ATLANTA, GA, Feb. 20, 2012 -- American Water has contracted for a system to help reduce risk to its employees and facilities. The system allows employees working alone to send out manual alarms when needed, and includes automated alerts that can detect when an employee is in trouble and deploy emergency services.
The LoneProtector system is offered by G4S Justice Services and is part of the company’s comprehensive suite of electronic monitoring products, services and technology.
American Water workers will be equipped with an Identicom® lone worker device – a discreet GPS device that looks like an employee ID badge. Specially trained G4S operators monitor these devices 24/7 at geographically redundant monitoring centers.
Each device allows the American Water worker to alert monitoring center operators of trouble and allows operators to contact the employee to check on his or her welfare. If an employee sends an alert, operators can listen to and record the situation, notify local emergency response and provide the GPS location of the device.
The device also includes “man down” technology that notifies monitoring center operators if the worker falls down or is immobilized. When the device raises a man down alert, operators in the monitoring centers assess the situation through an open audio channel and attempt to contact the employee. If the operators receive no response, they can dispatch local emergency response to the device’s precise GPS location to aid the worker.
“American Water is committed to the safety and security of our employees and our facilities,” said Nicholas Santillo Jr., Senior Manager, Operations Security for American Water. “Adding LoneProtector to our existing risk management assets helps safeguard our hard-working staff as well as protect the integrity of our systems so that we can ensure continued reliable service to our customers.”
American Water, the largest publicly traded U.S. water and wastewater utility company, employs approximately 7,000 people in more than 30 U.S. states and parts of Canada.
Through its partnership with Connexion2, manufacturer of the Identicom lone worker device, G4S delivers customized lone worker solutions across a wide range of sectors and industries.
Prior to implementing the program, American Water conducted extensive field tests under a pilot program in multiple locations across the United States, which included evaluation and testing of the Identicom devices and the G4S software and monitoring centers.
For more information about G4S Justice Services and its security offerings, visit www.g4s.com/justice.
