INEOS TEAM UK partner with Mafic to inform social distance policies with wearable technology devices

INEOS TEAM UK shore team wearing Mafic device © C Gregory

With the America's Cup fast approaching and INEOS TEAM UK, the British Challenger, back on the water, the team has adapted their working protocols to ensure the safety of the team and the local community, including partnering with Mafic, to make use of their innovative Safeguard technology.

Mafic developed their wearable Safeguard technology to identify workplace hazards and productivity improvements in industrial environments. Combining ultra wideband location technology accurate to 20cm, environmental sensors, and machine learning, Safeguard can recognise what activities are taking place, and give you a uniquely detailed view of hazard exposure, task completion, and productivity across an entire workforce.

Working with INEOS TEAM UK, Mafic has adapted this Safeguard technology into wearable devices which help the team operate, wherever possibe, within social distancing guidelines. The devices record location and can recognise the unique movement patterns of team members completing different tasks to a high degree of detail. That output is then subsequently built into a series of dashboards that can be analysed by INEOS TEAM UK management to make smart, data-led decisions that improve social distancing and safety.

INEOS TEAM UK Team Principal and Skipper Ben Ainslie said: "To enable the team to get back to work and minimise the risk to our team and the community we have put together a new strategy we call ZERO COVID days. As part of this strategy we have partnered with Mafic to enable us to closely monitor our movement and ensure wherever possible we keep to our social distancing policies.

"Mafic have been brilliant in adapting their technology and devices to our working environment within a matter of weeks. We can attach the Mafic devices to our arms or our PFDs (Personal Flotation Devices) and analyse the data coming off of them to identify any hotspots where people are getting close to the two-metre social distancing barrier on a frequent basis and subsequently adapt our working practices where necessary."

Mafic CEO Will Woodhead added: "Mafic was founded with the mission of making workplaces safer because I'd seen accidents happen too many times, and it is a terrible thing to witness. Determined to do something about it, I knew that by combining some clever technology with our operational experience we could build something that would make a real difference to people's lives. We quickly realised that this same technology could be used to improve productivity, as well as safety, and Safeguard was born.

"Now, with Safeguard, we can detect and map hazards like micro-slips, -trips, and -falls, and can recognise the activities completed by users in granular detail - not just that a tool is being used, but which tool, when, and where. This creates an incredibly rich picture of what is happening across a site and Safeguard presents the data back in a way that it can be used to quickly identify opportunities and make improvements as we have with INEOS TEAM UK.

"We are thrilled to have been able to help the team to get back out on the water safely and are pleased to be able to demonstrate Safeguard's ability to deliver value across a broad range of applications. We wish the team every success in New Zealand!"

Britannia flying past Osborne House on the Isle of Wight - photo © C Gregory