Construction Safety: A Tech Toolbox Talk

We must start with the culture of safety in our businesses. This must start from the top down and the bottom up. And we need to get all the people in the middle to go all the way around. Because people are key here. So too is the process. Welcome to the Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. Hello, listeners, and welcome to today’s edition of the Peggy Smedley Show. As always, I’m your host, Peggy Smedley. 99 minutes. A worker died every 99 minutes from a work-related injury in 2023 compared to 96 minutes in 2022. Safety is, without a doubt, paramount in all industries. We know it. We talk about it.

And we will dive into this topic here in the first segment. Since this week is Construction Safety Week and National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Falls Week, On this first segment of today’s show, I’m going to talk all about some of the objectives of all of these initiatives. And they’re so powerful so that we keep our workers safe every night and so they go back home to all of their loved ones. I’ll also give my own toolbox talk, giving some examples of how technology can help improve safety. Finally, I will also dig into one specific case study demonstrating how a company is taking some really great steps to use artificial intelligence to protect workers. So stick around for that.

There’s so much we have going on in the show today. But first, let me tell you about my guest today. I will be talking with Young Shin, who is the Donald A. and Nancy R. Rao Distinguished Professor of Advanced Manufacturing at Purdue University. Now, we’re going to discuss additive manufacturing and why it has been getting so much global hype lately. And we’re talking a lot of hype and a lot of interesting discussion. Now, we’re going to also talk about some of the work he’s doing in additive manufacturing and how this has all impacted education. It’s really exciting. And I think it’s fun to talk about where we’re headed and where we’ve been to get to where the future is all going to be.

And then I’m going to wrap up the show talking with Brian Curry. Now, he’s the CEO and founder of Earthcam. Now, I know many of you have seen all the great videos that they do, but we’re going to talk about how the camera and software technology have evolved in innovations that are now available in safety. Artificial intelligence, for instance, is offering new opportunities to improve safety on the job site. And we’re going to talk about right here on the show and what that means in the way they’ve evolved and how innovations are really keeping job site workers safe and all the information that AI is bringing. So lots to talk about today. So stick around.

But first, let’s get started talking about Construction Safety Week. I think this is such a very important topic and you can’t talk about safety enough. But let’s start with this number. One thousand and seventy five. The construction industry had the most fatalities among all industry sectors in 2023. Think about that. We talk about safety all the time in construction. And yet a thousand seventy five lives were lost. Fall slips and trips accounted for thirty nine point two percent, to be exact, of all construction fatalities, with transportation incidents accounting for another twenty two point three percent of fatalities.

Roughly sixty four percent of fatal falls to a lower level within construction were from a height of somewhere between six and thirty feet. Portable ladders and stairs were the primary source of one hundred and nine fatalities in construction. Now, think about that. Think about these numbers and how sad to hear of all these deaths this week in construction. Safety Week and the National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Falls this week. Two initiatives to encourage greater safety in the construction industry. So let’s talk about the National Safety Stand Down to Prevent Fall First.

Led by the American Society of Safety Professionals, this encourages companies to raise awareness about fall prevention. I love this idea because companies can participate in the stand down in so many ways. They can briefly stop work and deliver a toolbox talk, which I really like this idea, perform a safety equipment inspection, conduct a rescue planning exercise or discuss job site specific hazards. They should also ensure that workers understand the importance of proper fitting personal protective equipment, because sometimes when we get on those jobs and we’ve been doing for so long or a newbie, we don’t know all the things we need to be doing.

Or sometimes we get a little lackadaisical and we think we’re going to skip something. And those skipping somethings or not knowing to do something can be the fatal flaw for all of us. So Construction Safety Week is all this week and it’s all about safety. It is a general effort by a number of organizations to strengthen the industry safety culture. This year’s theme is All In Together. Many companies are taking part in the event and are combining their efforts. We see multiple companies are doing events on May 7th to educate all about safety and construction.

For instance, Granite is hosting an event at the main American River Bridge Rehabilitation Project in Sacramento, California on May 7th. This educational day features job tours, a vendor safety expo, and talks on safety topics. Many other companies are hosting events in a host of different locations on May 7th include Mortensen, Gray, Performance Contracting, Gilbane & Turner, and Hensel Phelps. So you can see there’s so many construction firms stepping up and saying, let’s continue the education. Some events have general safety focus while others are targeting fall hazard awareness. No matter what the focus is, the idea is safety first, safety first, safety first.

Construction Safety Week and OSHA are partnering to create the largest industry-wide construction stand-down ever held. Companies are encouraged to join the national effort and stand-down to raise fall hazard awareness and build a stronger, safer industry together. If you cannot join on May 7th, you can stand-down any time during the week from May 5th through the 9th. So for the remainder of this segment, I really want to give a brief toolbox talk of my own focusing on technology. And this is where I think technology really can stand up and really do all the things that we say stand-down to help in safety in so many ways.

Now, certainly technology can help here in ways that sometimes we don’t think possible. But drones, for instance, can travel to dangerous site locations so workers don’t have to. We’ve heard about those in so many ways. Autonomous construction equipment can do the same. Cameras can also heighten safety on a construction job site, which I’ll talk more about that with my guests later on the show. But we’re seeing cameras advance and do other things in the job site that I think is really interesting. With AI and cameras, construction companies can now have access to even more analytics. And you know, when I talk about analytics and data, I think data is the tool that we need to do so much more.

So AI can help detect safety risks such as improper PPE use, hazardous weather, equipment proximity, air quality, and the list goes on and on. Real-time alerts give project managers the ability to prioritize worker health. Smart edge analytics can detect intruders and reduce false alarms. And central station monitoring allows live emergency response. So think about the emergency response that you’re able to recognize when something goes wrong and immediately recognize it. The opportunities are truly endless, and I always like to say we’re only limited by our imagination and what we think we can do to save lives and to react as quickly as possible.

Next, let’s turn our attention to one specific, which I love, this construction case study that is leveraging AI for safety. And any time we can bring our people back home safely at night, I love to applaud them. And I want to talk about it right now. At the end of April, Skanska announced the launch of a safety sidekick. Now, this is an AI-powered assistant that is designed to transform job site safety by giving instant safety guidance to teams across the country. Here, Skanska consolidated its EHS manual, its ocean construction standards, and its supplemental safety documentation into one resource. Now, this is available on both mobile and desktop platforms.

Beyond just being a central data repository, it also leverages artificial intelligence. The result is construction professionals will have access to task-specific best practices, context-aware guidance based on job site conditions to ensure compliance, support for safety classification and documentation through the safety classification learning module, practical scenario-based policy application to guide day-to-day operations, and assistance through any phases of the plan-do-chap-act safety cycle. Now, look at that. Now, that’s a tongue twister for you. But what I like about that is you’re not just waiting, you’re doing.

So, the safety sidekick is one of several tools in Skanska’s growing suite of generative AI solutions, which the company calls expert sidekicks. Now, safety sidekick is currently rolling out to Skanska’s USA teams nationwide with a comprehensive training and user support availability. Now, I want to encourage you, if you have a case study, please reach out to me. I’m looking to talk about them here, or maybe to have you on my show to talk about what you’re doing. But for now, let me share with you my opinion for today. What’s so exciting? We’ve talked a lot about how technology can help improve safety. But I like when we could talk more about the people, the process, and the technology.

We must start with a culture of safety in our businesses. This must start from the top down and the bottom up. And we need to get all the people in the middle to go all the way around because people are key here. So, too, is the process. We must have the procedures and the policy for everything we do in our businesses, such as when and where we wear the PPE. Because if we’re not doing it, we’re never going to be safe. Or how to communicate when an incident occurs. We need to know how to act, where to act, what to do when something happens, or what type of data will be collected for the analytics.

This strategy needs to be laid out first before the technology is selected, because that’s critical. But once this is established, technology can bring so much value to the construction industry. Technology truly has the ability to make our work safer and truly smarter, helping us inch closer to fewer desks at work. We have way too many when we are talking about 1,000 on the job site. Because isn’t that our objective? To be safe at the job site? Not just to be efficient or productive or profitable, but to keep our job site safe. And all the rest will truly fall into line.

To get all of our workers home safely at night to our families every day, when we do that, we will be profitable, we will be more productive, we will be more efficient. So here’s my tip for today. Continue to do your own research on how technology can help improve safety on the job site. There are truly so many options available today. It’s growing so fast. Innovation is just amazing how much we’re seeing it emerge. On the blog, theconnectedworld.com this week, I dig even deeper into safety strategies for businesses. A safety culture is something we need to foster far beyond Construction Safety Week.

We will do so much better if we understand the importance of safety, if we empower our workers to understand the value of safety, not only for themselves, but for everybody on the job site. And I’ve always asked this very important question. What will you do for your company? What will you do for yourself? And to work side by side with all the people next to you to keep everyone safe. This is no different than anything else in your lives. Everybody must be safe and healthy. So you all go to work every day. The same way that you started your day, you end that way. You’re all safe and healthy. And your company will be profitable and they will reward you the same way.

All right, listeners, I’m out of time for this first segment. Share your thoughts with me on Exit Connected World or follow me on LinkedIn and continue the conversation there. Please check out our website at connectedworld.com or show website at thepeggysmedleyshow.com. Make sure to share and subscribe to our episodes each week. I want to know what you think. I love your thoughts. Share them on social media, whatever we want to know. Don’t go away. I’m going to be right back after this commercial break. This is the Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility.