Dwr Cymru (Welsh Water) invests £599k in safety for lone workers

Welsh Water, the 6th largest company in Wales is the second, prominent water authority in the United Kingdom to adopt G7c cloud-connected safety wearables from Blackline Safety. Having placed a £599k purchase order for product and services, Welsh Water is deploying G7c to watch out for the safety of their lone workers. Blackline’s G7c devices will be monitored around-the-clock by its in-house Safety Operations Centre and qualified alerts are escalated to Welsh Water’s incident response centre, ensuring a more effective local response.

“Blackline’s G7c is the only comprehensive safety device on the market with 2G/3G connectivity that future-proofs customer investments into connected wearables,” said Simon Rich, Blackline’s Zone Manager for UK and Ireland.   “Blackline has over ten years of cloud-connected safety experience, and only our G7c product features a broad range of customisation and capabilities that grow with customer needs over time.”

Welsh Water employs more than 3,400 people who serve 1.4 million homes and businesses, supplying 815 million litres of water every day to 3 million people. Personnel in the water and sewerage industry face significant risks in the workplace and Welsh Water works hard to identify and mitigate hazards. This authority in particular required a reliable, connected safety device that was easy to use and was ATEX certified due to the working environments encountered. During Welsh Water‘s extensive market research, Blackline and the G7c lone worker device were evaluated along with several alternative lone worker solutions.

During a comprehensive investigation into all roles within the company, lone workers were classified as high, medium or low risk. Following the successful evaluation, this initial deployment will see every high and medium risk lone worker not only equipped with a G7c device, but also fully trained using Blackline’s customised training materials.

G7c accompanies workers, detecting falls, lack of movement and missed employee check-ins. It also provides workers with the ability to call for help instantly by pulling the red SOS latch. Should an employee require assistance, G7c provides two-way messaging with the live monitoring team, optimising the response.

Welsh Water are already considering the option to upgrade their G7c lone worker devices to gas detection in the near future. Blackline Safety is the only lone worker and gas detection vendor in the world to future-proof a client’s safety monitoring investment with one configurable G7c device that fits many working requirements. The G7c offers lone worker monitoring that supports 2G/3G wireless and location technologies, emergency response management using two-way voice calling with the live monitoring team and 24/7 live monitoring by Blackline’s Safety Operations Centre or Alarm Receiving Centre partners. Additionally, operators can perform gas detection using optional gas sensor cartridges with a broad range of sensors and confined space entry and leak checks using an optional gas detection cartridge with a built-in pump.