Case Study: Mill Safety
There are many industrial sites that have been in operations for decades. Equipment gets old and more and more contractors are part of the workforce. The need to keep people safe and facilities secure is becoming more and more important. The paper mill industry is a good example of this. Many have been in existence since the early part of the 20th century. To go along with investments being made into the operating equipment in order to make them more reliable and efficient, there is also the need to upgrade the facilities to adapt to today’s changing world regarding safety and security.
One of our Florida customers took such an initiative at their 75-year-old plant with the goal to better protect their key assets (Personnel and equipment).
Our objective was to engineer a solution deployment for an Emergency Alert system comprised of indoor and outdoor notification coupled with strategically placed cameras throughout the site to allow real-time monitoring of processes and outlier areas.
Solution
I²oT Solutions’ team of experienced engineers performed a detailed site engineering design supported by a comprehensive sound modeling map of the entire facility using state of the art technology in order to establish key locations to install the equipment. This included connectivity to operations panels for automatic alarm activation sequences when process conditions exceeded acceptable limits. Everything was supported by a robust network topology leveraging both the wired and wireless networking paths to support a cost-effective deployment strategy, minimizing overall construction costs.
In addition, I²oT Solutions supplied a centralized, secure web-based console management system to administer and operate the delivered solutions, all accessible from any authorized computer and with proper credentials to access the system.
Overcoming Obstacles
This project had several site-specific challenges to address including:
· Locating optimal placement of speakers, cameras and supporting network components in non-hazardous locations while ensuring desired results are met.
· Decision pattern needs to be considered and result and overall deployment cost must be managed.
· As always, working safely and collaboratively with other contractors and employees.
What sets us up for success and is our extensive experience of working on an industrial site, knowing the first priority is working safely and collaboratively. Our engineers have broad experience with modeling and deploying Wireless solutions. We use state of the art technology for both sound and RF modeling, combined with our experience on various industrial site, ensures the design will meet current expectations and be extendible for future solution needs without making it unnecessarily complicated.
“It is easy to over-engineer a solution with elevated costs. Our goal is to build a cost-effective solution that meets your needs by matching your site infrastructure and landscape with our modeling techniques.”
I²oT Solutions has experience deploying the Emergency Notification and Video Surveillance solutions to various industries ranging from Refineries and chemical plants to Pulp and Paper industries.
Results
The engineering was successfully completed with a solution that included leveraging the right equipment type and directivity (for indoor and outdoor speaker notification), integration to the soft-messaging (Email, Phone, pager and 2-way speakers) and establishing custom alarm activation sequences via the operating equipment. The camera deployments included indoor and outdoor Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) type cameras with automated recording features and movement activation sensors.
Multiple Emergency Notification alarms types were designed with custom messaging logically derived on alarm selection; Incident type with customer personnel instructions. All alarms activated via a simple-to-use, centralized, custom built console dashboard. The Video Surveillance solution is available to any authorized personnel allowing for real-time video feed, simple to use access to recording feeds and ability to download any historical recording.
The site selected our engineering design and our expertise to successfully deploy the solutions.
I²oT Solutions offers expert Project Management services to work with your internal and contractor staff for any type of deployment project that has been engineered by our team.