Creativity Software

WorkforceWise Case Study

Oil & Gas multinational implements lone worker protection system

Challenge:

A company that has hundreds of workers operating in hazardous working environments (danger of gas / fume leaks, contact with very high voltage equipment, uneven terrain, freezing temperatures, etc) in multiple sites, many of them with no cellular coverage at all.

The challenge is to install a system that provides a communication mechanism between the lone worker and the control room in a secure and reliable way. This involves the use of a device carried by the lone workers that has been certified to be used in Oil & Gas sector (“intrinsically safe”), and that provides functionality such as panic button, motionless detection and others.

The Lone Worker Protection system must be able to display the location of any / all workers in real time and to trigger alerts to take an action when something is wrong, as defined by the customers. For example when the panic button has been pressed by the worker for 3 seconds, the motionless detector has been activated, a geofence rule has been violated or other criteria defined by the enterprise.

Solution:

Creativity Software’s WorkforceWise solution has been chosen for the company’s North American operations, where they have over 300 workers spread across sites in Texas, Alaska and Canada.

In addition to providing the ‘standard’ functionality used to locate and track field personnel (e.g. display location of one / multiple / all employess on a map, geofences, alerts, etc) WorkforceWise provides an open interface that allows the use of specialised positioning equipment used in different business sectors.

In the case of the Oil & Gas sector, Creativity Software has partnered with a company in North America that manufacturers specialised GPS equipment. This equipment is composed of a relay unit that is installed in the worker’s vehicle and a Fob that is carried by the worker.

The relay unit communicates with the WorkforceWise s/w platform via the Iridium satellite network, eliminating any dependency on cellular telephony coverage. Because lone workers typically work in open areas, the probabilities that the relay unit is not able to communicate with the control room s/w is insignificant.

The communication between the relay unit in the vehicle and the Fob carried by the worker is via RF (radio frequency). Because of the nature of RF communications, workers can be indoors in a heavy metal enviroment and at a considerable distance from the vehicle (tpically 400mts), and the communication is virtually guaranteed.