Tracker system improves worker safety

26 September 2008

Air Products, has chosen Masternaut Three X to supply a ground-breaking web-based satellite tracking solution for their UK and Ireland cylinder gas business (Packaged Gases). Masternaut will enable Air Products to optimise its route planning, reducing its carbon footprint, and provide a highly secure, fully automatic seamless lone-worker safety system.

Air Products improves worker safety and security

Air Products Packaged Gases serves a vast range of customers and industries including: steel; energy; technology; healthcare; and food markets, with a unique portfolio of atmospheric gases, process and specialty gases. The company pledges unconditional commitment to their customers and constantly seeks to make improvements. With this in mind, they investigated the potential of using the latest in vehicle and personnel tracking to boost service levels.

“Air Products’ two key objectives for the Masternaut implementation are: utilisation of the service in order to identify areas for improving our vehicle routing and also ensuring we have a robust, lone worker system that provides maximum safety, eradicating any chance of human error,” said Peter Birdsall, UK Transport Manager, Packaged Gases, Air Products.

The company's Packaged Gases business uses a specially developed routing and scheduling program to manage its delivery fleet. Air Products' will cross-reference the Masternaut live information with the routing and scheduling software to enable it to optimise the management of the fleet.

“One of the main benefits this solution offers us is the ability to manage the sequence of orders and let customers know when they can expect their deliveries,” he added.

The Masternaut service has been developed to provide an extremely secure lone worker system for Air Products’ delivery drivers. Based on geofencing methodology, each driver is assigned a Driver ID Key that links them to a particular vehicle. This enables Air Products to see exactly who is behind the wheel of each vehicle in real time. With geofencing, each customer site is allocated a time slot so that the moment the company's vehicle and driver enters the site, the clock counts down to the time they leave. If the delivery takes longer than anticipated, the driver is contacted to explain the delay. If there is no response from the driver, then the system alerts the key holder.

“The lone worker solution gives a real-time view of delivery activity. As it is fully automatic we have eliminated the problem of human error. It is a very robust solution to lone worker safety and management,” he concluded.