Serviceline Industrial Sensors
Serviceline Explosion Protection

Mobile Worker Concept: Increase Efficiency and Safety

2017-12-12

ecom Smart-Ex® 01 for mobile workers
The mobile worker concept creates safety, increases quality and saves costs.

Running a business? You need to know where your people are, and the location of company equipment when it comes to jobs like maintenance, storage, and transportation. Precise details and clear information are especially critical when your employees work in hazardous areas. In order to increase a mobile worker’s safety, productivity, and flexibility, a variety of digital tools are used in explosion-hazardous areas. The company ecom is a solution provider of explosion-protected mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, handheld readers, and peripheral devices, operating under the umbrella brand Pepperl+Fuchs.


Constant networking. Optimized processes. Uncompromising safety.


The consistent connection to the control room leads to better on-site protection of mobile workers.

To ensure consistent networking and collaboration between mobile personnel, the control room, and backend systems, terminal devices must feature comprehensive functions—WLAN, WWAN, Bluetooth, GPS, and/or RFID technology make reliable online communication possible.
Using the 4G/LTE Android tablet Tab-Ex® 01 and 4G/LTE Android smartphone Smart-Ex® 01, a mobile worker communicates with the control room in real time, reporting damages, or checking and entering orders. Documented information is directly transferred into the network. This speeds decision-making and reduces downtime.
With high-performance, product-related software solutions for data logging like the ecom CamScan Keyboard App, mobile users can avoid hardware like barcode scanners while increasing the quality of data logging. Offline, 1D/2D barcodes are recognized and processed with the integrated smartphone or tablet camera. This simplifies manual and automatic data analysis and reduces the incidence of incorrect entries or insufficient evaluation.
ecom mobile devices are designed and approved for industrial use and operation in Zone 1/21 and Division 1 explosion-hazardous areas. This also applies to real-time localization based on the beacon technology that all mobile devices are equipped with.

Beacon technology benefits

Loc-Ex® 01-BLE Beacons are developed for explosion-hazardous areas and emit Bluetooth low energy signals, making it possible to realize localization tasks, asset tracking, and management. In combination with ecom’s mobile devices, this makes them a cost-effective, low maintenance business intelligence solution; the beacons are used to send and provide customer-specific data and connect to backend systems. These small wireless transmitters can also determine the exact position of mobile devices. Specific information—tailored to the mobile worker’s task and access authorization—is transferred to the mobile device with the help of the beacons and an App solution. Beacons support mobile workers on the job and guarantee safe navigation through explosion-hazardous areas. 


Lone Worker Protection increases safety

Lone worker protection improves safety.
Lone worker protection improves safety.

The consistent connection to the control room leads to better on-site protection of mobile workers. Lone Worker Protection immediately informs the control room in case of an accident and warns employees against potential safety hazards.
These systems come with programmable features, such as a deadman’s switch, a “man down alarm,” or a 3D motion sensor that enables an alarm for inclination, impact, and escapes, and gives an alert in case of immobility. Mobile worker safety is significantly improved and response time for emergency operations and hazard notification is reduced. 


At a glance

  • Mobile worker concept creates safety, increases quality, and saves costs
  • Software solutions complete portfolio; no need for additional hardware
  • Energy-saving beacon technology enables localization and asset management
  • Lone worker protection improves safety

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ecom product portfolio

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