The Red Sea Development Company awards first IoT contract toMachinesTalk
The Red Sea Development Company awards first IoT contract to MachinesTalk for ‘Workforce and Vehicles’ Smart Locator
Smart Locator badges will eventually be worn by up to 36,000 construction workers, and more than 3,000 vehicles will be tagged to ensure safety and security
Riyadh, (25 February 2021): The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), the developer behind the world’s most ambitious regenerative tourism project, has awarded a contract to leading national IoT service provider, MachinesTalk, for the provision of smart wearable technology and wireless tagging solutions for its construction workforce and fleet of vehicles at its site on the west coast of Saudi Arabia.
MachinesTalk will be tasked with deploying a LoRaWAN network to cover more than 3,500 sq.km., implementing a state-of-the-art IoT platform, and providing smart badges for up to 36,000 construction workers, and wireless tags for up to 3,000 vehicles.
“Delivering a project of this scale against an ambitious timeline while aiming to meet and exceed the highest international standards for health, safety and sustainability, requires innovative solutions,” said John Pagano, CEO of TRSDC.
“Our partnership with MachinesTalk will play an important role in ensuring the welfare of our workers, given their proven track record providing smart construction technology and alignment with our business goals.”
TRSDC is committed to setting new standards in worker welfare and was awarded the Excellence in Health and Employee Safety award at Big Project Awards 2020 for their Covid-19 Health and Safety Plan, which demonstrated the efforts employed to maintain the health and safety of their workforce during the pandemic, whether onsite or at their headquarters.
“We are honored to have won this contract with The Red Sea Development Company,” said Nawaaf Alshalani, CEO of Machinestalk. “It shows real forward thinking and care for employees when implementing Internet of things (IoT) solutions at such scale. Using IoT technology will keep the workforce safer and support secure and more efficient operations.”
The new technology aims to address four key considerations for TRSDC’s core construction site area of 3,500km2: site security, worker safety, access control, and process efficiency.
“We asked ourselves how we could enhance security on our site and enable an efficient construction process at the same time, while considering upwards of 36,000 workers across 3,500 km2,” said Ian Williamson, TRSDC’s Chief Projects Delivery Officer.
“How could we ensure worker safety in case of health emergencies or prevent workers getting lost in remote locations in the desert or on islands? How could we control access and track the 3,000 vehicles of multiple contractors across the construction site, delivering materials, tools and transporting employees?”
MachinesTalk’s smart badges and tags allow TRSDC to identify workers and vehicles and secure the construction area against unauthorized individual and vehicle access. Individual access rights will be granted based on role, responsibility, category and group of workers. In addition, the possibility of identifying vehicles remotely, geo-fencing perimeters and setting up alerts based on worker and vehicle access breaches will further enhance security.
A panic button will enable workers in distress to send an SOS signal back to TRSDC’s security and emergency response centre, allowing response teams to be sent directly to the location of the worker without losing potentially life-saving time.
From a process efficiency perspective, all tagged vehicles will have an estimated time of arrival (ETA) to ensure that there are no delays between required tasks. In addition, alerts will be triggered for idle workers or vehicles to enable improved worker supervision.
The technology MachinesTalk provides will apply to all TRSDC’s contractors, who will be able to register their workers and vehicles and receive accreditation for them as required. Real-time and map-based remote tracking of workers and vehicles with heatmaps and counts will allow for more effective resource allocation across locations within TRSDC’s construction area.
Given the criticality of the solution and the ranging temperatures experienced on-site, the smart badge and tag’s operability will be actively monitored with exchanges of devices with low battery and remote deactivation in cases of loss or misappropriation.
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The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC – www.theredsea.sa) is a closed joint-stock company wholly owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia. TRSDC was established to drive the development of The Red Sea Project, a luxury, regenerative tourism destination that will set new standards in sustainable development and position Saudi Arabia on the global tourism map.
The project is being developed over a vast 28,000 km2 area on Saudi Arabia’s west coast and includes a spectacular archipelago of more than 90 pristine islands. The destination also features sweeping desert dunes, mountain canyons, dormant volcanoes, and ancient cultural and heritage sites. The destination is designed to include hotels, residential properties, leisure, commercial and entertainment amenities, as well as supporting infrastructure that emphasizes renewable energy and water conservation and re-use.
Activity for the first phase of the development is well underway and is on track to be completed by the end of 2023. The project has surpassed significant milestones, with over 500 contracts signed to date, worth some SAR 15 bn ($4bn).
The 100-hectare Landscape Nursery, which will provide more than 15 million plants for the destination, is now fully operational. There are more than 5,000 workers currently on-site and more than 70km of the planned 80km of new roads are now complete. The Construction Village, which is set to house 10,000 workers, will be fully open by the end of Q1 this year and development is progressing well at the Coastal Village, which will be home to around 14,000 people who will work at the destination.
Contact details:
For more information please contact:
Rebecca Cousins : Director – PR & Communications Rebecca.Cousins@theredsea.sa
