Small Innovative Steps to Maintain Business Improvement Momentum
POSTED: 27 April 2020
AUTHOR: Kian Bullock, Director
Innovation for most of us in the construction industry inspires thoughts of 3D printing buildings, robotic bricklaying or the new TyBot that can tie rebar at a rate of 1000 ties per hour. While all of these are exciting and will potentially change the face of the industry, HTS remains focused on its internal systems and the elimination of paper processes.
While I will admit that it doesn’t sound all that innovative, you would be surprised how many companies are still not “paperless”. Hence we are a little excited by some of our recent achievements. The latest and significant business innovation to have an immediate impact on our works and people is the electronic Take 5. For those readers who don’t know; The Take 5 is an individual safety check (risk assessment) a person completes before commencing their next task on site. It ensures that you check your surroundings, have your permits and processes in place and take into account any change in the environment or the task. The idea is that it only takes 5 minutes and is a simple series of checkboxes that remind and prompt the employee to complete the works safely. The form is usually filled out on a small booklet and handed into the safety manager the next morning at pre-start. In addition to individual Take 5’s, our work teams also complete a group risk assessment called a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA).
The result of completing Take 5’s for each task all day, every day is a mountain of paper records and an enormous administrative burden. Paper forms not only impact the environment but affect the efficiency of project resources and reflect poorly on a company’s overall sustainability position. Here at HTS, we have innovated the individual paper-based forms by moving them to an online platform utilising our SharePoint portal. Our people complete the online form and Take 5 process as per usual except now they are emailed a copy to refer back to and keep for their records. The process is now streamlined, simplified and has removed the need for pen and paper.
However, as a business, the essential element of this new process is the collection of valuable data which improves our ability to manage and respond to high-risk activities. From the data we have collected to date, I can tell you that our employees consider 11% of our works to be high risk; however, 100% of people are confident in how they manage the high risk activities and feel safe in completing the task. Thanks to this data, I can tell you what type of risk assessments JHAs are the most used on site, the percentage of activities that use permits and what kind. This level of data is helping us target pre-starts and toolbox talks to those areas that are the most frequently used on site. For example, if an employee is conducting a task, they consider to be high risk, or they don’t feel confident to complete the job, the safety manager on site is notified immediately upon submission of the electronic form. The supervisor can then attend the location, understand the issue and provide guidance to the employee.
The process is now streamlined, simplified and has removed the need for pen and paper.
It may seem a small step forward, but surprisingly there are still numerous companies (big and small) that rely on paper-based safety and inspection forms and are not realising the benefits. Proud to be an innovative company, and this is just the start for us at HTS! We also have created forms for hazard identification, vehicle and plant pre-starts, site inspections and much more. All that data is being assessed monthly and is used to make our sites safer and our employees more confident on site.
Don’t get us wrong, we are still thrilled by the introduction and implementation of robotics, but for HTS that horizon is still a fair way off. In Australian remote construction, the worksite locations and the singular or customisable nature of the works will always be a limiting factor. Unfortunately, the cost of mobilising a piece of specialised plant to site for a single task versus a flexible multipurpose machine at the hands of a skilled operator will always be a question of value. A few areas for improvement that our clients and we could benefit most from in the immediate future include crane alternatives (for installing modular buildings), the ability to locally source bedding material and a better way to condition soil prior to placement and compaction.
And for those construction geeks that clicked on this article in the hope to find something new, then this is for you! Have you heard about the Self-healing concrete that uses bacteria which ‘heals’ (fills) the cracks in the concrete all by itself? Self-healing concrete is a revolution in innovation and sustainability. Cement production is responsible for 8% of global emissions; hence the production of self-healing concrete would significantly reduce the construction industry overall environmental footprint.
Very cool. And something to look forward to. But for now, HTS is concentrating on systems and creating a relevant data bank to grow our single stakeholder solutions and complete our projects safer, cheaper and faster.
For our clients, innovative ways to increase productivity and improve safety and well-being are all part of our one contractor solution. Talk to us today about how we can rocket the value of your next project!