CAM-309
The manway has been open for half an hour and nobody is there
Mid-morning in the tank farm. The horizontal tank has its manway open, the cover swung back and the hole in plain sight. A wet trail runs down the shell to the valve below, which is dripping onto the concrete inside the bund. Nobody is inside the enclosure: the only two operators are far away, at the other end of the yard, talking. IRIS sees the open cover, sees the drip and sees that nobody is there, and times it from the moment it was opened.

Turn on IRIS Vision
AI-generated image
What IRIS understands
What it recognises in this scene
- manway left open
- wet trail down the shell
- valve dripping
- wet concrete inside the bund
- crew at the far end of the yard
What this camera measures
An alert says something is happening. The reading says how much.
- 37 minTime the manway has been open
- 0People inside the enclosure
- 2Open points on the tank
- 08:12Last entry into the enclosure
- 11:49Time of the alert
The figures on this screen are an example from the illustration, not any client's measurement.
The rule
You decide once. IRIS applies it always.
If
a process point is left open for more than twenty minutes with nobody inside the enclosure
Then
- alert the shift supervisor with the camera, the tank and the time it was opened
- save the video of the opening and of the last person who was there
- keep the alert open until somebody comes back into the enclosure
The instruction that set it up«Tell me if a manway or a valve is left open for more than twenty minutes with nobody in front of it.»
What changes
What changes for whoever answers for the plant
An open point with nobody in front of it is one of those things that show up in no system at all: no signal, no alarm, no record. It gets found on the next walk-round, or it does not get found. With the camera, the shift supervisor gets the alert with the time it was opened and the time of the last person who was there. That turns “somebody left that open” into a fact with a picture and a minute, which can be closed out on the shift report.
What people usually ask
How does the camera know nobody is there, rather than the person being out of sight?
Because the rule is written around an enclosure, not around a point. IRIS watches the whole tank bund, not just the manway, and only counts time while there is nobody inside that polygon. If somebody walks in, the clock stops. If the shot has blind spots, that is stated and solved with a second camera: what cannot be seen is not claimed. It is the only way for the alert to be worth anything.
Can it tell a manway opened for work from one left forgotten?
Not on its own. The camera sees that it is open and how long it has been open; whether that matches a work permit is known by the plant. That is why the rule is written with a time and a condition: open, nobody in the enclosure, more than twenty minutes. The plant sets that threshold, because the plant knows how long a normal operation takes there. IRIS runs the rule; it does not write it.
And the dripping valve — does it pick that up too?
Yes, if it can be seen. A trail down the shell, a puddle growing on the concrete or the shine of liquid under a flange show up well from a camera four metres up. A tiny drip behind lagging does not. Which product it is and whether that drip is acceptable comes from the plant procedure; the camera adds the picture and since what time it has been like that.
Other cameras
- CAM-300 · The drum arriving at the station is not the one on the order
- CAM-301 · Flammables, corrosives and oxidisers in the same bund
- CAM-302 · The tanker hose, coupled to the forbidden manifold
- CAM-303 · The tanker is still connected and nobody is watching it
- CAM-304 · Two drums with the label torn off in the marked bay
- CAM-305 · The IBC has sagged onto a broken pallet and is dripping on the floor
The real interface, step by step
A camera looks. IRIS understands what it sees.
An extract of the real screen, no voice-over and hands-free. Each round poses another situation. What sits behind it is a good deal bigger than what you see.
- You ask
- IRIS searches
- It shows you
Next step
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How long does it take to find a hand played two hours ago?
12 cases: 9 raise an alert when something happens and 3 only measure. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
Shopping centres
What does a shopping centre see beyond the visitor count?
12 cases: 4 raise an alert when something happens and 8 only measure. You see each image as it is, and then with what IRIS understands on top.
And the best part
You can ask which van came in yesterday.Who was inside is not a question you ask here.
IRIS searches for things and situations, not people: it identifies nobody and recognises no faces. You write what you are looking for and it returns the matching minutes.
Tell us your problem and we will say whether IRIS understands it, or not yet.
We reply the same working day.