Page 60 - OHS, July/August 2022

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY
Digital Transformation’s Role in Construction Safety
Paperwork may not be the hottest topic in construction, but don’t dismiss it so easily.
BY BRIAN JUNGINGER AND DAVID WARD
Safety is the number one priority on construction jobsites and yet there’s still one risk that’s often overlooked. That’s because it doesn’t usually make it to the safety checklist. But not paying proper attention to this area has resulted in injuries, project delays and litigation. What we’re talking about is the paperwork on a jobsite.
The worker and subcontractor check ins, the daily log and simply knowing who is or was on a jobsite and what they were doing may seem like minutia until there’s a problem. At first glance, paperwork may not seem like the hottest topic to dig into but don’t dismiss it so easily. After all, ignoring it is how a lot of contractors find themselves in less than desirable situations that end up in the courtroom.
Imagine you’re a subcontractor on a public works project and due to issues out of your control, the project goes from taking 13 months to complete to 26 months. Further, a portion of the project becomes designated a confined space, which further restricts your crew. After providing proper notice to the general contractor during the project, a time will come when you will need to submit a claim for inefficiencies on the project. To support your claim, you will need to show, in part, your predicted manpower on the project and your actual manpower on the project. This will be done through certified payroll, sign-in sheets and daily logs.
Now picture a worse scenario. A worker gets injured on a project. As part of its investigation, OSHA will want to interview witnesses and review the contractor’s paperwork showing its company-wide safety protocols, its project safety protocols, as well as the project documentation memorializing the construction work leading up to the accident. They’re also going to want to dig into safety certifications and attendance at safety talks.
Digitizing Jobsite Safety Protocols
Jobsite safety protocols don’t only apply to the physical act of building a structure.
The protocols should also contemplate documentation of events, which requires creating legible, detailed information about the site and everybody on it. For anybody who’s ever visited or worked on a jobsite, you can see how easy it is to overlook the quality of the sign-in sheet. Nobody’s out to win a good penmanship award when the clipboard gets passed around in the morning. Then, at the end of the day, the last thing a project manager or supervisor wants to do is write down, in painstaking detail, what happened on the site to complete the daily log. After a long day, sometimes it’s hard to recall what you had for lunch, much less the actions of a dozen crew members along with deliveries, delays and changes in weather. But it’s important. And all too often, a contractor learns the hard way that they need to institute more stringent protocols around reporting on the project.
New processes can be hard to institute, especially in construction. This issue has not been lost on tech entrepreneurs that see a huge opportunity in helping contractors make the shift to digital transformation. By using digital tools to streamline and automate worker check- in and daily logs, a contractor can get detailed, legible information that makes daily processes faster, more complete and more accurate. If there’s an event or
incident where they need to prove their role in enforcing protocols, they can quickly search through the digital records as opposed to trying to locate paperwork stuffed in a filing cabinet or work truck.
Digital Transformation
Improves Jobsite Safety
Construction is probably among the last industries to move to digital transformation. It makes sense when you think about the nature of the industry— it’s largely about setting a blueprint, building the structure and moving on to the next project. Digital transformation, on the other hand, is iterative as the GC’s business processes evolve from paper to digital in an effort to reduce unnecessary costs while increasing safety.
Ideally, the information from those separate digital tools can work together to spot potential risks based on the project status, profitability and productivity of each task and worker. For example, having jobsite check-in data and daily log information flow directly into a construction project management platform can present a bigger picture of what’s happening and what to do about it.
Despite construction’s late move to digital transformation, workers in the industry are interested in having digital tools on the jobsite if they make their
56 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY/AUGUST 2022
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