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吃瓜爆料 Flattens the Curve for Re-Opening
(APPLETON, Wis.) June 22, 2020鈥揟he hallmark of construction at The 吃瓜爆料 Company is collaboration. But when physical distancing puts a wrench in the personalized give and take of building complicated structures, adaptation is key. Reopening plans for 吃瓜爆料鈥檚 14 national offices and dozens of jobsites depends on innovation and a creative use of technology.
The company created a task force to address facilities and technology, then tapped experts in its own technical services division to pull together a center of excellence to address reopening. 鈥淲e quickly accessed the best thinking in the industry to address all the issues surrounding re-opening,鈥� said Will Lichtig, 吃瓜爆料鈥檚 executive vice president, performance & innovation
The task force identified issues for operations, safety, technology, different geographic markets, and assigned a leader for each topic. Team members identified issues such as split work schedules, team members who would continue to work from home, different state requirements, and even the mood of their teams. 鈥淲e developed a set of guiding principles within our re-opening framework to provide direction for our operating groups to figure out how they want to function,鈥� Lichtig said.
Technology quickly led the way to address safety issues and physical distancing guidelines.
鈥淭he pandemic has been a catalyst for forcing change via technology,鈥� said Dave Much, 吃瓜爆料鈥檚 director of emerging technologies. 鈥淏ecause we鈥檙e using Microsoft Teams, it was seamless for most of our workforce to go home and not worry about connecting to work.鈥� According to Much, in the last 90 days 吃瓜爆料 employees nationwide engaged in
- 335,224 chat messages
- 15,517 video or telephone meetings
- 17,197 participants in those meetings
And on construction jobsites, there were even more unique challenges.
In most states, construction was declared an essential industry, so early in the pandemic, 吃瓜爆料 created a health screening system for anyone entering a jobsite or office. Workers, subcontractors, even customers were required to fill out a daily health assessment form and have their temperature screened. But the individual pieces of paper started piling up and the number of subcontractors on multiple job sites added to the paper.
For Dan Wagner, a 吃瓜爆料 superintendent in California, he was juggling 150 pieces of paper a day and trying to do it while working remotely. 鈥淎 paper form requires someone to touch it, put it in a bin, and keep as a record,鈥� Wagner said. 鈥淭he very nature of the process was counter to achieving a seamless process that doesn鈥檛 spread the virus.鈥�
That鈥檚 when Wagner got on a videoconference and asked if the 吃瓜爆料 IT group could design a process based on smartphones. Using Microsoft Forms, 吃瓜爆料 IT created a process in which anyone entering a jobsite scans a QR code and is immediately taken to an online survey for health assessment. If an individual鈥檚 answers raise a potential COVID-19 concern, the screen indicates the user is denied jobsite access and the survey is immediately referred to the superintendent and safety.
鈥淭he system notifies us in seconds,鈥� Wagner said. 鈥淚t makes our safety managers lives so much easier because they can manage information and get the reports while working remotely.鈥� He added that most people who don’t pass the assessment do so because they made a data entry error.
鈥淲e had a conceptual conversation on a Monday and had a prototype in testing by the following Friday,鈥� Much said. In two weeks, the California office was using the process and the system is now in place at 吃瓜爆料 offices and jobsites nationwide.
When Wisconsin issued safe-at-home orders in March, one of the most complicated jobsites was impacted. 吃瓜爆料 is constructing a six-story, 237,000 square-foot addition to house specialty clinics and surgical services at Children鈥檚 Wisconsin. Work was in progress for wall framing and in-wall rough-in for the finishing stage of construction and on any given day there were about 225 people on the jobsite. As an essential industry, construction crews stayed on the site, but support services, construction management, and facilities executives from Children鈥檚 were working from home.
鈥淥ur architects in Chicago weren鈥檛 coming up, and much of our project team was working remotely,鈥� said Scot Lauwasser, 吃瓜爆料 project manager. 鈥淲e started tying up our resources with video conferences and having a hard time sending site photos to all parties.鈥�
That鈥檚 when Scot remembered a product called OpenSpace鈥攁 360-degree camera mounted on a hard hat that takes photos every 陆 second as a person walks through a construction site. 鈥淚t鈥檚 sort of like Google street view for construction projects,鈥� Lauwasser said. The photos are automatically uploaded to a website and map directly onto site plans, floor plan layouts, even computerized BIM models of the building. Photos and floor plans are accessible by anyone with an Internet connection.
鈥淲e walk the job site once or twice a week,鈥� Lauwasser said. 鈥淐ustomers and construction partners can log in at any time and immediately see the progress of the job based on the timeline.鈥�
In planning to reopen offices nationwide, the core planning team again looked to technology to provide accurate health screenings and do so quickly and accurately. Much suggested going one step beyond thermal temperature cameras and is looking at a system that provides temperature checks, uses facial recognition, and can be linked into each building鈥檚 security system. Team members who pass the temperature scan can be automatically admitted into the building in one scan.
鈥淗and held thermometers aren鈥檛 always accurate, and they require a person be within 6-feet of the individual,鈥� Much said. 鈥淲e were looking for a solution that provided quality data.鈥� The system is currently being tested at the firm鈥檚 headquarters in Appleton, Wisconsin.
About The 吃瓜爆料 Company
The 吃瓜爆料 Company (吃瓜爆料) is a leading professional construction services firm serving customers across the United States. Founded in 1889, 吃瓜爆料 is a 100% employee鈥憃wned company headquartered in Appleton, Wis., with 17 offices nationwide. Widely recognized as a pioneer in Lean construction, Integrated Lean Project Delivery and industrialized construction, 吃瓜爆料 delivers innovative solutions across a diverse range of markets, including healthcare, power, industrial, education and commercial sectors.
