Building a Safer Tomorrow: Challenges and Solutions in Construction Site Safety

Graphic of two construction workers reviewing construction safety software on a tablet

On the afternoon of August 24, 2020, a construction worker employed by an electrical contractor was preparing to install a new power line between two utility poles at a Tennessee construction site. The worker threw the guide twine, pulled the cable toward the next pole, but it arched higher than intended and contacted the distribution power lines. Flowing through those lines were 2,700 volts of electric current, which traveled down the guide twine to the worker, who was electrocuted.

Just a few weeks earlier a UK construction worker was crushed underneath concrete after a partial wall and roof collapsed during demolition work on a site. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Sadly, this kind of day is often the rule rather than the exception in the construction industry, both in the U.S. and around the world, with workers routinely suffering fatal and life-altering injuries while working to build the … Read more...

Compliance or Risk Auditing: What Is the Best Approach?

Companies need audit management to understand the safety management system and evaluate compliance with internal requirements and external regulations.

Safety program audit management provides confidence to organizations that operational risks are measured through sufficient identification, control, monitoring and governance. Audits are conducted to better understand the safety management system and evaluate the level of compliance with internal requirements and external regulations. Such audits utilize audit protocols to understand problems to correct any deficiency before a loss or a compliance issue is experienced. 

Safety auditing is conducted usually for the following reasons:

  • Ensuring compliance to the requirements of internal, international, and industry standards & regulations, and customer requirements
  • To determine the effectiveness of the implemented system in meeting specified objectives (safety, quality, environmental, financial)
  • To explore opportunities for improvement
  • To meet statutory and regulatory requirements
  • To provide feedback to senior management

Compliance Versus Risk-Based Audting

There are two main channels of thought when … Read more...

OSHA Recordkeeping: An Overview of the Rules

Injury and illness data collected and reported by employers must be uniform and accurate, assuring statistical data consistency and validity.

Many employers in the United States are obliged to document workplace injuries and illnesses under OSHA’s Recordkeeping Rule. While this document doesn’t need to be submitted to OSHA unless requested, organizations and businesses subject to the recordkeeping rule must produce these documents when requested make them available during inspections. Incident reports and logs of on-site recordable incidents must be maintained for a period of at least five years.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act) directs employers who are subject to the rule to annually prepare and maintain a record of occupational injuries and illnesses. This must be reported each year by March 2. Generally, organizations that employ 10 or fewer people during the previous calendar year do not need to report, unless otherwise directed … Read more...

WHO/ILO: Work-Related Causes Claim the Lives of Almost 2 Million People Worldwide each Year

Maria Neira, Director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at WHO: “These almost 2 million premature deaths are preventable. Action needs to be taken based on the research available to target the evolving nature of work-related health threats.”

Work-related diseases and injuries were responsible for the deaths of 1.9 million people in 2016, according to the first joint estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and International Labour Organization (ILO). These WHO/ILO global estimates on disease and injury in the workplace outline the level of preventable premature deaths due to exposure to work-related health risks.

“It’s shocking to see so many people literally being killed by their jobs,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Our report is a wake-up call to countries and businesses to improve and protect the health and safety of workers by honouring their commitments to provide universal coverage of occupational health and … Read more...

Document Control Software Simplifies Compliance

Regulated industries face unique challenges regarding risk management and compliance, making document control software a crucial component in managing key documents such as permits, reports and forms.

There is a lot of confusion about what digitization, digitalization and digital transformation are, how they are different and what this means for document control. Many people use them interchangeably, but when you dig deeper, you will find that there are significant differences regarding their goals, scope and benefits. In the long run, they share a common goal of transforming legacy processes and operations to fully digital analogs that increase efficiency, transparency and customer satisfaction while reducing costs.

With benefits like these, it’s no wonder that companies are aggressively adopting these changes. The global digital transformation is expected to reach almost $3.3 trillion by 2025 as companies increase their spending on mobile technology, IoT and SaaS.

COVID-19 accelerated this trend and turned … Read more...

How AI is Helping Organizations Meet ESG Expectations

Using AI, subject matter experts who need to understand ESG requirements can synthesize vast quantities of data that would take weeks or even months for human readers to wade through.

Today’s organizations are part of a dynamic marketplace undergoing seemingly constant disruption. While some of these disruptions, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, will produce times of crises, others will be the catalyst to monumental positive change.

Over the last few years, organizations have started to look beyond profit as the primary motivation for doing business to the possibility of having a positive impact on society and the environment. To this end, ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) has become the foundation upon which many organizations and their customers see strategic decisions regarding investment and innovation being made.

However, ESG comes with a number of complex obstacles for implementation. This is where ehsAI’s artificial intelligence and deep learning solutions can make … Read more...

Four Considerations to Achieve Health and Safety Compliance

Over a series of three blogs we are going to examine how to achieve health and safety process excellence. There are three main objectives that EHS professionals must fulfill to achieve their health and safety goals: maintain compliance, anticipate and manage hazards, and improve safety culture.

Graphic series of a frontline worker with a tablet at a construction site, a group of EHS professionals at the office and a frontline worker handling machinery
Safety Compliance

This first blog is going to focus on the building blocks that create the foundation for maintaining safety compliance and engaging in continuous improvement. Some keys to achieving this objective are automating reports and document control to ensure consistency between departments and locations, tracking employee training as well as audits and corrective actions and automating compliance with various federal, state or province or local regulations.

Creating the Right Solution

Technology can assist your organization in maintaining all those records and help you ensure that your facility complies with local regulations. In fact, technology has become an essential tool in achieving process excellence … Read more...