J&J Cordis de Mexico Case Study
Ensuring Environmental, Health and Safety Leadership at Johnson & Johnson Cordis de Mexico
Cordis de Mexico is a division of Cordis Corporation, a Johnson & Johnson company, and a leading source of less invasive treatments for vascular disease. Cordis leverages technology innovation and a deep understanding of patients and the medical marketplace to develop and make breakthrough products for interventional medicine, minimally invasive computer-based imaging, and electrophysiology. The company’s 7,000 employees are committed to pursuing the ongoing fight against vascular disease.
Protecting Cordis Employees
To protect those employees, Cordis is dedicated to strong environmental, health and safety leadership. As part of that commitment, the company launched an associate risk prevention program designed to monitor and protect workers at a key production facility in Juarez, Mexico. This facility was recognized in 2007 by Industry Week Magazine as #3 in its annual “10 Best Plants.”
Company policy called for all employees to muster for a roll call in the event of a hazardous spill or other safety event. But manual roll calls take time, and missing workers can be difficult to locate if they are incapacitated.
Some time ago, Cordis implemented an automated solution designed to quickly and accurately determine the location of associates within the building in an emergency situation. The system consisted of 25 RFID readers deployed across three loops, and some 2,800 RFID tags worn by individual employees. In the event of an emergency, the building would be evacuated, and security personnel would then access this RFID-based system to ensure all workers were safe.
That automated system was an improvement over the previous manual approach, but after a review, Cordis identified a number of areas that needed improvement. The RFID tag intervals were not set correctly, and the software could not handle the number of required transactions. The system also suffered from power supply, wiring and other hardware problems.
Managers at Cordis knew RFID was the right solution, and to refine and improve their system, they called on the specialists at Xterprise.
The Clarity High Definition Solution
Xterprise evaluated the Cordis employee safety RFID solution, then recommended and implemented a number of changes. By properly wiring the system, and by changing the power distribution, Xterprise solved the key hardware-related problems.
Xterprise then deployed the Clarity EHS Environmental, Health and Safety solution to provide real-time location-based data on every worker in the Cordis facility. This high definition enterprise asset management and personnel locater solution incorporated a Wavetrend RFID reader network, Wavetrend Active RFID Personnel Tags and the Xterprise Clarity EHS Personnel Locator software application.
This solution allows Cordis to enact role-based security access and automated scan initiation and event reporting. Security managers can view maps of scanned employees from several locations, and view reports that show the scanned network, areas, zones and found employee count. Scans activate automatically in the event of a plant emergency, and data from an event can be saved for reporting and performance analysis. Event histories can later be queried by date to show event locations, type, duration and the operator who initiated the scan.
Unlike other potential solutions – which would have required the removal of existing equipment – this Xterprise solution allowed Cordis to retain its installed RFID system components. Xterprise harnessed, corrected and improved that existing equipment to deliver a solution that met the company’s high standards for employee health and safety.
Measurable Safety Results
This approach allowed Cordis to monitor employee locations in 25 active zones, including all offices, warehouses and clean rooms. In the event of an emergency situation, Cordis managers can now have 100 percent accountability for all employees within their facility.
This Xterprise solution allows Cordis de Mexico to:
- Ensure complete emergency evacuations by immediately locating all associates by area and zone
- Prevent injuries during emergency situations
- Locate incapacitated workers
- Collect safety-related data to continuously improve safety-related performance.
Based on the success of an initial pilot deployment, Cordis called on Xterprise to implement this RFID-based safety system throughout the Juarez facility. Now complete, Cordis is evaluating the implementation of this RFID solution at three other manufacturing plants.
J&J Cordis de Mexico Case Study