How Autodesk Construction Software Helps Support Site Safety

Safety, Software and the Jobsite

Effective safety on a construction jobsite is a process, not a product.  We all know that it’s a complicated, orchestrated dance to ensure the safety of people around an active site, with many moving pieces.  It’s one reason for the increased development and use of wearables, site sensors, drones and even exoskeletons.

But what about your project management solutions? Technology solutions such as the Autodesk’s Autodesk Construction Cloud (ACC), provides a powerful way to track, prevent and improve jobsite safety—with real-time visibility.

Here are three ways ACC can help deliver a safer jobsite.

Compliance, Checklists and Access

A solution such as Autodesk Build is purpose-built to seamlessly collaborate and deliver projects on time, on budget with construction project and field management software. Some may not realize that it’s also a highly effective risk management tool.

Belgian construction company Ibens uses the Autodesk Construction Cloud’s Autodesk Build to streamline the company’s collaboration with clients and partners, reducing review times. But the technology is also helping support safety. Key compliance data, including safety checklists, mandatory site safety surveys and data on the energy performance, is all stored in the system for easy accessibility.

Learned Behavior

The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is also working its way into safety and risk management solutions in the form of predictive-based safety (PBS). Put simply, PBS is all about using data to assess, predict and correct safety risks. Over the long-term, across multiple projects, machine learning techniques can uncover patterns of behavior that cause accidents or missteps

With tools such as ACC’s Construction IQ, project managers and safety leaders are able to identify and prioritize project risk through built-in machine learning and AI functionality. The technology provides access to real-time risk analytics for earlier visibility into high-risk issues and RFIs.

As Steven Bloomer, Regional BIM Lead at civil engineering firm, GHD noted, capabilities like this are game changers. “Imagine you’re on a project with 100+ safety issues identified. Where do you start to provide mitigations or potential control measures? If it was me, and before I started using Construction IQ, I’d start at issue one and work my way through the list. This is not the most effective solution. Construction IQ allows you to review issues in order of priority to make your life easier and ultimately reduce the risk to your projects.”

An App for That

As the smartphone has become integral to construction workflows, so has the development of mobile apps to facilitate various activities. These apps range from daily reporting to tool tracking. One of the most common uses is safety management.

The ACC Mobile app is designed to do all that and more. Interconnected with solutions such as Autodesk Build, the app makes it easy to log safety and quality issues.  With the app, it’s easy to improve site safety observations by running through checklists directly from a mobile device. Or create safety issues for non-conforming checklist items and unsafe conditions and then assign them to the responsible party with a click.  Need more clarify? Add photos or comments to help identify and resolve common problems with the proper context.

Proactive with a Predictive Goal

As we celebrate Safety Week 2024, keep in mind that delivering a safe construction site in today’s digital ecosystem requires a comprehensive safety strategy.  Data capture must be standardized and project data is best managed and integrated in a common environment, where predictive analytics can drive better outcomes.

Modern safety protocols are all about moving from reactive behavior (responding to incidents as they happen) to more proactive behavior that actively seeks and identifies potential risks. With the help of AI, an organization can then move from proactive to predictive approaches that analyze systems and processes to identify potential problems before they occur.