The protective safety vest has started to beep and vibrate, as the lights on the braces and waist come on. It is the signal that you are going to exceed the safety distance with another person that the coronavirus pandemic has introduced as a precautionary measure to avoid infections.
During the coronavirus health crisis, interest in these vests has grown a lot, especially among companies in the logistics sector.
That scene can already be experienced at Schwarzmüller, an Austrian manufacturer of cargo vehicles that has become the first company in Europe to use this new equipment that warns of an unwanted approach.
In a telephone statement to the company, the spokesman for the company, Michael Prock, assures that by acquiring this personalized system, "the responsibility of guaranteeing the health of the workers" is assumed.
"We also avoid possible and costly interruptions to our production lines in the event of a positive, which would force us to place numerous workers in quarantine," he adds.
The traditional company, with 140 years of history, has acquired dozens of these vests, developed by the German company Linde Material Handling, and whose price is 499 euros per unit.
The aim is to use them at the Schwarzmüller production plants in Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.
Sound, vibration, and lights
If two workers approach a distance less than that defined by the system, the vests simultaneously emit an alarm signal, a strong vibration, and a warning light.
In this way, the system guarantees the social distance between workers, required to control the pandemic, also in assembly lines and other industrial facilities.
The vests weigh about 300 grams and their battery holds up to a full work shift of about eight hours.
Peter Markschläger, the spokesman for Linde Austria, explains that this technology comes from a system applied in transport vehicles in logistics centers or in large construction sites, which serves to avoid collisions, by warning both the driver and the pedestrian that they are approaching. each other.
"Through a 4 gigahertz ultra-broadband signal we ensure that the vests always stay connected without interference with other systems," he tells Efe.
This avoids connections via wireless internet or Bluetooth since they are less stable and exact in an industrial environment, explains Markschläger.
Linde is one of the world leaders in the production of cargo vehicles for the logistics sector.
Great interest in coronavirus
During the coronavirus health crisis, interest in these vests has grown a lot, especially among companies in the logistics sector, industrial production plants, or food trade, they say from Linde Austria.
According to Markschläger, the vests can be used "in any area where many people work, as people usually have trouble estimating the necessary distance well."
"Therefore, these vests are a very useful instrument to ensure this distance," he concludes.
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