Covid 19: Io T Can Help Monitor Worker Safety

As governments and tech companies around the world race to produce smartphone apps for coronavirus contact tracing, companies that provide location services to construction and industrial sectors have also rapidly brought new solutions to market.

As an industry that relies on manpower, the construction sector in the Gulf has been immensely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The demands of greater physical distancing between workers are requiring companies to make changes to their operations, such as using additional buses to transport workers. On the work-site itself, regular temperature checks and masks are other features.

But companies that provide location service solutions for the construction industry and other industrial sectors have also stepped up, launching new products or adding functionality to existing systems.

A number of companies have launched devices that can be used to ensure workers maintain safe distances. Ottogee, a technology company based in Dallas, Texas which focuses on using real-time analytics to reduce costs and improve productivity on work-sites, has launched a proximity alert wristband. Powered by a Bluetooth low-energy beacon (BLE), when two wristbands come within six feet (1.83m) of each other, both vibrate to remind workers to keep a safe distance. The location data from the bands is also stored, allowing a company to trace back contacts in case a worker tests positive for COVID-19 or another illness, and other companies have also launched similar products.

SmartBarrel, another US company, has an automated system for recording clocking in and clocking out, with workers using a code and the machine – mounted on a standard barrel – using a video camera to confirm their identity. The company upgraded its product in March, introducing contactless punch-in, and a new Daily Mask Tracking feature automatically checks that workers are wearing face masks on-site.

In the UAE, WakeCap Technologies, a location services startup that to date has raised more than $2.5m in funding and has around 40 employees in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and North America, has launched a new dashboard specific to COVID-19. It is already in use by contractors, including on one site with more than 2,000 workers, though many other sites where the system is used have been shut down, explains Ishita Kochhar, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer.

The company uses a chip built into workers’ helmets to provide safety and productivity data to companies, such as being able to detect if a worker has a fall. In the era of COVID-19, the benefits of a connected workforce include being able to reduce worker-to-worker contact, such as by eliminating crowded worker lines with automated attendance and time-keeping via the smart device. Automated attendance also eliminates the need for touch-based devices such as turnstile gates and fingerprint scanners, which are potential transmission vectors.

If a worker tests positive, the company gets data immediately, instead of having to physically check close-contact personnel and areas visited by the infected worker. That gives a company the ability to trace and identify all workers who have come in contact with the worker, and identify where they have been on-site and the equipment they have used.

As companies evaluate how to safely return to work, the process is causing more of them to assess the benefits of IoT for workers, while high-tech safety measures may help streamline re-opening approval from municipal authorities, says Kochhar. “Companies who were hesitant about monitoring workforce are now more open to such technologies.”