The role of stevedores in Australia’s docks is a hazardous one, having to navigate with and around heavy machinery during their container loading and unloading operations, but thanks to one company's IoT-base solution, their work has become much safer.

Safety Ammo – a part of Australian company Ammo.co – set about looking at ways to use technology to ensure the pinning activities conducted by stevedores is as safe as possible.

What the company came up with is the ‘Smart Pinning Station’, which uses real-time wireless monitoring and intelligent personnel and machinery detection capabilities to allow stevedores to share their workspaces with heavy machinery.

A combination of passive RFID, safety-certified RADAR, PLC integration, and wifi and industrial-grade Ethernet has allowed for both the locations of personnel and heavy machinery to be tracked in real-time.

The Smart Pinning Station establishes a smart working zone that improves operational efficiency without comprising the safety of on-ground workers.

This implementation allows seamless cooperation between worker and machine by intelligently managing workers movement between the safe and working zones.

As a result, cranes can increase their number of moves per hour without any further risks to the safety of on-ground men and machine.  

Safety Ammo has successfully deployed its solution at a prominent Australian port, with plans to expand to others.

Safety Ammo has also seen interest from ports overseas adopt its solution within their operations.

This project won the Secondary Industry category of the Australian IoT Awards 2017. View the other winners here.