“Everstream Analytics Risk Assessment provides a macro-level overview that helps us focus our additional intelligence work on the most vulnerable locations and the most significant risks.”
– David Zrost, Head of Corporate Security, ANDRITZ
When sending skilled personnel into the most remote and politically unstable regions of the world, the safety and security of staff and worksites across 120 countries, including sensitive locations like Central Africa and the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, is of paramount importance. Headquartered in Graz, Austria, ANDRITZ GROUP supplies and services complex, high-value plant equipment for hydropower stations, the pulp and paper industry, the metalworking and steel industries, and for solid/liquid separation in the municipal and industrial sectors.
Customer Objective
As a key technology supplier, ANDRITZ needs to ensure that it can deliver equipment and materials securely to sites and that its personnel can conduct work safely. Putting infrastructure and operating procedures in place to allow this is entirely the responsibility of the company’s corporate security function.
Security at ANDRITZ is based on a multi-layered, intelligence-led risk assessment process. From the company’s headquarters, the team collects information on historical incidents and emerging threats using a wide variety of data sources, including traditional and digital media. After reviewing the security situation around specific projects and the routes used to transport personnel and materials, the team must support with further local intelligence gathering, monitoring local news and social media, and first- hand evaluation on the ground. Understanding the level and nature of any threats to personnel allows ANDRITZ to take appropriate steps to protect them.
Everstream Solution
With so many sites spread across the world, the ANDRITZ security team trusts Everstream Analytics, the differentiated predictive risk analytics company, to provide risk assessment and incident monitoring solutions.
Everstream’s Risk Assessment draws on a broad range of data sources to build up a picture of the exposure of specific locations to more than 35 different categories of risk, from natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes to political instability and terrorist activity. The system can generate risk “heat maps” providing an overview of the risk situation in different regions while coding down to the street address level allows users to drill down into the data to understand the level of specific risks at individual sites. “Everstream Analytics risk heat maps provide a useful first indicator of the level of risk at individual project sites and help us identify possible routes to access those sites,” explains David Zrost, Head of Corporate Security. “We are always going to support our initial assessments with human intelligence gathered on the ground, but by automating the high-level data collection that we previously carried out manually, the tool lets us spend more time gathering detailed information on the sites that face the highest risks, and on the specific nature of those risks.”
To track the changing security situation at sites where activities are underway, ANDRITZ is also using the platform’s Incident Monitoring to provide near real-time alerts on incidents and events that have the potential to affect site operations, or which could disrupt the routes and transport modes used to transport people and equipment. To ensure it receives all the most relevant incident information, ANDRITZ can filter the alerts they receive based on the locations of its project sites and other relevant facilities, from ports to staff accommodation.
Customer Benefits
Incident Monitoring was quick to prove its value within the first year. A 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Southern Afghanistan caused fatalities and extensive infrastructure damage across a region that extended over the border into neighboring Pakistan, where ANDRITZ had a hydro power project underway.
“We had incident monitoring set up for the region surrounding our site because we knew it was in a high-risk area for natural disasters,” says Zrost. “As soon as the earthquake occurred, we were alerted … and we were able to contact the site to ensure our people and assets were out of harm’s way.”
Everstream Analytics is also helping the company on a strategic level even before it embarks on new projects. “When we are deciding whether or not to bid on a project, we can use the Risk Assessment tool to quickly assess the level of risk at the proposed site,” explains Zrost. “That gives us a first indication of the cost and complexity of ensuring security, which helps us understand if the project is viable.”
Following a highly successful first year, ANDRITZ has plans to extend and expand its use of Everstream Analytics. The ultimate goal, says David Zrost, is a comprehensive “Security Dashboard.”
| Customer Objectives – Ensure the safety and security of personnel and assets working at hundreds of locations including remote and politically unstable regions – Ensure security and continuity in the supply of materials to customer sites – Support the ongoing efforts of the corporate security team by automating and accelerating high level intelligence gathering and incident monitoringEverstream Solution – Everstream Analytics Risk Assessment provides overall risk heat maps and site-specific data on exposure to more than 35 different risk categories – Everstream Analytics Incident Monitoring delivers near real time information on events Customer Benefits |