A look at how construction firms, trades and subbies could emerge even stronger after COVID-19 by taking advantage of technology.

With the world still grasping the concept of a ‘new normal’, the construction industry – like many others – has had to adapt. From apps that allow for real-time tracking, monitoring and measurement on site, to cloud-based SaaS, below are some of the ways the pandemic has accelerated the use of technology on site.

Workplace health screening requirements have become the norm, but to avoid site managers being tied up with manual contact tracing tasks, HIA developed a digital tool to help the industry meet its obligations when the Victorian Government introduced workplace mapping requirements.

“It went beyond just a site induction but also looked at who’s coming on site every day, which is a difficult thing to monitor particularly when managing numerous sites across a day and people who may only be on site for a short period,” says HIA’s Executive Director of Building Policy, Simon Croft. “The workplace mapping ‘tool’ utilises QR codes for site management, so people can sign in when they come into the site and on the various sites they might go to over the course of the day.”

HazardCo is another company utilising the ubiquity of smartphones to communicate safety messages to workers. The app captures contact information, so business owners have a record for tracing requirements, and prompts workers with the mandatory health declaration questions prior to entering the job site.

“There’s a QR code displayed outside each job for our OH&S app, HazardCo, and everyone’s required to scan in and out, so we can see how many people are on site at any one time, ensuring compliance and safety for all,” says Rebecca Bishop, co-founder of Elite Building Services.

“There’s a QR code displayed outside each job for our OH&S app, HazardCo, and everyone’s required to scan in and out, so we can see how many people are on site at any one time, ensuring compliance and safety for all,”

Rebecca Bishop, co-founder of Elite Building Services.

The next big thing construction firms have realised is the benefit of cloud-based SaaS technology. The ability to store, access and share data on the cloud is ideal for helping project managers keep a check on activities, resources and deliverables.

“There’s a range of construction software for managing who’s coming on to your site, project workflows, contactless interaction with clients, the recording of information, job scheduling and estimating tools,” Croft says. “People are looking at how they can better integrate all those things into single sources of information.”

While construction is a very physically present industry, the use of technology has allowed for shifts in project execution and collaboration, with many builders supporting most of their projects remotely by leveraging virtual services.

“A lot of builders have moved to virtual tours of their display homes or book in time for the tours to ensure they met capacity requirements and timings,” Croft says.

Remote support has also been useful for trades when staying abreast of building regulations and training, proving it’ll be a huge factor for the industry moving forward.

“HIA traditionally delivered much of this information in face-to-face sessions and member nights, but we’ve moved to delivering a lot of this through webinars and online,” Croft says. “We’ve done webinars that had a lot higher attendance than we would have had face-to-face in the past.”

IoT, or the Internet of Things, is already part of our lives in many ways, but COVID-19 has presented a transformative opportunity for the industry to invest in new, forward-thinking ways of managing projects, supporting employees, and – importantly – avoiding site closures.

“We need to do the right thing on site so we can stay open,” Bishop says. “We’re fuelling the economy; building and construction is the major employer. If we stop, everything stops.”