130 employees of the ArcelorMittal Poland coke plant in Zdzieszowice use safety wristbands every day, i.e. devices that allow them to signal a threat or deterioration of their health if necessary. The pilot of the employee safety monitoring system was successful in Zdzieszowice which is why the largest steel manufacturer in Poland intends to implement the solution also in other company locations.
ArcelorMittal Poland constantly invests in projects that improve the quality of its products, reduce the impact of its operations on the environment and improve the energy efficiency of plants. However, employee safety has been the company's priority for years. - The implemented projects, numerous seminars, meetings and audits allow us to constantly increase the safety and awareness of employees about how important it is to be vigilant and follow the established rules, and how disastrous routine can be - emphasizes Wojciech Kozak, Health and Safety Director at ArcelorMittal Poland. One of the solutions that is intended to improve the safety of employees of the company's Zdzieszowice unit is the implementation of intelligent telemonitoring solutions.
- In our industrial plant, employees working in the field, mainly alone, do not use mobile phones for safety reasons. That's why we wanted to find a solution that, in the event of deterioration of an employee's well-being or health threat, would allow for quick, direct contact with rescue services and locating the employee if he cannot call for help himself or is unconscious - explains Mariola Honisz, production group manager coke in the Automation, Industrial Informatics and Models office, working in the coke plant in Zdzieszowice and responsible for implementing this solution in the plant.
To implement a pilot employee safety monitoring system using telemetric wristbands, the company chose Comarch solutions. Selected coking plant employees were equipped with the so-called safety wristbands integrated with the telemonitoring platform.
- In our coke plant, ensuring the safety and health of employees is a priority. Many works are performed by one person, so we wanted employees to feel safe in the plant, which has an area of over 200 hectares - notes Czesław Sikorski, COO - Coke making and logistics, member of the BOD of ArcelorMittal Poland. - We started by introducing 10 test wristbands and now we use over 130 safety wristbands. Ultimately, in Zdzieszowice, we want to cover approximately 350 people with this solution - he notes.
– I am glad that this solution, which we have successfully tested in our plant, will soon be able to be used by employees of our other units – adds Piotr Drzystek, director of the Zdzieszowice coke plant.
Safety wristbands connected to the Comarch telecare platform have been equipped with configuration and the ability to call three emergency numbers in a cascade, as well as vibration preceding the voice message about the detection of a loss of pulse, a suspected fall or immobility. They also enable communication with the alarm center located on the plant premises and operated 24/7 by internal emergency services.
- For Comarch, this is the first project of this kind that involved adapting the telecare platform to the needs of a client outside the medical industry - emphasizes Magdalena Kamińska, junior project manager at Comarch - The requirements set by the industrial sector are completely different due to the different specificity of users and the environment in which wristbands work. For the purposes of this project, we adapted the platform language to the requirements of the non-medical industry. Especially for ArcelorMittal, we have also added the function of detecting too long time without movement to the wristbands. In order for the telecare platform to function properly in the coking plant, we have also expanded it with the Asset Tracking system, which allows the location of wristbands in buildings - where a GPS system is not sufficient - she emphasizes.
The safety wristbands also have functions such as: an SOS button, two-way voice calls, a fall sensor (with 3 levels of sensitivity) and a motion sensor, and an approximate heart rate measurement.
- All the above-mentioned functions of the system, in particular the wristband worn by the employee, significantly reduce two main threats related to the nature of work of people employed in the coking plant: working on a large surface and working individually - says Eng. Dr. Artur Kozłowski, director of the Łukasiewicz Research Network - EMAG Institute of Innovative Technologies. – The method of preventing possible threats is absolutely justified.
