The construction industry’s new priority:  Greater tech adoption

In risk management, important lessons often come from incidents caught before they cause injury or property damage. Such was the case with a complex construction project inside a major sports stadium.

Broadmoor, L.L.C., a subsidiary of heavy civil contractor Boh Bros. Construction Co., L.L.C., was contracted to demolish sections in a vast space inside the existing stadium structure to prepare for further renovation. The first phase of the project was to remove ramps to make room for new elevators and other conveyances. Interested in monitoring air quality and moisture during the project, the contractor partnered with AXA XL and Pillar Technologies to deploy specialized sensors that acted as “digital eyes and ears” on the site.

Pillar, a digital construction technology company, administers customizable sensors that monitor conditions on jobsites, including temperature, humidity, carbon monoxide, noise and particulates. In the stadium renovation, Pillar placed more than 50 networked devices to send alerts to designated individuals on the contractor’s construction management team. The work took place across eight stories, each comprising up to five work zones. Pillar installed sensors on every level, with each device capable of monitoring approximately a 3,000-square-foot area.

One day, a sensor instantly alerted the contractor after detecting an elevated temperature in a work zone. Quickly identifying the location, the construction management team went to investigate. They discovered a diesel excavator working in a tight space was heating up the air. The team also learned the activity was emitting a high level of carbon monoxide. It is not uncommon or necessarily dangerous for machinery to work indoors but the incident showed that every construction is unique, with its own set of variables. When those variables change, risks can arise. That’s when the sensor technology is particularly helpful, to keep track of changing conditions before they create safety issues.

In addition to helping the contractor enhance its risk management and safety, the sensor also ensured a safe outcome on a high-profile project.

GPS watches can help contractors boost efficiency and safety. But this test also demonstrated how much more room there is to grow. Technology has only just begun to touch the modern jobsite.

The construction industry has taken tremendous strides in embracing technology, and industry leaders see abundant opportunity for additional innovation. Safety and productivity are perennial areas of interest, especially on large jobsites where keeping track of workers is challenging. If site supervisors had more specific information about worker locations, they could make more informed decisions regarding task allocation and respond to injured workers more quickly.

Technology could improve on the industry’s current approaches to these challenges. In 2018, according to TechCrunch.com, investors poured $3.1 billion into U.S.-based construction technology startups. From drones to connected property sensors to “smart” PPE and other wearable devices, technology firms are attempting to modernize and optimize the jobsite. AXA XL includes itself among parties interested in helping contractors do their jobs more safely and efficiently.

New tools are only useful, however, if they can stand up to the noise, heat and dust of the jobsite environment, and if contractors buy in to their value. To that end, AXA XL recently partnered with Samsung and Brasfield & Gorrie, one of the nation’s largest privately held construction firms, to pilot the Samsung Galaxy Watch in an active jobsite. Brasfield & Gorrie has piloted several construction-specific technologies and identified areas in which existing products can increase worker safety and report more accurately on productivity. By partnering with Samsung and AXA XL, Brasfield & Gorrie intends to identify and lead the next trends in construction technology.

With the ability to track wearers’ locations all day, the watches could potentially illuminate where workflow inefficiencies emerge, help workers avoid hazardous areas, and speed up injury response times. It was the first time Samsung tested its watch in a construction jobsite, and the first time they had partnered with an insurance company to pilot a product.

About the pilot
Workers in a variety of roles were selected to wear the watches for 60 days. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch would be used to monitor the watches’ location and synthesize the data they collect.

The primary goal of the pilot was to test the watch in four categories: functionality, durability, data quality, and worker adherence. Could the watches perform consistently and withstand wear and tear of construction work? Would they provide useful data insights that managers could use to improve workflow? And perhaps most importantly, would workers be comfortable being tracked all day long?

All three parties met on a bi-weekly basis to discuss outcomes and areas for improvement.

The chosen jobsite presented a few obstacles for the watches to overcome. The site was large and included several buildings. Each of these structures was in a different phase of the construction process, meaning the concentration of workers at any given location would likely shift over the two-month period. The site was also in a high-traffic area, which could potentially interrupt the GPS signals.

All of these factors would test whether the watch made sense for the industry. From a data perspective, the pilot was also a chance to explore what other business benefits might be gleaned from access to real-time information.

The construction industry has always been risky. But it has gotten riskier in recent years especially as contractors are contending with the added risks of the current labor shortage and construction projects that have grown bigger and more complex.

The good news is that new technologies – from AI to sensors to wearables -- are offering contractors opportunities to pinpoint, understand and manage risks on the jobsite and across their entire operation. It’s also offering construction risk engineers new opportunities to help. Scott Merchant, Construction Risk Engineering Leader, and Rose Hall, Strategic Operations Manager for Risk Engineering, on how technology is changing construction jobsites and what impact it’s having on the services and guidance their team provide.

How are contractors adapting new technology?
Merchant: In the past, contractors were not always quick to adapt to new technologies. One reason is that the industry had to get through a slowdown that resulted from the 2008 financial crisis. While construction has been going strong recently, they are still dealing with the ramifications of that slowdown like a shortage of labor. Fortunately, new technologies could help, and contractors are seeing the possibilities. Still with a small workforce, limited time and slim profit margins, many contractors don’t have the resources to test new technologies and see what could work best for their operations.

Hall: That’s where we are lending a hand. New construction technologies are emerging in the market at a fast pace. Wearables, reality capture, mobile apps, telematics, extended reality, sensors, drones, and even robots can be found on jobsites these days. But with so many new innovations coming at them, how do contractors know which ones to adopt? Which ones will give them the most bang for the buck? That’s where our North America Construction team decided to help by taking a lot of the guesswork out of discovering, vetting, and curating technologies that add the most value to our customers’ risk management efforts and their overall operations.

Why is it so imperative the contractors adapt?
Merchant: If they adopt the right technology, construction firms will have access to more data, and some in real-time, to help them make better decisions, boost productivity, improve jobsite safety, and reduce risks. As the insurance industry has always relied on data to make our underwriting decisions and guide our loss prevention efforts, we are in strong position to help.

Hall: Capitalizing on the modernization of the industry is going to be imperative for contractors to stay competitive. It used to be about slashing budget and compressing schedule. Now their market differentiators are innovation, creativity, and data analytics. While adopting and leveraging new technology is one of a contractor’s biggest challenges right now, it’s going to be the biggest opportunity too. (See more of what Rose has to say about cutting edge construction here.) 

How is your team evolving to address your more tech-savvy contractors?
Merchant: Our risk engineers have always been at the forefront of construction innovation. Over the years, many of them have developed their expertise in key areas of new construction materials, such as mass timber, or new delivery methods, such as modular construction. But given the onslaught of new technologies we’ve seen in recent years, we’re all boosting our tech skills and knowledge so that we can be resources for our clients to help them vet the right technology for them and gain insights from all the information and data so that it can all be put to good use.

Hall: We’re upskilling for what we’re calling the “Next Generation” risk engineering. Our team is evolving from purely boots-on-the-ground risk engineers to tech-supported, data-enhanced risk engineers. We are going to be combining the traditional construction risk engineering experience with the power of data analytics. In this way, our risk engineers can garner more about our customers than simply what we see from project to project. We will have holistic operational insight – allowing us to understand our customers more deeply and enabling us to provide them with more focused servicing, benchmarking, and insights than ever before. 

How are you helping contractors step up their tech adoption right now?
Merchant: As mentioned earlier, we’ve vetted a lot technology aimed at contractors. We’ve partnered with technologies that we feel can add the most value to our clients’ operations and even where we could help guide their technology development. Many tech companies have really great ideas but not always great knowledge of the construction industry. Even though we’re in the insurance industry now, Rose, myself and all of our risk engineers have worked in construction. Often, we’ve asked some tech companies who have come to us -- what are you trying to fix? We make sure that the tech companies we include in our library understand the construction problems they are solving and have real value to provide beyond merely “what’s cool”. We do this by running pilots and soliciting candid feedback from our customers.