personal lives, smart phones are indispensable Swiss Army Knives of digital utility, and they will be highly welcome on oil and gas sites, petrochemical plants, and many other industrial sites besides.

As Kelly well knows, today’s intrinsically unsafe device holds the record for the longest running streak as the number one controllable site safety risk for the past ten years because it induces inattentiveness for the user, enables unauthorized site surveillance, and triggers (maybe) the next front page news refinery explosion.

But tomorrow, your smart phone will be viewed as the single most important safety enabler on the site, beating out hand rails on stairs, emergency wash stations, light bulbs, and lids on coffee cups. I bet you won’t be allowed on site without on.

Here are a handful of the ways that such a phone and case could benefit the front line worker.