How Construction Sites Use Technology to Keep Workers Safer

Build sites are invariably busy and noisy and there are all sorts of risks involved. You’ve got heavy plant moving around, people working at height, materials being lifted overhead and the site conditions can change from day to day. Historically, the way of keeping people safe has been through training, supervision, signage and a massive amount of paperwork.

Technology is now changing the amount of work that gets done. Sensors, mobile apps and digital reporting tools give site teams far better information far more quickly. This article looks at how construction sites are using technology to improve safety, what’s working and where companies need to be careful.

Why safety on site is a technology problem as well as a people problem

The majority of accidents on site have quite well understood causes. Falls from height, being struck by plant or moving vehicles, manual handling and contact with hazardous materials all feature repeatedly in the safety literature.

The problem isn’t so much in knowing what the risks are (we can be quite good at that) as it is in spotting them in time. It’s a site where the conditions are constantly changing. A scaffold that was safe yesterday may have been altered. A new delivery route may have been put in place that now crosses a busy walkway. Paper checklists and weekly inspections are simply not going to pick up on those changes.

This is where technology comes in. It can gather the information all the time, share it instantly and make it much easier for people to act before something goes wrong. It doesn’t in any way replace good management; it just gives the manager a much clearer picture.

Sensors that watch for hazards

Sensors are some of the most useful tools you’ll find on site. They can measure things that are simply not something you can see or track by hand.

Dust and noise monitors are a good example of this. Long-term exposure to dust and loud noise can be bad for workers and can also be a problem for neighbors. You can have sensors around the site to record the levels throughout the day and trigger an alert when the limits are breached so that the dust can be controlled or the noisy work can be modified.

Vibration monitoring is another example. Workers using vibrating tools for long periods can suffer permanent damage to their hands and arms. Some tools and some wearable devices will actually record the amount of time that a worker has been exposed to the vibration which in turn can be used by the supervisors to rotate the work.

Proximity sensors on equipment and vehicles can be used to warn the operator that someone is too close. Tilt and movement sensors can be used to monitor temporary works like scaffolding and excavations and can trigger an alarm if an unexpected movement is detected. Weather sensors can be used to alert crane operators when wind speeds are such that it becomes unsafe.

The key with sensors is that someone must act on the data. Alerts that nobody reads quickly become background noise. It helps to decide in advance who receives each type of alert, what they should do and how quickly they need to respond. Firms that take construction safety seriously are increasingly using digital tools to see what is happening across a site as it happens, rather than finding out days later.

Apps that put safety in everyone’s pocket

The vast majority of people on site have a smartphone so mobile apps are a very straightforward way of getting the safety tools to those who need them.

Digital inductions allow new starters to complete their site induction and sign the required documentation prior to arrival. Permit to work systems can be managed via an app so that supervisors can instantly see which high risk tasks are live and who has approved them.

Hazard reporting is probably the most useful of the features. If a worker spots a trip hazard, a missing guardrail or a damaged cable they can simply take a photo and report it in seconds. The report is then sent directly to the appropriate person with the location and time as part of it. That’s a lot quicker than having to go and find a supervisor or complete a paper form at the end of the day.

Lots of the apps will work offline as well which is important on sites with poor mobile signal. The reports are stored on the phone and then sent when a connection becomes available.

Apps can also be used for toolbox talks and daily briefings. Attendance can be logged electronically and the key messages can be sent out to all at the same time.

Digital reporting that shows the bigger picture

Individual reports are of course useful, but the real value is in combining the data. Digital reporting tools can pull together inspections, incidents, near misses and sensor data in one place.

Managers can then look for patterns. Are near misses increasing in a particular area? Are certain tasks linked to more incidents? Do inspections get missed on busy days? Those are difficult questions to answer with a pile of paper but become a lot easier when the data is all in one system.

Clear records are also of enormous value to clients and to regulators. You build up a degree of trust by being able to show what checks were carried out, when and by whom. That in turn makes the audit process a lot less onerous.

What works and what to watch out for

Not all safety technology delivers on its promise. Some lessons keep coming up again and again.

Simple tools are usually the way to go. If an app is slow to launch or requires too many steps then people will just not use it. The best systems are the ones that work in the way the crews already work.

Training is important. The worker needs to understand why the tool is being used and how it helps them rather than just how to use it. If they see that their hazard reports result in a rapid response they will report more.

Privacy is something that needs to be addressed. Wearables and the various tracking devices we have in the workplace can be a source of concern for staff. The way to deal with this is to be open about what data you’re collecting, why you’re collecting it and how it will be used. That goes a long way to building trust.

Ultimately technology should be there to assist people not to replace their judgement. A sensor can alert you to high winds but it’s still up to the experienced supervisor to decide whether the lift proceeds.

Conclusion

Technology is giving construction sites new ways to identify hazards, share information, and learn from what happens. There are sensors that can detect hazards that the human eye simply can’t see, there are apps that make the reporting of incidents easy and straightforward and there are digital records which can then be used to identify patterns that would otherwise remain invisible. The sites that get the most out of it are the ones that have kept their tooling simple, have trained their people properly and have acted on the data. When used in this way technology becomes a real tool in the pursuit of safety and in ensuring that people get home at the end of the day.