A safer industrial working environment is within reach
Ensuring worker safety is of paramount importance for any organization, not least in the chemical manufacturing industry where workers can be exposed to hazardous substances, extreme temperatures and the risk of fire and explosions. Personal protective equipment (PPE) has long played a role in reducing these risks and now it’s being made smarter by technology, allowing, for example, teams to connect in more intuitive ways, or for lone worker vital signs to be monitored remotely. Sensing devices are also prevalent at industrial sites, as are active systems that identify production anomalies, hazards and other issues, and trigger alarms to notify workers.
Industry 4.0 is the enabler for these capabilities and for many, the decision to digitally transform operations has been driven by its potential to improve worker safety. The use of technologies such as 4G/LTE and 5G private wireless ensures the capacity and reliability organizations need as they layer multiple active alert systems across their industrial settings.
The need for proactive alert system management
As the number of these systems increases, however, so does complexity and it becomes imperative to proactively manage the system mesh. This can only be done successfully when implemented over an end-to-end digitalization and communication platform. That’s why we created one platform for industrial digitalization, to add value to your Industry 4.0 use cases through seamless connectivity of your workforce, IoT sensors, machines and vehicles, mission-critical edge processing, ruggedized devices and compelling applications.
We have always been committed to helping industries achieve their goals leveraging a wide ecosystem of Nokia and industry partner software. Now, we are introducing Ascom Ofelia over Nokia MX Industrial Edge (MXIE), which provides the mission-critical edge processing over our one platform for industry digitalization, to allow customers to reduce the complexity of their multiple alerting systems and gain unprecedented insight into workplace operations and even greater situational awareness.
What is Ascom Ofelia?
Ascom Ofelia is an enterprise-grade alarm and workflow management suite, designed for use across industry sectors. It offers the next level in alarm management, improving efficiency even for those with the greatest monitoring and alarm system complexity. Using Ofelia, you can strengthen emergency prevention through innovative solutions such as the man-down alarm, expedite response times using automated (no-movement alarm) systems, and implement manual (push button) alarms to reduce accident rates, while enhancing worker protection across all your facilities.
Ofelia enables this by collecting and correlating data from your disparate devices and information systems, including fire detectors, access control systems, IoT sensors and more and presenting it to you over interactive HTML5 graphical maps of your facility on workers’ smart devices. You can see the type and location of the alarms that have been activated across your site and customize responses to them based on five alarm priority levels which you can define, in line with company policies and regulatory requirements.
This means you can implement appropriate workflow responses to alarm types or levels of criticality and ensure that whether it’s a production, equipment or safety alert, Ofelia will notify the appropriate responder or worker in real time by sending a message to their device. They can see which alarm has been triggered and where on the site map and based on the priority level or color of alert, will understand exactly what is required of them so they can respond more rapidly. Historical analysis is also possible through Ofelia’s advanced statistical analysis tool which extracts relevant data allowing you to identify issue trends and improve decision-making.
Why Nokia MXIE is a good fit for Ascom Ofelia
By deploying software over the highly resilient and secure MXIE, you benefit from real-time data processed on-premises, closer to the source. That means you can increase Industry 4.0 capabilities as your needs evolve, adding more alerting capabilities alongside other use cases, without impacting latency or quality of service. In addition to its support for mission-critical services, you also retain data sovereignty. Using Ascom Ofelia in combination with the Nokia MXIE 4G/5G connectivity layer you benefit from a perfect future-proof solution where coverage and reliable alerting is vital.
You can choose to adopt MXIE in an edge-as-a-service model and gain access to an array of compelling Industry 4.0 applications that are pre-configured and provided with automatic lifecycle management.
Nokia MXIE reduces IIoT complexity and supports the high processing capacity, low latency and data sovereignty needs of mission critical processes that enhance worker safety. Ascom Ofelia reduces the complexity created by your multiple monitoring and alert systems, allowing you to streamline and coordinate your response. We think that makes them a perfect fit to help you enhance worker protection across your industrial sites.
