The Nottingham-based security contractor, which employs 120 people, has issued Romad RSP-100 lone worker protection devices developed by Geonovo to its static security officers.
“The safety of our colleagues is of paramount importance,” said Des Oldham, office manager for Foremost Security.
“Until recently, we had a procedure in place whereby one of our controllers would have to make contact with all our on-duty static security officers on an hourly basis to check that they were okay, and that no incidents had occurred which had put them at risk.”
However, the company found this process to be time consuming and costly, and not an ideal way to ensure that the necessary individuals knew if an incident had occurred.
“Theoretically, we might not have known for almost an hour that one of our colleagues was in trouble,” added Oldham, “and that wasn’t acceptable to us.”
Lone worker monitoring service
Oldham decided to take the advice of Claire Poyser-Blair, sales and customer services manager for EMCS (the Midlands-based Alarm Receiving Centre), which offers a lone worker monitoring service.
“It was clear from what Des and his colleagues were trying to achieve that the Romad RSP-100 was more than up to the job at hand,” explained Poyser-Blair. “We had just completed the successful integration of the Romad protocols into our alarm monitoring software platform, so the timing couldn’t have been any better.”
The Romad RSP-100 lone worker units issued to Foremost Security’s officers are configured to receive automated hourly signals from EMCS. If a security officer doesn’t acknowledge the signal, it’s assumed that they are in a vulnerable situation and an alarm is generated.
The Romad RSP-100, which also has a rugged SOS alert button to summon help if and when required, incorporates high sensitivity GPS and GSM communication.
Pre-programmable speed dial numbers
Healthcare professionals, emergency services personnel, estate agents, transportation staff, fast food delivery drivers, security personnel and factory or office workers alone at night are just some of the vulnerable lone workers for whom peace of mind and additional personal protection is provided by the RSP-100.
Simple, over-the-air commands are used to configure the device, providing pre-programmable speed dial numbers and a rugged SOS alert button.
One of the pre-allocated speed dial numbers, for example, allows lone workers to leave a recorded message when they arrive at an appointment.
This message is safely stored on a server, and may be quickly retrieved if the user is out of contact or if there’s immediate concern for his or her welfare.
The systems are fully compliant with the British Standard BS 8484 Code of Practice, a key requirement of which is that a person carrying a lone worker protection device should be able to be located within 10 metres.
Taking safety and security to a new level
Six months on from investing in the RSP-100, Des Oldham and his colleagues are very pleased with how Geonovo and EMCS have worked together to provide a money-saving solution which has taken the protection of the company’s security officers to a much higher level.
“There are sound economic reasons for deploying RSP-100s with a return on investment of just a few months,” said Oldham.
In conclusion, Oldham told SMT Online: “While freeing up a considerable amount of our controllers’ time, we also have the assurance of knowing that our officers are where they are supposed to be. We have peace of mind knowing that we can direct support to them if they’re in danger.”
