Are you safe on Constructions Sites?

Are you safe on Constructions Sites?

Recent deadly construction accidents around the country show that construction companies need to do more to ensure safe working conditions for construction workers.

For instance there has been two deaths on one Auckland construction site alone recently1. In another incident a manager at an industrial plant was trapped in his sand hopper and subsequently died when six tonnes of sand crushed the vehicle last September2.

Statistics have shown that there has been a significant increase in claims for work related injuries for Building Trade Workers from 2002 with 15,206 claims to 2007 where 24,889 3 claims were made as stated by Statistics New Zealand. With a 64% increase on 2002 in claims this not only impacts on the profitability of projects with delays but also impacts on the society cost with rehabilitation and support for victims. According to Department of Labour since July 2005 to June 2008 there has been 36 fatalities within the Construction industry4.

There’s no question that construction is an inherently dangerous job. The question is whether more can be done to prevent accidents and make the industry safer.

Running Safety programmes that educates and makes workers aware of the hazards is a start. For example alot of construction involves working at heights these days so running a program about fall protection and height safety training will help reduce incidents both actual and “near misses”.

Holding regular health and safety presentations for staff working on the projects also reminds people of safety. Everything from quizzes, to work-plan and risk assessment competitions, to presentations on road safety awareness can be used to constantly promote good work practices.

Having a structured process and standardized health and safety practices will ensure things are “checked” off and important issues are not missed or put aside. However with this it does bring more administration burden on companies to comply with safety practices and to also be able to produce evidence that safety practices are being followed. Part of the challenge is being able to find a middle ground on compliance and practice is a fine line. Using a system which allows you to comply with health and safety practices whilst minimizing the administration burden as much as possible will assist with this.

A system that meets this criteria and is specifically designed for the Construction industry is Safety CAT. Safety CAT has been around for 10 years fine turning and gaining practical mileage in the real world application. The objective of Safety CAT is make all documentation within the company as meaningful as possible and to minimise any unnecessary paperwork.

With inbuilt features such as site specific safety plans, task analysis, inspection checklists, staff Inductions, toolbox sessions, non conformance management, emergency plans, accident and Incident reporting, staff training plans and more, you will be able to liaise with OSH, Site Safe and your Main Contractor with confidence that you are in compliance with safety procedures and policies.

Safety CAT also allows you to have greater involvement from staff, make your construction methodology safer and more efficient, identify types of hazards on jobs, identify performance shortfall and staff training needs and automated reporting and statistics.

To find out more about Safety CAT and how it can help you contact CAT Group at ask@catgroup.biz or visit their website www.catgroup.biz.

References
1. Lion Nathan new brewery site – Man killed by falling steel (article stuff.co.nz 16/2/09 Workmates saw construction site death), Man crushed by shipping container (article TVNZ.co.nz 15/4/09 Investigations after construction site death)
2. Firth Industries' Nelson plant – manager killed in sand hopper when trapped by sand and crushed as six tonnes of sand fell on him (article nzherald.co.nz 13/9/08 Body of manager recovered from sand hopper)
3. Statistics New Zealand (http://wdmzpub01.stats.govt.nz/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx) based on Building Trade workers for 2002 to 2007 for all regions.
4. Department of Labour http://www.osh.dol.govt.nz/resources/stats/fatals/index.shtml

Background on CAT Group
CAT Group develop, distribute and support leading edge job and business management systems for Construction Industry Main Contractors, Project Managers, Design Consultants, Subcontractors and Service Providers.

The CAT point of difference is our construction knowledge and experience as we really understand the business and administration needs of the construction industry. Our systems have been developed by construction people for construction people and result from over thirty years experience at the coal face. We also customise to suit specific needs as we appreciate that every company has individual qualities.

We appreciate that managing a major construction project is different to managing maintenance contracts or public sector works so we have designed systems that are specific to the various disciplines and project types.

CAT software provide tools for staff at all levels to carry out their day-to-day work so that jobs and the business can be easily managed, monitored and administrated. If your company is involved in the Construction Industry then we have an effective solution for your business.

WHY CAT WAS BORN
From a mission to avoid the tedious duplication of work and to provide tools to perform day-to-day tasks came the mission to make a difference. The goal was to minimise wasted time and to easily consolidate information to facilitate fact based decision-making. So the search for effective systems began.

All the systems we evaluated were financially driven, didn't meet document control requirements and did not have a focus on providing tools for people to do their job nor the flexibilityy that is required in the construction industry. In the search for efficient tools-based systems it became apparent there was nothing suitable on the market, we did find many part solutions but we found nothing consolidated. From this search came the idea to fulfil a market niche.

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