At L'Oréal's La Roche-Posay production site in France, open seven days a week, operators, quality technicians and maintenance technicians work alone at night and at weekends. The EHS team explains the switch to Neovigie, the end of false man-down alarms and how alerts are monitored from the gatehouse.
Once the system is reliable and able to protect someone working alone, price is not really the issue when a person's life is at stake.
The La Roche-Posay factory (Vienne, France) is part of L'Oréal's Active Cosmetics division. To keep up with growing production, the site operates Monday to Sunday, with morning, afternoon, night and weekend teams. Packaging operators, quality technicians and maintenance technicians can find themselves working alone, especially in plant rooms out of sight.
The previous lone worker system raised nuisance alarms whenever someone knelt down. As a result, staff put the device down instead of wearing it.
Neovigie first rolled out the VigieApp app, then the VigieLink device for staff without a work phone. The devices are kept in the departments and at the gatehouse, and tested with the user each time they are collected.
The request for change came from the shop floor, and users adopted the system without resistance. Reliable fall detection has put an end to false alarms: staff now keep their device on them. After about a year of use, the EHS team is satisfied and plans to keep developing the solution with Neovigie.
Video in French. English translation of the transcript.
Welcome to the La Roche-Posay site. You are here in the heart of the Vienne department, in the town of La Roche-Posay, at the L'Oréal factory. In my role, I work across two production sites, the Vichy factory and the La Roche-Posay factory, which are both part of the L'Oréal group, in its Active Cosmetics division, which focuses on skincare.
On the La Roche-Posay site, there are different jobs with different levels of risk. There are risks linked to night work. We also have very long operating hours: because production has increased, we run what we call atypical schedules. We are open Monday to Sunday, with regular morning, afternoon and night teams, plus additional teams who come in at weekends. With these weekend teams, a lone working risk can appear, which does not depend on the job as such but on the person's situation: a packaging operator alone in an area for a while, a quality technician, or what we call our Maintenance and New Works technicians, who move around plant rooms that are not necessarily in anyone's line of sight and where they find themselves working alone.
For the installation of VigieApp and VigieLink, we had many discussions with Neovigie, because at first only the VigieApp app was deployed. However, not all our staff have a mobile phone on which an app can be installed. What we needed was a dedicated lone worker safety device. Neovigie met our needs by offering us the VigieLink device, which arrived a few months after VigieApp was deployed. We were able to test the features and set up everything we wanted for our site and in the app. Once all this had been agreed, in two meetings with Neovigie, we in the EHS department and the users were able to roll out the VigieLink devices very quickly across the site.
The lone worker devices are kept either in the departments or at the gatehouse. Each time one is used, it is tested with the user and its operation is explained to them. Then, if an alert is detected, we see it on a platform that the security officer has on screen all day. On this platform, we can locate the alert and see which device is alarming and where. We have a single contact, the security officer, who receives the alarm very quickly: within seconds, the alert reaches the gatehouse.
The first alarm we use is the device's fall detection. The second is the manual alarm: the person presses the SOS button on the VigieLink. The third is the lifeline. Our site is in a lovely setting in the middle of the countryside, but there can be areas with no signal. To cover these areas, VigieLink meets our needs with the lifeline.
Users did not resist this change at all, since it was their request. It was a proactive request: users came to us and said that, to improve safety, it might be worth changing technology. When the request comes from the shop floor, it can only be welcomed if the system meets expectations. For it to be used, it has to be simple and well explained, and users are convinced. The second problem was the loss-of-verticality detection on other devices, which caused false alarms. Being able to tell a range of different movements from a real fall makes alarms at the gatehouse much more reliable. That is really what users appreciate.
We have VigieLink devices available at the gatehouse. Everyone in my team can collect one when needed, especially when they are going to work alone, and they are then connected directly to the gatehouse. Before this system, we had another lone worker system that caused us quite a few problems, particularly with tilt detection: it went off for no reason when people knelt down, for example. So our staff tended to put it down and not wear it. VigieLink no longer has this drawback: our staff are safer and always have it on them when needed.
VigieApp is quite simple, with an intuitive interface. The device is also very easy to use and can be used by anyone, thanks to its small number of buttons. We recommend this system, which performs much better than the previous one: we no longer have the tilt problem, so it meets our needs.
The constraint in my job is that I am sometimes on my own, in the office or outside. I feel safer, because if I am taken ill or something happens to me, the person at the gatehouse will be alerted and they know where I am. What I like about the device is that it is easy to use and does not take up much space. I would recommend it because you feel safe when you are alone and it is practical.
Compared with the systems we used before or other systems on the market, it is cost-effective. We chose to buy our VigieLink devices at reasonable prices, with a monthly subscription for each one to ensure continuity of service. And once the system is reliable and able to protect someone working alone, which at L'Oréal we call a "Life" risk, meaning a risk that could potentially be fatal, price is not really the issue when a person's life is at stake.
We have been using the VigieLink system for almost a year, and we have been working with Neovigie on rolling out this solution on our site for more than a year. We are satisfied with the Neovigie system and we are able to protect our lone workers. User feedback is also good. There is always room to develop the system, and we hope to keep evolving with Neovigie's technology to offer solutions that are even better suited to the needs of lone workers on our site.
