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SafetyNet
Mobile software documents safety practices
By Elaine S. Silver
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| Jobsite safety inspections are made easier with the SafetyNet hand-held, software-based service that collects and records safety observations for later analysis. |
New technologies have made the construction process faster and more efficient. One new product uses technology to improve safety conditions on the jobsite. DBO2 SafetyNet is a software-based service that uses hand-held mobile devices to collect safety-related observations and turn them into useful analysis leading to corrective action.
Barry Nelson, DBO2’s CEO, says that SafetyNet essentially automates the best practices that companies are already enacting. “Before, a project manager would note a safety violation on a piece of paper,” Nelson says. “He would put it in a folder and not look at it again or he would say something to someone that something needed to be fixed. Or maybe if something was really bad, it might get in a report in a month.”
With SafetyNet, that same information is available immediately to many eyes and it exists in relation to other observations, which makes the information even more meaningful, explains Nelson. “On a jobsite there could be 17 contractors and several observers spread out over 500 acres,” he says. “An insurance agent, the project owner, the safety manager and several project managers could all be doing safety inspections.”
Using SafetyNet, they would all be recording what they see on their mobile devices and sending the information to the main server. At the end of the day, all that information is assimilated and made into reports for the project team to review.
“What comes out is a snapshot of what happened or did not happen on the job, and then it is easy to see what needs to happen,” Nelson says.
For example, a subcontractor might have done 10 things right but two things wrong. The subcontractor can then communicate those open issues back to the project team, or the report might show that three subcontractors keep coming up with the same issues.
“This is important to know on the project site,” Nelson says. “A contractor seems to be struggling. Without using SafetyNet, how would anyone know?”
Tony O’Dea, a member of AGC’s National Safety Committee and the corporate safety director for Gilbane Building Co., Providence, R.I., says that the process of doing safety inspections has been drudgery at best and resulted in discreet paper reports that don’t permit companies to assess trends in unsafe acts and conditions in order to anticipate responses to potential injuries.
“Our field people can now focus on hazard identification and correction and easily capture their observations using drop-down categories on their portable pocket PCs,” he says. “Using SafetyNet, Gilbane is now able to recognize its superintendents, project managers and safety people by their active engagement in the safety program rather than the trailing indicators of incident rates.”
In other words, accidents are prevented before they happen.
Gilbane has used SafetyNet on more than 200 projects and each day has about 400 people using it to find and fix unsafe acts.
O’Dea says that since deploying SafetyNet in 2005, Gilbane has conducted more than 9,700 inspections, correcting 42,000 unsafe acts and conditions, any one of which could have resulted in accident or injury.
Nelson says that a training session for observation collection takes about two hours, and adoption rates are high when people know why they are bothering to write things down.
They see the data and they know what it means. He says SafetyNet results in reduced injuries and decreased insurance and worker compensation costs.
“Power is not in the observation,” Nelson adds. “Power is in telling me about my company, contractor and overall risk so I can intervene appropriately and allocate resources.”
DBO2 Inc. 275 Shoreline Dr.
Suite 130
Redwood City, Calif. 94065
Phone: (650) 587-0100
Fax: (650) 551-1459
info@dbo2.com
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