A dedicated in-house Product Development team ensures OPTALERT is continuously releasing new products and enhancing existing ones.
OPTALERT’s role as an industry innovator in fatigue management technologies has stemmed from decades of scientific research and product development, but Product Development and Operations Manager, Rob Chapman, says continuing to stay ahead and bring new innovations to market is very much a team effort.
And according to Chapman, whose responsibilities include all product improvements from innovation, enhancements to manufacturing and general product upkeep, the sky is the limit when it comes to the OPTALERT technology.
The Product Development team also includes a further six staff members who work solely on improving the OPTALERT products and functionality.
Among those is OPTALERT Senior Scientist, Dr Andrew Tucker and Scientist, Christopher Hocking who were instrumental in the creation of the drowsiness detection algorithm which forms the basis for the OPTALERT technology, and continues to lead the way in the refinement and development of its applications.
Chapman says that despite the rapid advances the company has made in both hardware and software, the entire organisation is keeping an eye firmly focused on the future.
“Our challenge continues to be in understanding the direction in which the broader mining and road transport industries’ needs are going,” he says.
“We need to ensure the work we’re doing in Product Development is anticipating that evolution of needs and planning for it,” he adds, pointing to the enormous time, research and testing that goes into any advancement before customers even see it.
“In the past couple of years, we have taken the OPTALERT product to the next level by developing enhancements which have addressed some key areas for improvement outlined by our customers, most notably the way in which we display visual information back to the driver and to dispatch rooms,” he says.
Chapman believes it’s critical to the product development cycle to link technology advancements with the needs of customers:
“It’s important that we continue to identify new ways of improving the technology as well as the user interface, so that means listening to feedback and input from our customers and working to incorporate that into our product development cycle.”
Chapman says that while some of the innovations and refinements over the years have been obvious, such as the evolution of the OPTALERT Glasses, the introduction of the Dashboard Indicator and Fatigue Risk Profiler, plus the integration of new wireless technology to ensure OPTALERT’s compatibility with third party communication systems such as Modular Mining, other equally important advancements go unnoticed to the naked eye.
“We’ve made improvements in areas ranging from real-time data transfer to data security and clock synching which have been really important in ensuring the maximum effectiveness of the system for our customers,” he says.
“Quite often the technological improvements that customers wish to see in our products tomorrow are the exact same improvements that we’re already working on today,” he adds.
And while the research and development challenges provide a constant source of inspiration for Chapman and his team, it’s also the pride that comes from working with a socially responsible product that proves to be a key motivator:
“As the product continues to roll out across the world, and we positively impact the lives of OPTALERT users by helping them get home safely to their families, we look with pride at the amazing contribution our technology makes to society in general.”