Innovation in construction safety and site operations is happening and we’re all for it. This includes mental health programs and support, better form-fitting PPE like helmets and equipment for women, and technology. In 2022, there was a record investment in construction tech, fueling the release and purchase of ever-improving hardware and software technology for safety operations and beyond.
However, an article released this month revealed a concerning statistic: around 80% of construction executives reported that for the first time in over 10 years, their safety performance is moving in the wrong direction.
COVID-19 and ongoing worker health management concerns pushed standards to new levels, temporarily improving safety performance. Except, when COVID-19 protocols were removed, many old safety practices were discarded, leading to decreased attention and compliance with standard safety protocols.
As an industry, we proved our adaptability by responding to the pressures of changing health regulations and supply chain issues at an unprecedented pace. This disruption created opportunities for ongoing change. New perspectives on risk management, remote work, and employee safety and well-being drove investment and adoption of new standards and software solutions, resulting in overwhelmingly positive changes for the construction industry.
How can we regain control over this trajectory to make our sites safer and more attractive for the next generation of people in construction?
This question forms part of our mission at HammerTech.
I feel privileged to share a bird's eye view of recent product and business wins as well as our outlook including top construction safety trends from consultations with industry leaders.
We launched the #HammerTechCommmunity and welcomed a record number of clients
This community brings together a group of passionate and expert business analysts, safety and operation leaders through online and in-person events across all of our global regions. The goal is to create space to share knowledge and cross-pollinate best practices to find solutions to the biggest problems in construction that alone we can’t solve alone.
Over 150 new clients joined the HammerTech Community, bringing our total to 400 global clients.
Record number of product releases
The development team released over 466 new updates to the platform last year. Major new features included a pre-task planning tool, incident workflows, new PowerBI template reports, subcontractor outstanding observations dashboard, project hours projection, integrations, daily report metrics and KPIs, TV billboard App update, and much more!
Pre-Task Plan tool reduces pencil-whipping and increases hazard recognition.
The pre-task plan (PTP) tool was especially popular with our North American clients. It encourages subcontractors to lead in-person daily briefings with their teams, and task-related hazard suggestions help improve hazard control and training before daily work begins. The PTP can also be linked to permits, equipment, checklists, and equipment to ensure everyone has the full picture of what’s required to work safely.
Check out the Pre Task Plan Benefits, Prep Work and Best Practices Guide here.
Integrations for better connections with EHS data
We continued to develop platform-specific integrations with leading construction solutions, such as CMiC, Acumatica, Irongate Solutions, Opal.io, Kwant.ai and enhancements to our Procore integration, on top of our open API.
2023 Safety and Site Operations Trends and Outlook
Here are the top trends we are hearing from construction safety leaders and executives that have informed our plans:
Here’s what we have in store and how we are responding to these trends.
A new region! Yes – we’re expanding again! Stay tuned for the official announcement in April...or follow @Ben Leach, our CEO on LinkedIn for early updates.
Progress visibility driven by quality
We believe that using existing processes is the key to unlocking progress tracking without adding extra workload to site teams and project managers.
Imagine you’re pouring the concrete frame on a 12-story building. Your critical path is through your frame to the watertight sign-off of the lift shaft and rolls through your facades and fit-out. You know your QA/QC hold points and the quality inspections required early-on, right? This sign-off also aligns with task completion.
As you complete quality inspections in HammerTech, you will automatically have visibility in a Gantt chart of your progress through critical activities. With this information you’ll be able to visualize the progress of quality checklists against locations in HammerTech and be confident in completion progress, or spot gaps to mitigate delays.
Enterprise enablement
We're proud to announce we have just secured ISO 9001:2015 accreditation. While not widely considered to be the coolest thing around (unless you're a nerd like me), accreditations like ISO and SOC2 are essential for enterprise organizations, and we’re committed to ensuring our systems are as robust as the very best of our clients. Granular user roles has now been released and further planned enhancements will make it easier to manage multiple global regions with better language localization, employee role types to ensure all stakeholders receive what they need at the right time, and much more.
HammerTech Insights
HammerTech already has task-oriented dashboards and a comprehensive PowerBI integration with over 20 standard reports. Through research and many customer conversations, we’re working on new reports that will be available within the HammerTech platform. They are as powerful as BI reports with the bonus of options to customize views across company and at project level. HammerTech Insights will make it easier for everyone to access the information they need to prioritize what matters most, collaborate around real problems, and celebrate improvements. Here is a sneak peek!
Time saving daily progress updates
Have you ever been in the middle of completing a daily report, which can be a tedious task, only to lose your work due to an unexpected internet glitch? The new release will allow daily activities that are already automatically pulled into HammerTech daily reports, available in our mobile app, even offline. This includes all daily activities that have occurred within HammerTech like JHAs/SWMS, PTPs, inspections and issues, incidents, active trades and labor hours, KPIs, weather, etc. Supervisors and subcontractors will save even more time, only need to confirm labor hours and add daily commentary with voice-to-text, completing the task in a matter of minutes.
Perhaps in the future, ChatGPT will handle writing the summaries, but for now, we’ve got you covered, and both your commercial and risk managers will love you for it.
More integrations and partnerships
Maintaining and expanding integrations and partnerships continue to be a central focus in our strategic plans. We plan to continue building connections with other Enterprise Resource Platforms such as MYOB and Sage, as well as Project Management with Autodesk Construction Cloud.
Join me in the HammerTech Community!
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