For Grom, a Turin-based company that joined the Unilever group in 2015, the safety of their employees and consumers has always been the first priority.
In recent months, compliance with the measures to contain Covid-19 infections has allowed Grom to continue to offer ice cream and other goodies safely, at ice cream parlors or at home.
But that’s not all: implementing the Government’s provisions allowed the Turin-based company to identify, thanks to the H.S.E. (Health, Safety and Environment) consultancy of Assiteca Consulting, further possibilities to protect the safety of the people who work in ice cream parlors every day – not only in the pandemic scenario, but also in anticipation of the return to ‘normality’.
Thus, a collaboration was born that gave rise to a project that is so far unique in the retail world: a ‘smart device’ for each employee, a wearable device that, in total respect for the worker’s privacy, remains dormant until an alarm signal is generated and intervention is required.
In fact, the Grom team was faced with important questions: what risks does a worker who is alone in the shop, for example, run? In 2020, this happened to limit the possibility of infection, but it is a situation that can occur when the shop is closed to customers and workshop activity continues to ensure home delivery.
Grom, supported by Assiteca Consulting, turned to Smart Track with the aim of further reinforcing safety for its employees. Smart Track is an innovative SME, a spin-off of the University of Genoa, committed to developing IoT (internet of things) systems to ensure the safety of Industry 4.0 and local workers. Their products are already used by major Italian companies in factories and power plants.
Immediate alarm activation
The alarm can be activated by the worker via a special SOS button, or automatically in the event of a “man down” using the inertial platform present inside the wearable devices and proprietary data processing algorithms.
The alarm signals are forwarded to the WEB management platform via WiFi network and / or M2M sim to maximize its versatility. Furthermore, the WEB platform, customized to Grom’s specific needs, allows you to manage all the shops scattered throughout the region in a single georeferenced graphical interface.
Upon receiving an alarm, the WEB platform displays the relevant geo-localized danger icon on the shop where there is a worker in difficulty. At the same time, alarm messages are sent to the security officers and the area manager via email and WhatsApp chatbot to minimize intervention times and send help quickly.