COMMERCE, Calif. – Whether it’s through a cellphone, an ID badge, or a wristband old tracking technology is finding new use stopping the spread of COVID-19.
Project manager Michael Benitez has worked at DeskMakers for a year. They manufacture office furniture, but they’ve added some new items with coronavirus in mind, such as clear dividers.
There are new products and pains, but of course it’s better than not having a job.
“It was really scary at first, you know. We heard about all these places closing down and we just, we weren’t sure what was going to happen. We all thought we were going to lose our jobs,” said Benitez.
Artificial intelligence is part of what’s keeping him on the job.
Each employee has their own badge. It tracks their movements and notes each time two employees get within six feet of each other for multiple minutes. Then it turns that data into something digestible like a heat map where red represents the area most prone to proximity violations.
They call this ADAM Solutions, which stands for Active Distance Alert and Monitoring. DeskMakers Chief Operating Officer John Nutt implemented the learning software and when one of his employees got COVID-19 he was able to pinpoint and alert everyone that person got near, rather than close the whole building.
“You’re always thinking like, OK, this is going to be a short-term thing. It just feels like now this is kind of a normal way of doing business,” said Nutt.
Kalon Welch is the co-owner of FastSensor, which started years ago as a shopper tracking and analytics tool. His team created ADAM Solutions just weeks into the pandemic.
“In the short-term this is about keeping businesses open, keeping people safe, and making sure we can all survive this together,” said Welch.
Over time DeskMakers has cut down on the human traffic jams. It’s hard because building is often a team effort.
They refer to ADAM Solutions as artificial intelligence because the system gets smarter over time. For example, after collecting data for a while the technology can spit out layout recommendations to optimize worker and customer flow.
