The success of any construction project largely depends on the safety measures put in place by managers and tradespeople. According to Safe Work Australia, 3,414 workers lost their lives at Australian construction sites between 2003 and 2016. Most of these fatalities are caused by falls from a height, being hit by heavy falling objects, getting trapped by heavy machinery, contact with electricity, and job site explosions.
The use of technology can go a long way in mitigating these incidents; ultimately improving workers’ productivity and project quality. Here are some of the latest construction technology innovations that can help you improve job site safety.
Construction Drones
In recent years, there has been a significant uptake in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) at construction sites. These UAVs (or drones) can help to monitor all activities on site.
Using drones for site inspections, contractors can avoid sending employees to dangerous hard-to-reach areas and narrow spaces. Instead, they simply deploy UAVs to easily undertake the surveillance of typically hard-to-reach areas such as high vertical structures and bridges.
With drones, contractors can monitor the entire site remotely from a safe location without sending a worker to dangerous zones physically. It’s also easier to undertake situational analysis by using drones to verify a structure’s strength before sending your workers in person. This helps prevent fatal accidents.
Adoption of Mobile Technology
As a project manager, adopting an effective mobile strategy at construction sites should be one of your main safety measures. Mobile technology helps you streamline communication, boost collaboration, and also empower your workers with real-time information. Information can be easily passed across by the touch of a button.
Smartphone apps such as Equipchat can help you monitor the efficiency and safety of equipment at the job site. With these apps, you can manage crucial parameters such as equipment maintenance schedules and operation hours. Construction safety phones that detect the infrared spectrum also come in handy. These phones detect heat, which is one of the main indicators of an impending hazard.
Advanced Construction Processes
There are a number of advanced construction processes that improve safety. If your project involves welding for instance, consider using technologies such as Modified Short Circuit MIG and Pulsed MIG. These technologies enhance structural quality and overall worker productivity.
You can also prevent accidents through the use of advanced modeling software. Such technology helps you pinpoint all potentially dangerous issues during the design phase before construction begins. With this software, you can easily incorporate the safety of your workers when designing your project, allowing you to make design decisions that are based on potential risks posed to workers.
Cloud Computing
Odd as it may sound, cloud computing can go a long way in improving worker safety. Cloud computing allows you to store crucial job site data and enhance the collaboration between project managers and team members. This enables you to maintain high safety standards.
Due to the dynamic nature of construction projects, cloud computing can help you maintain consistency. The regular change of construction workers and the need to use new equipment at each stage of a construction project means mistakes must be minimised.
Smart Helmets
The use of smart helmets has been gaining prominence in the construction sector. According to Jurovich Surveying, industrial and construction workers in Australia are increasingly using smart helmets at the workplace for safety reasons.
Smart helmets are slightly smaller than typical hard hats that are popular at construction sites. They are equipped with a variety of smart technology features, including a transparent visor, sensors, cameras, and special lenses which provide a heads-up display.
Smart helmets enable your workers to gather job site data while carrying out their activities. Work instructions can conveniently be viewed via the helmets. For instance, a worker who is operating a conveyor at the job site can get real-time instructions about an area of the site that needs to be supplied with a certain material.
Safety Halo Lights
When working at night, visibility poses a serious hazard at the construction site, which is why halo lights help prevent accidents. For instance, the Illumagear Halo Light is easy to spot from up to 300 meters away. Your workers only need to connect the gear to their helmets to make them visible to everyone else at the site.
The significance of job site safety shouldn’t be understated. Even with these technology innovations, awareness and communication are the main contributors to worker safety. Besides these, staying alert, regular inspection of equipment, and strict observance of a maintenance protocol help to minimise unforeseen disasters at construction sites.