In spite of advances in training, enhanced safety management systems and a commitment to zero safety incidents on every project and job site, construction continues to be one of the most dangerous industries in the United States, according to the OSHA.
One out of every five worker deaths in the U.S. are construction related. In addition to the enormous human toll, non-fatal injuries cost companies millions of dollars each year in work stoppage and lost productivity.
Over time, safety management has moved from a reactive culture that responds to events that have already happened to a proactive culture, that uses leading indicators as early warning signs of potential failure and, more recently, to predictive risk management using past performance data to anticipate future exposure.
"At Tellepsen Industrial, we're taking it several steps further," said Shawn Hicks, director of safety for Tellepsen Industrial. "We've developed a 24/7 Safety Blanket on our project sites that uses integrated smart devices to capture real-time safety and quality data to detect trends, and provide a leading, predictive indicator on near-future safety/quality incidents."
Tellepsen's approach combines worker-led safety and quality observations with multiple safety and quality data streams - everything from near misses and good catches to Safety Task Analysis (STAs), Quality Task Analysis (QTAs) and technology-driven productivity data for people, equipment and material - which is collected instantly at the time and place it is produced.
The data is filtered and fed into a platform Tellepsen calls the Safety Quality Heat Map (SQHM), which serves as the single source of truth for the "Safety Energy" of the project. Safety Energy, as defined by Tellepsen, is a leading indicator index that measures the overall health of a project or job site based on the number of proactive safety/quality activities, and the degree of engagement by project management and employees to promote and communicate safety and quality.
"The SQHM collects all the data and assigns an algorithm to each in an easy-to-read green, yellow and red format," said Hicks. "When one or more of the project's leading indicators show a trend from green to yellow, the SQHM provides a visual alert to the site team and corporate personnel signaling that the site needs intervention to curb the trend, or a corrective action plan to address it. If one of the factors turns red, it alerts the site team and corporate management to address the issue immediately."
Tellepsen also leverages the data to exploit positive trends that can be shared as lessons learned or best practices among employees and projects.
Currently, Tellepsen has deployed the SQHM on 15 sites and is using the data to enforce the productive culture seen across all its projects, while feeding the predictive trends into the baseline of future projects. This relentless feedback loop of data, along with continual analysis of the data, is driving Tellepsen's safety culture - from proactive, through predictive - and onto a future state of prescriptive execution.
For more information, visit www.tellepsen.com or call (281) 447-8100.
