The need for productivity on construction sites is at an all-time high. But with increased productivity comes congestion. Crew members are working closer together than ever before, exposing personnel to potential injury and the project to potential downtime. At the same time, regulations and project requirements increasingly require you to demonstrate safety precautions and performance.
Recent technology developments can help you solve these challenges and take your business to the next level of safety awareness. The most advanced systems provide real-time monitoring and alerts to prevent incidents, as well as visual tracking and reporting to guide decisions on continued safety improvements. As a result, they empower your teams to stay safe while maximizing productivity.
Personal Alert Technology Prevents Safety Incidents
One example is the Leica Geosystems safety awareness solution, which consists of a 360-degree personal alert tag worn by field personnel as well as anchors mounted on the machine.
The tag operates as a safety device from the people on the ground to the machine using three different zones.
- The green “safe” zone is the largest radius around the machine. When you’re in the safe zone on the ground, the operator knows it’s safe to operate the machine.
- As you get closer to the machine, the yellow zone activates to alert the operator to your proximity. On the screen of the controller in the cab, the operator can see where you are and what distance you are from the machine. Yellow indicates proceed with caution.
- The red zone is the danger zone. When you enter the red zone, the system alerts the operator and shows where you are in relation to the machine so the operator can determine whether it’s safe to complete the task. If you and the operator can both see each other, you can override the system alert by pressing a button. The system will continue to track your movement and will trigger a new alert if you leave and re-enter the red zone.
For added safety, the field personnel tag includes a panic button that can be pressed at any time to alert surrounding machines to your location and keep you safe on the ground.
Visualization and Reporting Improves Safety Performance
The next step is to integrate field-generated safety data into intuitive reports that allow project and site managers to review incidents and assess the entire operation for safety performance. The Leica ConX cloud-based collaboration platform fills this role by providing visualization, analysis, monitoring, reporting and data management capabilities, as well as communication tools.
Using ConX, safety data is automatically sent to the ConX dashboard, where it can be filtered based on your preferences for criteria such as time range, alarm type, unit type and name, detected zone, and alarm status.
You can display incidents on maps to view a complete overview of the location. Using heatmaps can help you identify elevated risk areas. The ability to cluster incidents enables you to track the number of recorded events in critical zones.
Additional visualization tools allow you to analyze specific areas, drill down into colored zones for an overview of risk locations, and quickly review information about an alarm type, detected zone, unit name, coordinates, and other details.
You can also export the data in an Excel file for further review or integration into your company’s existing management systems.
For enhanced communication, site managers can send real-time alerts to specific machine operators in case of potential incidents, such as blasting, demolitions or storms. They can also send SOS alerts, such as evacuation orders, to all machines on site at the press of a button. The system saves alerts and user responses, providing traceability and clarity to your reporting.
Safety Technology Can Differentiate Your Business
Seasoned, skilled construction talent has never been more highly valued. But safety goes far beyond protecting employees. It marks a progressive, confident company and contributes to overall success. In various direct and indirect ways, safety and the technology that supports it have emerged as a differentiating element in a business-winning strategy. There has never been a better time to consider proven, trusted safety technology.
