A safety director on the shifts an agent now works
One person, a million square feet, three shifts. Kevin, director of safety at Unique Industries, on what changed when the cameras started covering the hours he could not.
Unique Industries makes party goods. Its Virginia distribution center is a million square feet, with a second building of 400,000 square feet nearby, and it runs around the clock: more than 450 people across three shifts. The person responsible for keeping all of them safe is Kevin, the company's director of safety and asset protection. There is one of him.
The quotes below are from Spot AI's published account of the deployment. They are worth reading as a plain description of what a video agent is for, from someone with no interest in the technology except whether it works.
The problem was hours
"If I'm spending less time looking up video, that's more time for me to be on the floor keeping people safe."
Before the agents, an incident meant a search. Find the camera, find the window, scrub. The company says investigations that took hours now take minutes. That sounds like a productivity statistic until you remember what a safety director does with the hours: he walks the floor. Every hour at a screen is an hour not spent where the forklifts are.
The agent watches the lanes
The agent Kevin relies on most watches for forklifts and pedestrians getting too close. The complaint everyone has about camera alerts is that they cry wolf. His experience is the opposite.
The system is doing exactly what it's supposed to do. When we get an alert about a near-miss between a forklift and pedestrian, it's always legitimate.
An alert that is always legitimate is an alert people keep reading. That is the whole game. The company reports a 15 percent improvement in safety compliance since the deployment.
Second shift, third shift
Here is the line that explains the headline.
Video AI Agents are my second and third shift safety personnel on-site. They're my extra eyes and hands when I can't be there.
A single safety director cannot be on a night shift and a day shift. Hiring two more of him is not on the table for most manufacturers. What the agent provides is not a replacement for the person; it is coverage for the hours the person was never going to have.
The culture question
Ask any floor how they feel about more cameras and you get a look. Kevin's answer to that is the reason the deployment held.
"Tech goes with safety. It's a help, not a hindrance."
And the line he ends on, which is not about technology at all: "My goal is to take care of the people. When you take care of your people, they take care of you."
That is the bar. A video agent that a safety director will describe in those terms has earned its place on the floor. One that people experience as watching them has not, however good the model.