Visual information
One way is through visual information. I live in a small country town. It has five pubs that attract a large number of young people. This might seem a recipe for disaster, and indeed it was so until a few years ago, when CCTV cameras were fitted and notices to that effect put in all shop windows. Trouble virtually disappeared.
Can the principle be extended to the use of web-cams on construction sites? It is said that the workers and subcontractors wouldn't tolerate it. Also that no one would be prepared to pay for it, and that it would be abused by managers in all sorts of ways. Here is the cultural issue that needs to be challenged. If a site is professionally managed, there should be a shared interest among all parties in spotting and training (or removing) all who have lesser standards. Furthermore, once the web-cam information is available on the project's extranet, full access should be given to the Health and Safety Executive. The simple fact that someone is watching makes us all reconsider our behaviour. The result would surely be fewer accidents.
Immediate impact could also be made in risk assessment and mitigation. For years, risk management was considered a paper exercise, with the results often consigned to a filing cabinet. Thankfully, most parts of the industry have moved on, and risk assessment has become a routine part of managing large projects. Now, internet technology can more fully involve the whole team than ever before.
How could this be implemented in practice? One example would be as follows. Set up a simple website page for the construction site, allowing the reporting of any safety risk or abuse. Allow anonymous reporting; then ensure that such reports are fed into the mainstream project extranet where they can be seen by all managers. Have the responsible person decide upon appropriate action and publish this back to a public part of the original website. Finally, publicise this procedure as part of the safety induction procedure at the site. Open information systems like this cost pennies to implement but empower and involve all who work on the site.
Training on the net
Finally, the internet should be used for training. Today, the most effective online management training is through role-playing exercises where the trainee is asked to choose from a range of responses, following through the consequences of an inappropriate decision step-by-step. This ensures a level of involvement which is at least the equivalent of classroom sessions.
The internet provides tools that major clients and contractors need to improve safety. Like speed cameras, some of the methods may not be universally popular. If they can be even half as effective in reducing death and injury, however, we should not shrink from them.
Source
Construction Manager
Postscript
David McAll is publisher of e-construct.com. He was head of Gleeds' IT operations and was a senior IT risk consultant with Risk Decisions