The Client:
A textile manufacturer that had 100-150 artisans working for them in two shifts approached us. Like every other business in 2020, they were facing difficulties due to the pandemic.
The Problem:
As the lockdown restrictions lifted, the factory reopened with the challenge of stemming the spread of Covid-19 among its employees. The attendance system in use was based on fingerprint biometrics. Each employee was supposed to register at the start and the end of their shift. With the fingerprint biometric attendance system discontinued, keeping track of shift times became extremely difficult. While CCTV cameras were covering a significant portion of the factory, there weren’t enough operators to reliably monitor and ensure masks were worn and social distancing rules followed. Even the security guards checking the temperature of the employees were severely undertrained, which left gaping holes in the safety of the employees.
The client needed an effective solution to ensure workplace safety, something that could be deployed quickly before the situation got out of hand.
The Solution:
We deployed the Covid-19 security suite on the existing CCTV infrastructure with an on-premise configuration. The installation, configuration, and testing took four days and after a few hiccups, the controls were handed over to the factory supervisor on day 5.
One camera each for entrance and exit and a temperature sensor for entrance were installed and integrated with the existing access control setup. The access was granted to the employees only when their face was successfully scanned and matched with the database and their temperature was within the allowed limit.
Streams from the rest of the cameras in the factory area were analysed by Aidetic’s Covid-19 security suite with AI technology for scanning mask and social distancing rules violations. In case of prolonged violations, an alarm was sounded and an announcement was made to remind employees to follow the norms. Each violation was recorded and presented to the supervisor on a dashboard with real-time updates. A covid-19 compliance score was calculated and displayed on the dashboard. Trends of violations and compliance scores over a set period of time were plotted to let the management be fully aware of the situation and help them take corrective measures.
Results:
The effects were palpable from the moment the system went online. During the first week of deployment, high numbers of violations were recorded with the factory’s compliance score much lower than the required minimum. The alarm went off several times during the day as the employees adjusted to the heightened levels of monitoring. From the second week onwards, the number of violations dipped significantly, especially the mask violations. It took a while longer for the employees to get the social distancing rules correct.
The dashboard helped the management effectively analyse the trends in the compliance data and allowed them to adjust the policies accordingly. For example, on Saturdays, the social distancing violations increased, resulting in a decrease in the total compliance score.
The face recognition based attendance successfully replaced the fingerprint-based system, solving the timekeeping problem. Access Control integrated body temperature detector contributed heavily towards preventing the spread of the infection by turning away anyone with high temperatures. With Aidetic’s Covid-19 Security Suite installed the textile factory was able to maintain a safe working environment for its employees.
