The Buddie System, a wireless, instant safety alert device designed for Dogmen by Dogmen was officially launched at The Crane Industry Council of Australia’s (CICA) National Conference and Exhibition held in Adelaide. Designers of The Buddie System, Jade Harris and Gary Panagiotidis have been blown away by the industry’s response to the product.
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“We knew there would be interest in the product, but we have been amazed at how quickly the industry has responded to The Buddie System. Jade and I visited LiftEx Gold Coast in September and that was really interesting. We had a number of conversations with crane hire businesses and suppliers to the lifting industry and the response was overwhelmingly positive,” said Gary.
Given this response, Gary and Jade were really excited to officially launch the product at CICA’s National Conference and Exhibition and it didn’t disappoint.
“In the lead up to the event we sent an email advising customers that we would be officially launching The Buddie System and invited them to visit our stand, and we were surprised with the response,” said Jade.
“We received enquiries from crane hire businesses in America and Europe and from all over Australia. We know from Cranes and Lifting magazine that our article received over 1,000 page views in the first week and all this translated to a very busy stand at the CICA event.
“We had crane hire businesses from all over the country visit the stand, as well as Tier One builders and suppliers to the industry. Everyone commented on simplicity yet effectiveness of the The Buddie System and what a great idea it was, how simple it was to use and why hadn’t something like this been designed before,” he said.
Just about everything has an emergency stop button on it these days, so Jade and Gary developed one for Dogmen – part of a system that overcomes the potential shortfalls of two-way radio failure while providing Dogmen with another form of communication.
Both Dogmen and crane operators rely heavily on two-way radio communication in many scenarios – but alternatives are not always so well developed.
In circumstances where something goes wrong with the two-way – such as a flat battery, frequency drop out, dropped radio or accidental channel change, or if the dogman is unable to access his or her two-way radio – often the only way to communicate with the crane operator is through a whistle and on large scale projects, the whistle if often inaudible for the crane operator.
The Buddie System is designed to be even more attention-grabbing than a whistle, but with the convenience of the lanyard on which the whistle is so often attached.
“The Buddie System is designed to be “A redundancy safety system in case communication via the two-way radio fails,” says Gary.
“We’ve all experienced interference on two ways and on occasions there can be delays in the transmission. Batteries can start beeping and go flat halfway through a lift, which can delay the signal, that’s if the signal gets through at all,” he said.
“You might have told the crane operator to bring the load down and then you’ve dropped your hand mic and you can’t get to it. Or you could be slinging a load and your handset gets caught somewhere in the load, which has probably happened to most of us. You then have to try to get back to that mic as quickly as you can to say stop.
“With The Buddie System, you have the device around your neck, you just pull it, the alarm goes off in the cab and the operator immediately stops the crane,” said Gary.
Perfect Pairing
With The Buddie System, the Dogman wears a lanyard around their neck, fitted with an alarm mechanism called the ‘Lanyard Device’.
The Lanyard Device is paired with a Crane Device which sits with the tower crane or mobile crane operator and the two communicate via long range (LoRa) radio frequency.
In the case of an emergency, the Lanyard Device is designed to separate and when it does, it triggers an audible alarm and flashing lights in the cabin, immediately alerting the operator to the problem.
“That’s the signal for crane operator to stop all motions and he’ll get on his two-way to check if everything is OK,” Jade said.
“It could be that the Dogman’s lanyard had accidently been caught on something and it separated that way setting off the alarm or it could be that something has gone wrong.”
The process of pairing the Lanyard Device and Crane Device is simple, with The Buddie System selling its units in sets.
When a company buys a tower crane set, for example, they will receive one Crane Device and three Lanyard Devices.
The devices are charged and then paired in one of two ways – either by physically plugging the Lanyard Device into the Crane Device, or wirelessly connect the devices together by pressing the pair button at the same time. Once the two devices are paired the lanyards unique ID number will be displayed on the crane device.
Once confident everyone is paired, the crane operator can climb up into the crane and plug the Crane Device into the main power source. As with a radio check, there will be a lanyard check – with each Dogman pulling the lanyard and setting off The Buddie System’s alarm. One simple check that it’s all working and the day begins.
If there is a morning and afternoon shift, operators can pair up to 10 lanyards with the Crane Device. The user-friendly system also allows dogmen to unpair their lanyard from one crane and take it to another, if they are going to work with either another crane or to another job.
Gary can see plenty of interest from Tier One builders and crane hire companies.
“There already has been interest from crane hire companies because of the safety aspect of The Buddie System,” he said.
“Although there is a little initial outlay to purchase the system, this could be a large saving when The Buddie System prevents an accident.
“We are thinking the construction, infrastructure, mining, wind energy, and oil and gas industries will embrace The Buddie System and implement its use in their standard operating procedures,” Gary said.
“The conversations we are having with people high up in these type of organisations have been very positive with comments like ‘If the Buddie System was ready now we’d take it right away,’”.
The Buddie System will be in mass production within the next quarter of 2024/2025.