Equipment Access Management for Zero-Incident Construction Sites
In terms of construction industry priorities, safety is never off the table, and with access management on the verge of a technological leap, the ‘zero-incident’ construction site should become a realistic target.
Construction is obsessed with safety. Cynics might argue that part of that forensic analysis is about brand protection or the fear of liabilities. However, while it would be foolish to suggest neither are valid concerns, they are, in the big scheme of things, secondary.
If we can reduce the risk of incidents and fatalities on the job site, then that massively outweighs all other considerations. That’s because incidents on construction sites are an unfortunate reality even today despite our ever stricter regulatory environment and desire to minimize risk.
The International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) has been gathering incident data for over a decade wherever there the site requires work at height platforms. According to the latest IPAF Global Safety Report 2004, there was an 11.7% decrease in Fatal and Major incident reports compared to 2023, although actual fatalities increased. This highlights the persistent safety challenge we must overcome.
IPAF’s work on the safety front and its important actions on controlling access via its ePal app has been key in establishing a base standard for who can and cannot access a machine. Steps such as these mean that increasing numbers of equipment operators are downloading the app, with more than 500,000 downloads globally.
IPAF doesn’t claim, to cover the whole of the global powered access sector, but the growth in IPAF membership and ePal downloads indicates that there is an increasing desire among stakeholders to make construction as safe as possible. Always at the forefront of that discussion is zero fatalities, zero incidents and zero-risk. Indeed, given where the industry is heading with the next step in access management, we’re about to get closer.
Access management is the process of allowing or blocking site entry and machine access with the absolute desire to minimize risk. The biggest problem the industry has had to solve following the first wave of access management from 2016 related, not to cost, but administration and implementation. In fact, to organisations and users, cost has never been an issue.
Change management
The first generation of digital machine access management had various teething issues and the road to effective deployment was at times a trying experience. The challenge came in optimizing the application of the technology and the necessary change management that required. Whether an organization had a rental fleet of 100,000, 50,000, or 5,000 machines, the problem came when customers tried to administer and distribute access to yards, sites and operators.
Typically, there might have been the contractor and potentially three or four layers of subcontractors under the general contractor who would need to utilize or manage any given machine. On bigger projects, that could mean access keys or passcodes required for hundreds or even thousands of operators on a jobsite across a complex organization. It then became a question as to how to communicate their workflow back to the rental company who owns the machine and in theory owns the access rights.
It became apparent that this was a serious workflow complication and a complex problem to solve. Rentals were faced with the situation of maintaining that standard all the way through the chain, requiring a degree of change management that was hard to implement. In the event, a reversion to sharing keys or swipe cards was the unsatisfactory, quick-fix answer.
Today’s increasingly sophistication technology has opened the next stage of the access management journey, through connectivity. The integration of telemetry and machinery into the access management space, eliminated the unwieldiness that plagued the first generation and greatly simplified control and reporting. The barrier that essentially proved to be the block to systematic, digitally controlled access has been removed.
Telematics suppliers, such as Trackunit, now provide the platform for rental companies and contractors, to be confident that they have the necessary safeguards to greatly reduce risk and also have far more opportunity to win new business where strict safety requirements are present in the contract.
Layers of protection
Construction-specific software platforms can automatically ensure that only those with the requisite qualifications are allowed to operate complex machines like MEWPs and excavators. It means that it is no longer just about site access. It’s full-on machine access management too and provides the prospect of potentially every piece of equipment being on that system.
That means access can be monitored remotely and if necessary, taken away at the press of a keyboard button. The ability to visibly demonstrate you’ve taken every step possible to manage access automatically adds another layer of protection and reporting in the event of an incident.
This is an exciting development because it brings standardization of safety on the construction site a step closer. As it stands, we have variable standards that, while frequently setting a high bar, are not ubiquitous. It could mean, for example, when skilled operators change jobs or companies across different jurisdictions, they would no longer have to undertake training dictated by the requirements of that company or region.
This is an exciting development because it brings us a step closer to the standardization of safety on the construction site. That is still in the future, but the possibility has now become very real. In the meantime, a strong focus on safety will be strengthened as a top-down approach from OEM, rental and contractor through to the individual operators fosters an ownership culture where the workforce takes direct responsibility for access and, by extension, minimalizes risk. It might, in time, help enable a more inclusive workforce as the construction site becomes demonstrably safer.
I’m willing to hang my safety helmet on getting a lot closer to that kind of environment. We have seen how ownership is key to fostering positive reinforcement cultures both on sustainability and in the automotive industry and we can do similar here with strong messaging, the necessary technological upgrades and the appropriate regulatory nudging in the right direction.
It’s clear that the industry wants this. And it is likely that for a marginal investment, it will have a system that is more effective than the current access management. I’m convinced that once the case for the next generation is established and proved, it will be adopted by the vast majority of the industry which will have a positive effect through the rest of construction.
There will no doubt be further collaboration with organizations like IPAF as part of an effort to drive safety improvements through access. I see no reason why every piece of equipment on every site, say, in Europe, or North America comes standardized and fully integrated into the system. If we get that, the safety benefits, the business value and the battle against downtime really will take a quantum leap.
Article by David Swan, SVP, Products, Trackunit.
