FYLD awarded £500k regulator funding in partnership with SGN and National Grid
Shelley Copsey of FYLD
27 July 2022 – FYLD, in partnership with SGN and National Grid, has been awarded £500k (€594.06k) from the UK regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM). The plan is to dramatically transform safety in the utilities industry by predicting high-risk events before they happen.
The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven platform, which powers productivity and safety for fieldworkers across a range of complex utility and construction sectors, will use the funds to accelerate development of FYLD’s Predictive Analytics Platform. This will predict operational and safety incidents on site before they happen, enabling effective mitigation and substantially less non-productive time on site. This funding will be applied to the safety aspects of the platform.
Using a combination of FYLD’s proprietary data and safety incident information from SGN and National Grid, the companies will collaborate to create a safer, more predictable, lower risk working environment for every fieldworker, on every job. As a result, more jobs will be finished when they should be, and more workers will go home to their families safe after the completion of their day’s work. Key areas of research focus include:
- Understanding from a deep data led perspective, lead indicators of safety incidents on site. This will leverage the operational digital twin that FYLD creates for its customers, that provides robust information about site conditions and jobs in the run up to incidents
- How site risk evolves during the course of a day, and which specific changes on site should result in real time data driven alerts to remote safety managers
- The true efficiency of control measures that are applied to site hazards, including building an understanding of how individuals apply those control measures versus the intended application of the measures, and how the implementation of effective controls can be more uniformly applied to keep field workers safe on site.
Shelley Copsey, CEO at FYLD says, “FYLD is paving the way with field workforce predictive analytics, including a ‘zero-harm’ vision for the utilities industry, powered by AI. We are incredibly grateful to OFGEM, and proud of the amazing enthusiasm and drive our team has demonstrated in ensuring this step change in safety and predictive analytics continues to develop.
“It is vitally important we continue to evolve AI solutions like FYLD, innovating and developing novel technologies which keep people safe and productive at work. This funding from OFGEM will enable our expert teams to continue developing the technology and systems that enable field workers to return home safely every day after working in hazardous environments.”
FYLD secured the funding as part of the inaugural Alpha phase of OFGEM’s Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), which aims to find and fund ambitious, innovative projects with the potential to accelerate the transition to net zero. These projects will help shape the future of the gas and electricity networks and succeed commercially where possible. The SIF is delivered in partnership with Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
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