Global Auto Manufacturer at the Forefront of Protecting Workers with Digital PPE™ from Becklar
Becklar’s Digital PPE protects auto manufacturers’ employees when they work alone or in hazardous conditions.
A large auto manufacturer needed a better way to protect their skilled workforce of over 17,500 employees in the United States who often worked alone or in hazardous environments on the manufacturing floor. Their workers are dispatched across expansive, loud manufacturing plants to fix issues or perform maintenance work on critical equipment 24/7. With the well-being of employees of critical importance, this manufacturer sought an easy to use, technologically advanced solution to improve employee safety in the event of falls, health issues, and more.
The Need For Better Safety Protocols
Employee safety has always been paramount to this large Auto Manufacturer, leading them to set an objective to respond to any issue within three minutes of receiving a notification. The challenge was the manual nature of the existing safety process. Employees in the plant perform their work in a variety of locations. They are spaced far apart from colleagues; some are in confined spaces and others perform their duties while lying on the ground.
3 minutes
Target incident
response time
Between the location of employees and the noisy work environment, it’s difficult to secure every employee’s personal safety and attend to critical events in a way that meets the company’s objective. If an issue arose, a manager on the plant floor would need to call emergency services on the radio, or an employee would make a call on their cell phone. This was not only inefficient but could put employees at risk as it could take several minutes for the emergency team to be notified during critical events.
The need for formal safety protocols was also highlighted by their use of a manual buddy system for safety. Employees used an informal buddy system when entering confined or dangerous spaces — asking coworkers to check on them if they did not come back in a reasonable amount of time. This system was subject to failure as employees shift their focus to new tasks, making it easy to forget about a colleague and as a result could put employees at considerable risk.
A Connected Safety Solution – Digital PPE
The company was seeking a connected safety solution for their teams that would send a notification as soon as an incident arose — one that could notify their emergency response team automatically and could get employees the help they needed in a much more timely and efficient manner. Essentially, they needed Digital PPE to better protect their employees.
Innovative connected safety solutions should be both Proactive and Reactive
They looked to Becklar Workforce Safety to provide them with an innovative solution with proactive and reactive safety protocols to ensure that employees have superior protection to keep them safe. The Becklar WorkerSafety Pro App can also be deployed on Apple Watch, making it easy and seamless to provide superior protection to employees.
“At Becklar, we provide an industry-leading lone worker safety solution that protects employees against a variety of issues,” said Brock Winzeler, President, Becklar Workforce Safety. “Some of the most critical and desired features in our Digital PPETM include fall detection, check-ins, worker down alerts, and heat warnings as indicators of potential duress.”
Becklar’s WorkerSafety Pro app not only supports reactive safety measures but also enables proactive safety protocols. The app allows workers to check-in/check-out and adjust their task timelines. If a task is not completed on time without an extension, an automatic alert is triggered, initiating prompt action- even when an employee can’t request help.
The Becklar Workforce Safety solution features, combined with sensors in the Apple Watch, offer robust employee protection. These advanced sensors can detect falls, lack of motion, and even sudden heart issues, promptly alerting emergency teams. The WorkerSafety Pro app also enables employees to send an “all-clear” broadcast communication signal when an incident is resolved.
Becklar Workforce Safety is also integrated with EVS’s mobe3 RTLS’s live indoor location technology. If an alarm is triggered inside the facility, emergency services can pinpoint employees’ location within a few meters. By no longer needing to rely on a person trying to relay location information over the radio, help will be sent to the correct location more quickly.
Advanced capabilities from Becklar’s Digital PPE™ provide:
– Formal check-in-check-out
– Fall Detection
– Biometric alerts (with Apple Watch)
– Panic button
– Employee peace-of-mind
Maintaining Employee Privacy
Employee safety protocols are extremely important. However, so is employee privacy. The advanced features of this solution — more specifically, pinpointing employee location and employee biometric information — is kept private until an emergency occurs. This information is only made available to emergency personnel once an alarm is triggered. Even during an emergency, exact biometric data is not shared — only an alarm that vital signs are out of a normal range. This information “firewall” protects the company, as well as their employees’ personal privacy.
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A Safer Workplace
The Digital PPE provided by Becklar, and integration with capabilities from EVS and Apple, will help better protect the auto manufacturers’ employees when they are working alone or in a variety of hazardous conditions. With advanced proactive and reactive safety protocols in place, emergency response teams can be notified immediately and automatically if an incident occurs and deliver care within their three-minute objective. This solution helps them meet and exceed OSHA safety standards, better protect employee safety, and deliver peace of mind to employees with real-time connected safety solutions.