Social Distancing for Industry

The need for social distancing to reduce the potential spread of COVID19 will continue. This is a problem in the workplace, particularly operational and construction sites where the workforce is large and the site is compact, but could extend to agriculture, schools and beyond any workplace where social distancing is difficult.

Jacobs and PA Consulting are working together to develop a unique solution to support social distancing for highly regulated industrial sites. They propose to develop a ‘Safe Sphere’ device to identify and minimise workplace hazards through real-time data and analytics. This device can keep the workforce safe in environments where social distancing is necessary. This device can underpin onsite risk assessments, project planning, and operations to maintain the health, wellbeing and safety of a workforce. This is particularly important for sites critical to the UK's national infrastructure such as nuclear power plants and nuclear decommissioning sites.

Jacobs and PA will develop and site-test a portable device, which will warn wearers if they are less than 2m away from another person. The device will be one which can be incrementally developed to meet emerging requirements such as those from a regulator.

The key objective of this project is to develop a reliable, mass deployable device which can alert an individual when they are too close to another person. To enable mass deployment across several industries, the device needs to be:

a) low cost

b) built on a technology platform which enables incremental improvements - this is key as the device can be altered to suit specific site hazards

c) have a short development time to enable quicker market entry.

The initial half of the project will focus on designing, prototyping and lab testing a device which can reliably detect another similar device within a 2m proximity. The second half of the project will focus on field testing and identifying additional functionality required for specific industry segments.

An approach of incremental development will be deployed, initially warning the wearer they are less than 2m away from another person and then include the ability to capture a the wearer's movements, integrating technologies to address additional hazards such as equipment proximity (overhead loads, radiation dose monitoring, slips/trips/falls detection, noise, Hydrogen Sulphide, etc.).

Jacobs brings their global industry and regulatory expertise in supporting critical missions, supporting nuclear power plants and nuclear decommissioning. PA Consulting brings product development experience and expertise, for example using technologies they have used to create personal air quality sensors.

The main intention of applying for this extension in funding is to undertake activities which will enable commercialisation and wider deployment of the Safe Sphere device. The main areas of work are:

- Carrying out an in-depth market survey to evaluate the opportunities in key geographies such as UK, USA and Japan.
- Further develop recently established link with Jacobs’s ION data management platform.
- Understand the regulatory and legal rules the device will need to comply with.
- Develop a revenue/business model for the device.
- Explore options for mass production (including evaluating the feasibility of using Jacobs’ in-house manufacturing capabilities, setting up a UK supply chain, using UK manufacturing sites, etc.).
- Prepare sales brochures and other marketing materials.


The key deliverable of this extension phase will be a report which will be used as an investors’ deck, with information covering the topics highlighted above.