Uepaa Safety App at KONE in Austria: "Often out of sight and shouting distance in the shaft, but protected"

‍

KONE fitters in Switzerland have been using the Uepaa safety app for three years. Now this modern version of the dead man's device is also being introduced in Austria.  

Safety Manager Patrick Matzinger successfully introduced Uepaa in Switzerland in 2021. "The app has great advantages over the old dead man's devices. It triggers an alarm even where there is no mobile phone reception, without employees having to set up antennas and wire shafts. Another big plus is the highly professional external alarm centre," says Patrick Matzinger.

At KONE Switzerland, 50 of its own employees and about 30 employees of subcontractors are already using the app. As a rule, these are fitters or customer service engineers. "The Uepaa app is a good thing, because I'm often out of sight and out of shouting range in the shaft," explains Artur Krein, fitter at KONE Switzerland.

‍

An app that gets help when you can't do it yourself

"When I work alone on the construction site, I use the one-time check function. This is the feature that works without reception. I set a countdown, which is stored in the background in the emergency call center," says the Swiss fitter. At the end of the time entered, he has five minutes to acknowledge or look for a place with cell phone reception. The function of emergency call via motion detection is less suitable in the lift shaft, as the workers often stand in one place for longer periods of time.

In the event of an alarm, the person concerned is called twice, and in the absence of an answer, contact is made by the emergency call centre in accordance with the specified escalation levels. "If that doesn't work either, the ambulance is alerted. In addition, all Uepaa users within a radius of 2 kilometers are asked if they can help," adds Krein. In over 99 percent of cases, a problem is solved directly with the employee or within the team.

Uepaa works with the emergency call center Medicall – a professional emergency call center that helps people around the world 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Austria will also be connected. Uepaa serves numerous large companies such as Swisscom and the Swiss Federal Railways. Fortunately, KONE Switzerland has never had to request an ambulance from Medicall.

‍

Kick-off for Uepaa in Austria

The teams of Andreas Schlögl (Operations Director of the Southern Region) and Robert Fröhlich (Field Support) as well as the two works council colleagues had an open ear from the beginning and supported the project unconditionally. Eugen Ramoser (Safety Specialist in Austria) had already done the best preparatory work, and the app was already known to many. "It is very important to have the full support of the management and other stakeholders in such a project," says Matzinger.  

The first training starts today on 20.03.2024 at the KONE site in Innsbruck, followed by others in Austria.

‍