Technology based location awareness
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Here, Doug Woodbridge, Head of Group Sales and Marketing at S3 ID considers how personnel safety is being improved across both on-shore and off-shore Oil & Gas facilities through the application of technology.
"The advantage of using technology based mustering and location systems is that they can produce accurate real time reports without having to manually inputting data. In an emergency that can make all the difference. Take for instance an emergency evacuation where conditions are far from ideal and even if only one individual is inaccurately recorded using a manual system it can put the safety of rescue teams in jeopardy. It is therefore little surprise that many companies are investing in technology based alternatives."
Within the Oil & Gas sector, knowing where your personnel are during an emergency is essential for their survival. Even in the best planned procedures, paper based systems, which do work, are prone to errors in real emergencies – simply by the fact that people in stressful conditions make mistakes.
Along with the fact that routine emergency preparedness drills are time consuming and therefore, by their nature expensive, the industry has responded by developing technology based mustering and location solutions, which can allow these drills to be completed more efficiently. There are many examples where companies are leading the field in personnel safety after making this investment.
Surveillance Pioneer Synectic Systems Group Unveils
New COEX™ Camera Station
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Synectics expands its family of next generation COEX™ explosion rated camera stations for Oil & Gas, Industrial, and Marine environments with the introduction of the COEX™ 3000.
Demonstrations of the Synectics CCTV networked systems including Synergy security management software, e100 encoder, and COEX™ camera stations are now being carried out throughout the country.
At the demonstrations Western Advance will demonstrate the new Synectics camera station, as well as its Synergy™ security management software, e100 encoder™, COEX™ MECH/6 HD and COEX™ MECH/6 Thermal Imaging camera stations.
Paul Webb, Managing Director of Synectics Oil & Gas comments "We have been designing advanced surveillance systems to meet the specific needs of the Oil & Gas industry for over 25 years, with wide experience in markets across Europe, the Middle East, and Far East. We are excited to be launching our new COEX™ 3000 camera station in the US market".
"The COEX™ 3000 offers unrivalled positional accuracy and speed control in an extremely robust yet compact unit – providing the stable, high-quality images required for a modern surveillance system over IP".
Synectics' advanced camera stations deliver world-class image quality to global Oil & Gas industry. The latest generation COEX™ 3000 explosion protected camera station, for use in adverse area applications, delivers high performance and a feature rich specification in a compact and lightweight 316L stainless steel enclosure. With features including highly accurate positioning, advanced speed control and continuous rotation, the COEX™ 3000 is designed to perform in the most demanding applications no matter how extreme the environmental conditions. It will be released with ATEX certification to meet most market applications, with UL certification to follow shortly. The company will also demonstrate the following key components of its fully customizable, non-proprietary digital security solutions that can deliver the industry's best components and user interfaces for surveillance operators and supervisors while intelligently integrating with a host of third party products.
Synergy Security Management Software
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At the core of its solutions is the award-winning Synergy security management software for simple to use, comprehensive CCTV centralized command and control. Based on its ethos of open standards, Synergy's innovative platform ties together traditionally disparate onshore/offshore alarm management systems such as DCS (Distributed Control Systems), process control, PIDS, ANPR, fence protection/perimeter intrusion detection, and access control. Synergy streamlines the notification and workflow associated with system events and integrates with a wide range of IP, digital and analogue video systems, direct control PTZ devices, alarm and reporting applications, and video analytics and intelligence solutions. Synectics will demonstrate integrations to third party applications specific to onshore/offshore environments such as FFT, Apollo Access Control, GPS Standard and Geoquip.
e100 Encoder/Server
Synectics e100 digital recording solution is a single channel H2.64 video encoder/server. The powerful yet compact design features dual independent streams, full PTZ control, zero operator latency, and energy efficiency. The e100 offers the most efficient, flexible, seamless and high-quality analogue to digital image encoding available, delivering motion picture quality with minimum data rates and storage.
COEX™ Camera Stations
In addition to demonstrating the new COEX™ 3000 camera station, Synectics will also show its COEX™ MECH/6 HD camera station and COEX™ MECH/6 Thermal Imaging camera station. The COEX™ MECH/6 camera station is constructed using 316L stainless steel to minimize corrosion in extreme environments. It offers IP and HD picture quality providing twice the vertical and 2.5 times the horizontal resolution compared with that of an analogue camera. The 16:9 digital screen mode provides more width, less height (less sky) than the traditional 4:3 format, perfect for adverse environment applications. The COEX™ MECH/6 Thermal Imaging camera station was designed to monitor safety flares and associated pilot lights, intruder detection and perimeter protection in adverse environments. It can produce clear images on the darkest of nights, in dense fog/smoke and in the most adverse weather conditions. Thermal imaging applications include long range high security sites such as Oil & Gas installations, nuclear power generation stations and hydroelectric dams.
