Feature
Safety At Work: How Can Businesses Achieve By Lee Jasper, Head of Products and Solutions at Johnson Controls
We’re finally beginning to return to some sense of normality. As we begin returning to work, we’ll be entering a new world with a greater focus on public safety than ever before in our lifetimes. With the opening of non-essential stores in June, retailers were among the first to face the challenge of enforcing social distancing in stores. As office buildings, schools, hotels, entertainment venues and other spaces reopen their doors, we’ll see this taken a step further by businesses, who must try to instil confidence by showing how staff and visitors can be protected.
In this ‘new normal,’ buildings will play a fundamental role in keeping people safe. Ready-made to integrate with new systems, smart buildings will enable the rise of contactless facilities – and regular buildings will have to become smarter to do the same. Technology will act as an additional layer of protection to minimise physical contact, and ultimately limit any potential spread of COVID-19.
The contactless building is set to become the norm as workplaces and buildings transition out of lockdown. But how will they take shape?
Eliminating Physical Contact
Beginning with its defining characteristic, workplaces and buildings are becoming ‘contactless’ in a bid to improve hygiene as we transition out of lockdown. Designed to ensure visitors have no need for physical contact during their time at a facility, the aim of contactless buildings is to protect
staff, visitors and operations – this can be achieved through the removal of physical tokens like access control cards to eliminate contact with doors, scanners and buttons.
There are countless factors for building managers to consider. This includes simple solutions which we take for granted, such as automatic doors, as well as innovative takes on traditional methods – such as viricidal and gel-dispensing door handles. It also includes emerging technologies: here, facial recognition and biometrics come into play as a means of access control. Rather than relying on access cards, lanyards and buttons, users can gain access simply by waving their hand over touchless sensors. Through the application of biometrics, businesses can improve security and bring peace of mind to users by removing the need for contact with physical building infrastructure.
The increasing role of smart facilities in recent years means that many buildings are now ready-made to integrate with these new technologies. Coupled with the fact that many of these solutions are compatible with existing access control systems, this means there is no need to make considerable investments. Instead, the majority of cases will involve a simple retrofit, allowing businesses to ensure a frictionless access experience for building occupants and visitors.
Keeping Building Occupants Safe
Contactless buildings will play an integral role in limiting the spread of COVID-19 within office spaces, leisure spaces, and countless other facilities. However, it’s worth noting that
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