Oncam 360-degree cameras monitor health and safety procedures at IBS-Mapei plant in Dubai

Monitoring health and safety standards

Picture this: you're responsible for maintaining health and safety in a busy plant environment in Dubai. A workforce of up to 25 different nationalities, often with no common language, is loading and unloading a multitude of vehicles and moving materials round the site, in 43-degree (Celsius) heat. There's a safety compliance issue on the other side of the plant, and by the time you get there each party is claiming that the other is responsible. There's no objective view of what happened, and one party is claiming that your organisation should take responsibility. Sorting out who is responsible and, more importantly, how to prevent a similar incident happening in future, is time-consuming and complex.

It’s this kind of scenario that IBS-Mapei's Quality Assurance, Health, Safety and Environmental Manager Christopher Lacey was keen to address. "We maintain excellent health and safety standards, but potential incidents are always a possibility. With so much happening on site, it can be challenging to make sure that everyone is complying with our health and safety procedures, and — in the event of a dispute — that we can resolve things definitively without needing to speak four languages."

360-degree technology: Total situational awareness

On a visit to Mapei's headquarters in Italy, Lacey was impressed at their use of camera technology to ensure compliance with health and safety, and resolved to find a similar solution for his site. Extensive research led him to Oncam's 360-degree technology. "The demo was a real eye-opener," he recalls.

"We were shown how a fast-food chain used cameras to ensure that their staff were using the correct quantities of ingredients when making food, and we saw how one camera could cover a very large outdoor space — all on the presenter's iPad. The coverage of the cameras and the detail you can see in them were exactly what we needed."

Once the decision was made to install a trial the technology on site, Oncam provided IBS-Mapei staff with comprehensive training on the unique aspects of the technology, and support in setting up their camera network. "When it came to designing our camera network, nobody else we spoke to had as much expertise to offer as Oncam," Lacey told us. "They've worked with us at every step of the process to ensure that the system best meets our needs. They even came up in a basket lift with us to help position the camera seven metres off the ground, to make the most of its capabilities."