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What if someone walks in without a hard hat and nobody sees it?

Walking in without a hard hat

It’s 8:15 a.m. at the site gate. The concrete truck arrives, and behind it, on foot, the technician from the formwork company. He waves at the gatekeeper, who’s signing the truck’s packing slip, and walks through. He has his jacket on and his hard hat in his hand. Nobody says anything. Forty minutes later he is standing under the crane jib, on the phone, hard hat still hanging from his arm.

11 cameras across 8 sectors

This is how you ask for it

«Tell me if someone reaches the turnstile without a hard hat, and tell me there, at the gate, not once they have been inside for half an hour.»

A wrench falling from the second floor slab gives no warning. And when it hits somebody who was there without a hard hat, the problem isn’t only medical: the site stops, the inspector arrives, and you have to prove the access control for a visitor who walked in behind a truck. That’s the day you discover that the gate record is a signature in a notebook, and that nobody knows what time he came in or where he went.

You decide once

It’s decided once, at the gate. If someone crosses the turnstile or the pedestrian entrance onto the site without a hard hat, then the alert appears in the gatehouse with the camera open, so they can be stopped there. The organization says where the hard hat zone begins, at what hours and what happens with visitors. The repetitive part is IRIS: watching that gate three hundred days a year, including while the gatekeeper is signing packing slips.

A hard hat doesn’t protect you from your boss. It protects you from a wrench falling off the second floor slab. And the person who walks in without one is almost never the site crew, who have had theirs on since seven: it’s the visitor who’s here for an hour. The technician, the supplier, the sales rep, the one who doesn’t know the place and doesn’t think the place could fall on him.

The problem isn’t a missing rule. The rule is written, it’s on the sign at the gate and it’s signed at check-in. The problem is that it gets checked at the gate, and at the gate one person is signing packing slips, raising the barrier and answering the phone. Half an hour later, that alert is worth nothing. It’s only good for a telling-off, and telling-offs don’t stop a falling wrench.

IRIS watches that gate all the time and alerts at the threshold, while the person is still three steps from the gatehouse and can turn around for a hard hat. It’s an alert that doesn’t feel like a sanction: it feels like somebody warning you. The same sentence works for the technical hallway of a water plant, the walkway to a port’s fuel tanks and the high-voltage space of a substation. The gate changes; the idea doesn’t.

What changes

Before, the warning came when somebody bumped into the visitor inside the site, half an hour late and already in a scolding tone. Now it arrives at the threshold, when the person is three steps from the gatehouse and can turn around for a hard hat. The outcome changes and so does the tone: it isn’t a sanction, it’s somebody warning you. And the visitor is grateful to be told before rather than after.

Where we have seen it

  • Mid-afternoon, at the door of the chemical dosing room. A person with no hard hat, no vest and no goggles steps over the threshold and inside. An operator in a white hard hat and safety vest raises a hand to stop them. Beyond the fence stand the flammables cabinet, the drums and the totes; on the ground, the painted band that marks where the area begins. IRIS sees that somebody has gone in without the area kit, not who they are.

    CAM-317Into the dosing room without the area kit

    «Tell me if anybody goes into the dosing room without a hard hat, a vest and goggles.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • A wide street in the afternoon: cars and a bus on the roadway, a green cycle lane down the middle and a sidewalk with café patios on the right. Nothing unusual is happening; the city is simply moving.

    CAM-41Boulevard: cars, bikes and people

    «Also tell me how many people ride past without a hard hat, so I know whether we need a road-safety campaign.»

    See this camera →The city

  • The technical walkway of a treatment plant, between the aeration basin and the tanks. Someone is coming down the path toward the camera, with no hard hat and no safety vest. At the far end of the same walkway three workers stand by the handrail in vests and hard hats, and on the right another operator in a white hard hat is working on the pumps. The basin is aerating right beside the path.

    CAM-152No hard hat in the plant walkway

    «Tell me if anyone walks into the technical area without a hard hat and a safety vest, whether they work here or not.»

    See this camera →Critical infrastructure

  • Mid-morning on the quay. Someone walks past the fence with the restricted-area plate and keeps going toward the diesel tank and the railroad track. They are wearing neither hard hat nor vest. A few feet away, on the other side of the yellow railing, two workers are at it with hard hats and safety vests. IRIS sees both things at once: the missing kit, and a boundary drawn on the image being crossed.

    CAM-446Past the sign to the diesel tank with no hard hat

    «Tell me if anyone enters the fuel area or crosses toward the track without a hard hat and a vest.»

    See this camera →Ports

  • Afternoon shift in the sorting hall. At the front belt station there’s a person with no hard hat, no gloves and no safety vest, leaning over the material and picking up a bottle bare-handed among glass, cans and film. Around them, seven colleagues work with hard hat, ear defenders, mask, vest and gloves, and the supervisor is checking the line with a tablet. IRIS sees a station worked by somebody whose kit is missing.

    CAM-438No hard hat, no gloves, bare hand on the belt

    «Tell me if somebody starts sorting on the belt without hard hat, gloves or a safety vest.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • Mid-morning at the settling basins. Two operators are on the walkway between two tanks. One is kneeling, working a small valve right on the edge; the other is watching from three feet behind, leaning on the handrail. Neither of them is wearing a hard hat or a safety vest. To their right the water lies open, even if the walkway has a handrail. By the entrance stands the mandatory-equipment sign. IRIS compares what they’re wearing with what that zone requires: hard hat and vest.

    CAM-413No hard hat, no safety vest, right at the edge of the open tank

    «Tell me if anyone works at the edge of a basin without a hard hat or a vest.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • Mid-morning. Someone crosses the gravel of the yard, between the transformer and the switchgear, and reaches out toward the cells. No hard hat, no face shield, no gloves, no arc-rated clothing. Beside them, blue arcs are visible on the switchgear. Here nobody has to decide how many people are too many: one person without protection at that distance is already the incident.

    CAM-347No protective clothing beside the live cells

    «Tell me if anyone enters the high-voltage zone without a hard hat, gloves and protective clothing, even if they are only walking through.»

    See this camera →Industry

  • The pedestrian gate of a city construction site, seen from above: the control cabin, the full-height turnstile and, on the construction fence, the sign with the hard hat and vest pictograms. Two people are waiting at the turnstile: one has a hard hat and a safety vest on; the one beside them is waiting bare-headed and with no vest. A third worker is walking up along the sidewalk, this one kitted out. Behind the construction fence you can see the concrete frame, the scaffolding and the rubble dumpster.

    CAM-51Walking into the site with no hard hat

    «Tell me if somebody turns up at the turnstile with no hard hat or no vest, and tell me there, at the gate, not once they have been inside the site for half an hour.»

    See this camera →The jobsite

  • A flatbed truck is being unloaded with a truck loader crane. A pack of concrete slabs hangs from the hook at mid height. Someone with no hard hat and no safety vest walks past the front of the load, a couple of steps away from it. Up on the bed, the worker who slung the pack is wearing his kit.

    CAM-55No hard hat inside the lifting zone

    «While the truck is being unloaded, tell me if anyone steps inside the crane’s working radius — even if they’re only passing through.»

    See this camera →The jobsite

  • The inside of a large construction site, the ground churned up with tire ruts. A group of people is walking across it: the first has a hard hat and a safety vest on, and the two behind them are bare-headed with nothing reflective. Further back, three more are crossing, also without hard hats. To their right a site dump truck loaded with rubble is moving with its operator in the seat, and top right an excavator is working beside the spoil heap.

    CAM-52Bare-headed among the machines

    «Tell me when somebody walks across the area where the machines are working without a hard hat on, and tell me while they are crossing — there is no second chance there.»

    See this camera →The jobsite

What it doesn’t do

IRIS does not check whether the hard hat is the right one, whether it has expired or whether the chinstrap is done up. It sees whether someone is wearing one or not.

And it identifies nobody: it says someone is without a hard hat where one is required, not who they are. In a wide yard view, a hundred and thirty feet away and backlit, that question cannot be answered well, so it is better not to ask it there.

Questions

Is it meant for disciplining people?
No, and using it that way ruins it. IRIS identifies nobody: it does not recognize faces and does not know who appears in the image. It sees a person without a hard hat where one is required and alerts in time for them to put one on. The aim is for them to walk in wearing it, not to open a personnel file. A site where alerts are used to punish is a site where within a week nobody reads the alerts.
Does it work if the hard hat is hidden by a hood or by a load?
Not always, and it’s worth knowing before anything is installed. A hood, a tall pallet or strong backlight can hide the head. That’s why the camera goes where the head is seen head-on and close: at the turnstile, the pedestrian gate, the compulsory crossing point. There a person fills half the frame and there’s no doubt. In a wide yard view, that same question can no longer be answered well.
Can it be asked for in one specific area only?
Yes, and that’s the right way to set it up. In almost no facility is a hard hat required everywhere: it’s required at the entrance to the store, inside the crane radius, in the machine area or in the technical hallway. You mark that zone on the camera image and the alert only fires there. That way the alert means something, and the fitting room or the office don’t generate noise all day long.
Does it check whether the hard hat is certified or properly fastened?
No. IRIS sees whether a hard hat is on or not; it doesn’t distinguish models, it doesn’t know whether it has expired and it doesn’t check whether the chinstrap is fastened. A person still has to look at that. What IRIS adds is the repetitive, boring part: somebody watching that gate all day, every day, and speaking up the moment someone walks through without one.

See all the questions

The real interface, step by step

You set the rule once. IRIS applies it every time.

You will see a summary of the interface, played step by step and hands-free. Each round starts with another case. The complete tool doesn’t fit in a demo.

  1. The rule gets built
  2. It goes to every camera
  3. Published, it watches alone
  4. And then it fires
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