Safety is paramount on offshore installations such as oil rigs, FPSOs, floating LNG plants or wind farms. The sea is a demanding element, and sometimes a harsh environment, but overall, it is a precarious place to be. Safety regulations, training and equipment play hand-in-hand to mitigate risks in the best possible and economical way. One of the premium safety solutions on offshore installations is Crew Companion that enables efficient and safe evacuation procedures during an emergency.
Besides acting as an emergency and training solution, Crew Companion provides an additional and far-reaching value to the safety and security of an offshore installation: access control.
Access control addresses a prime need: to avoid potential hazards firsthand. Imagine an electric cabinet with a voltage line. How would you avert any accidents or mishaps to happen? You could choose to put a warning sticker at the door or inform everyone on the offshore installation about the potential dangers when dealing with this cabinet. But what about if people forget or can't see the warning sign for what reason ever? The best alternative would be to lock up the cabinet and grant access only to qualified personnel, which is the principle of access control regarding safety. To avoid potential harm, access to single objects (like cabinets or vehicles) as to rooms or areas is granted to a pre-qualified circle of people only.
Access control provides operators with a piece of vital information: Who is actually on the premise? It is essential to know who is where - not only in case of an evacuation. The safety of any operation relies upon the information about the whereabouts of your personnel and external contractors. Does an area, zone, or room must be evacuated before operations can begin? Managers must postpone waiting activities until an area is declared clear. The consequence is delays and lower productivity.
The most plausible reason for access control is to avoid trespass of unauthorized, sometimes hostile individuals. Automated gates with readers identify persons and grant or deny access according to the rights stored in the access database. Again, this principle applies to get access to assets like vehicles (like a crane or a seat in a helicopter) or zones in a compound.
Crew Companion can act as means to access control and is used in several installations to do so. Crew Companion combines safety features with access control functions in one system. Offshore installations profit from this feature as they have regulatory safety rules to follow and access control needs at the same time.