Frontline defense: 4 tech trends in construction safety

Canadian construction sites are undergoing a technological transformation, with innovations enhancing safety and efficiency across the industry. From AI-driven cameras monitoring worksites to smart machinery reducing human-machine interaction, cutting-edge tools are providing new ways to identify hazards and prevent incidents before they occur. We spoke with some of the industry’s top experts to see the biggest safety tech trends happening right now and what is on the horizon. 

1. Eyes in the skies

Builders now have a new set of eyes to view jobsites with. These ubiquitous cameras, when paired with sophisticated analyses, are quickly becoming a powerful combination. 

Structural engineer Dr. Tony Yang, a professor of civil engineering and lead researcher of the Smart Structures lab, explained that surveillance technology now means jobsites can be monitored for safety hazards and compliance. 

“It can autonomously identify workers without proper gear, like if they are not wearing a hard hat,” said Yang. “The ability to auto-identify things and document them is available right now.”

Shawn Gray, founder and CEO of advisory firm ConstructIQ, noted that it goes beyond just recognition of safety violations. 

“In live jobsite scenarios, it can detect a failure to follow safety protocols or a scenario of high likelihood for a safety incident to occur,” he said. 

Gray noted that some of the industry’s largest construction firms have fully scaled out technologies like this, giving supervisors much greater visibility. 

“Most jobsites these days have some time of video surveillance in place and this is giving you the ability to tap into that and put some more intelligence behind what you are seeing,” he said. “Are you wearing the right PPE, did a public vehicle just enter your transportation project’s workspace, anything like that. It has legs in all different avenues. The sky’s the limit.” 

2. Smart machines

Workers getting struck by machines is far too common. 

According to CNESST, in Quebec alone, 27 workers have died in the past five years after being hit by a heavy vehicle. And at least 577 are believed to have suffered injuries due to a collision with a heavy vehicle.

But technology is working to prevent this by coordinating human-machine interaction.

“Technology is being developed and has started working ultimately towards a machine that can avoid you and moves away,” said Yang. “It’s an active technology to help equipment stay away from workers and keep them from contacting machines. Those technologies were designed to prevent injury when workers are in a construction area where a machine is working.”

Yang and his team have been working to create smart construction robots that, in addition to performing jobsite tasks, can make autonomous decisions such as navigating around obstacles or instantly stopping work to protect a worker who is in danger.

“You also have more basic technology where beacons on hardhats and vests track where everyone is on site,” said Yang.

What’s even safer is having humans physically separated from machines completely. Yang noted that as robotics improves, more tasks can become automated, particularly ones that place people in danger. 

“If we get more and more things automated, workers not interfering with machines, then of course in that situation less injury will likely happen,” he said. “If jobs can be fully autonomous and humans and machines are completely separate, then safety will be increased.”

Finally, Yang highlighted active monitoring technology, which can determine the condition of equipment, like cranes, which require regular inspections and maintenance to be safe. 

“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” said Yang. “If you have active monitoring technology, it can be useful to prevent failure.” 

3. Big data and AI

Construction is collecting more data than ever. But tools are starting to catch up and put this information to work making sites safer. 

“Safety was one of the first major areas where we saw the most significant use of technology and the first instance where we saw mass data sharing between major competition organizations,” said Gray. “Safety was the beachhead where these things took off.”

Much of this data, for insurance and legal reasons, involves providing documentation of safety protocols and procedures, and if they are being followed.

“But that doesn’t really prevent incidents,” said Gray. “The evolution has been that we have all this data, let’s use some analytics.”

Gray explained that in the past five years, firms have been digging into their data to find where the highest areas or risk are and addressing potential incident scenarios at the source before they happen.  

“That’s what a lot of groups are working on with predictive AI capabilities,” said Gray.

AI also presents a big opportunity to solve the productivity and efficiency challenges in construction.The administrative and paperwork burden around safety processes is a problem ripe for solving.  

“There is still a huge amount of time wasted manually entering safety information. Everyone is excited about predictive analytics, as are we, however the highest value to teams right now is time back in the field on high-leverage work. Powering-up safety workflows to speed up data capture is a big focus of ours right now,” Ben Leach, CEO of HammerTech, a construction-specific safety intelligence and compliance software provider.  

Looking ahead, getting to a point of reliable and valuable predictive analytics for safety is going to require a new and more rigorous view of software capabilities. 

“In addition to efficiency, [contractors] will want to look for solutions that produce reliable, credible data and support codified connected safety processes. These are needed for the application of AI to produce predictive analytics,” said Leach.

“Connected could look like worker profiles and certifications connecting to equipment pre-start inspections and hazard analysis. This gives you a 360 view of process interactions. We have always prioritized connectivity because it will provide far more useful preventative insights. You can imagine the multiplier effect of this with AI – the insights that we are going to see for safety are about to move the industry leaps and bounds ahead.”

4. Software consolidation

Software is nothing new for the construction sector. But as more solutions have entered the fray and technology has become more sophisticated, consolidation is happening. 

“As we start talking about the consolidation of all these platforms, a big frustration for contractors is the integration piece,” explained Leach. “You are working on all these projects and putting project information into all the different systems. There isn’t a “nirvana” one system solution – construction processes are incredibly specialized making it unlikely one provider can solve everything well.”

He noted that contractors are using fewer solutions that are purpose-built for a subset of workflows or stakeholders, like field teams underpinned by great integrations.

HammerTech itself has integrations with Autodesk, Procore, CMiC and others so information can flow between the office and the jobsite. 

“We would have liked to have built everything, but it’s impossible to be able to do that,” said Leach. “Instead, we are coming together with other partners to provide a holistic ecosystem.”