Construction and Safety

[fgeorge]

Just what it says!

[fgeorge]

This from AZobuild.com:

FDNY Selects IBM for Intelligent Fire Safety System


The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) has selected IBM (NYSE: IBM) to build a state-of-the-art system for collecting and sharing data in real-time that potentially can prevent fires and protect firefighters and other first responders when a fire occurs.
FDNY's new Coordinated Building Inspection and Data Analysis System (CBIDAS) will use business intelligence technologies, including predictive modeling and advanced data analytics, to anticipate fire exposures, analyze possible impacts, and improve processes that can minimize risks, such as collecting and disseminating data on building inspection, permits and violations.

"This technology will allow us to shift to a risk-based inspection system that will prevent fires and improve public safety," said Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. "Combining different existing databases, and linking them with those of other city agencies such as the Department of Buildings, will dramatically improve the information available to our firefighters and result in a smarter, more productive inspection program."

"The FDNY's strategic shift to a 'smarter' risk-based inspections and using technology to improve data sharing directly supports its mission to advance public safety through the timely delivery of fire prevention, investigation and education services," said Charles L. Prow, Government Managing Partner, IBM Global Business Services. "IBM is pleased to apply our expertise to this lifesaving work."

An important element of the project will be enabling better communication, information sharing and coordination of fire inspection and site/building structure information within FDNY bureaus, and between FDNY bureaus and other city agencies such as Department of Buildings, Department of City Planning, and Department of Environmental Protection, and contractors.

The transformational FDNY initiative also will enhance fire prevention capabilities through:

A single, unified view of a property; Improved resource deployment and utilization for inspections; Expanded management analysis and preparedness planning; A risk-based inspection system for field inspections.

In August 2007, two firefighters lost their lives in a fire at the former Deutsche Bank building in New York City, which had been scheduled for demolition. Investigators attributed the loss of life to a lack of timely information available to responding firefighters. Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched an initiative to prevent similar events from happening in the future.

The goal of the CBIDAS is to ensure that firefighters and other first responders have timely access to the information they need for effective fire suppression and for maximum public and personnel safety when a fire occurs.

With the completion of the project, FDNY will also move from a strictly cyclical, schedule-based inspection process to a risk-based assessment methodology.

Posted January 13th, 2009

[Steve Bennett]

From Industrial IT:

Bianco Construction Supplies implements Inside Info QlikView
25 March 2009

BIANCO Construction Supplies has implemented QlikView as its business intelligence platform to support the sales and logistics analysis of Lawson M3 data.

The Bianco Group is based in South Australia. It is a building and construction manufacturer and distributor which employs over 350 people. Its products include structural steel, reinforcing, portable buildings, construction equipment and tools.

According to Inside Info, supplier of the QlikView platform, prior to the implementation of its software, Bianco Construction Supplies had a limited view of sales and customer data. The IT department needed to reduce the time and manpower required to respond to report requests while accelerating the availability of up to the minute sales, delivery and customer information.
Bianco Construction Supplies says Inside Info took one day to deliver the QlikView application, with deployment completed in 30 days.
The QlikView business intelligence platform allows Bianco to automate analysis of sales, margin, dispatch and customer trends and impacts across its business. QlikView has saved the IT department two hours of labour a day, and there is better visibility of operations for senior management.

Bianco Construction Supplies claims the QlikView business intelligence platform, combined with its existing Lawson ERP system, has delivered more detailed, flexible and faster data analysis. The business has also increased its responsiveness to trends and customer demands and improved its ability to generate sales opportunities.

[admin]

Construction Contractor

30 April 2009

Cost-cutting is often an inevitable consequences of economic crises. However, according to Graham Murphy (pictured above), director at Semco, investing in technology is not something that should fall by the wayside when margins are tight.

Despite business having dropped by approximately half due to the current economic crisis, Murphy is convinced that Semco's investment in technologies such as their business management system, Systime, is helping the company to survive today's tough economic climate.

Systime is a global services provider that delivers solutions in enterprise resource planning, e-procurement, process collaboration, business intelligence, business integration, infrastructure management, human resources and wireless (WAP) technology.

"It allows a dealership like ours to keep a finger on the pulse of all the different facets of our business so that you know precisely what's going on in different areas - parts, service, sales, field service," Murphy said. "It's a complete business management system. It's a software system that we run our business on so that at the end of the month we can press a button and we know precisely what our results are for the month. In any business you have to know where you are before you can work out where you're going."

Semco also has a GPS satellite tracking system on all service trucks, allowing the company to know where the trucks are at any given time. The tracking system also allows Semco to more accurately monitor the mileage of trucks, avoiding potential disputes with customers.

"We don't want to choke the goose but we have to make sure that we recover our costs and that we can substantiate the accounts and bills that we send out," Murphy said.

While admitting that machinery and technology can never replace good quality customer service, Murphy concedes that technology can help the construction industry to save money by more quickly and efficiently performing the work that people once did. "We are going through a technological revolution now. In the old days, a typical contracting company might have had 15 staff and three machines and most of those people were on picks and shovels. Well nowadays, you have 15 machines and three staff ... Even a little machine can do the work of 10 people," he said.

Aconex is another example of how technology can save both time and money for construction companies. It is an online project management, document management and web collaboration system for the construction, engineering and facilities management industries. It uses the internet to store and manage all of the information on projects that rely on several people coming together over various time frames, to meet a set deadline within a set cost.

It allows architects, contractors and other construction workers to pull up drawings, approve requests or request information any time, anywhere. "For instance," says Will Turbet, Aconex marketing manager, "if they want to find a document, instead of searching through files or having to request it from someone on the project team, they just log into the system and can do a Google-style keyword search for architectural drawings from this organisation or between these two dates and it gets pulled up straight away."

Aconex also keeps an audit trail of every transaction and update made on a project. This allows all people involved in a project to be kept up-to-date on developments and if something is overdue, it is flagged in the system, allowing bottlenecks to be identified and resolved as quickly as possible.

Turbet says that the company is seeing the uptake of Aconex roughly double each year as people get more comfortable with the idea that online collaboration systems are an efficient and cost-effective way of managing information.

"The volume of information being generated, and managing it efficiently is such a critical part of project success and keeping projects on track. Only relying on emails and hardcopies is not efficient and it just doesn't work and it costs companies money and wastes time as well," he said. "When margins are tight it can just give you that little bit of cost-saving, speed up the flow of information and get people more productive because they have faster access to and exchange of information." - by Danielle Bowling

[Steve Bennett]

Business Intelligence package praised by company

- Jul 1 2009, 07:49 AM

A company in Australia has commended the advantages of using specialised software for database management.

Adelaid Brighton Cement input details about workplace injuries and hazards into its Business Intelligence (BI) package, reports the Australian.

Vince Aurora, plant manager at the firm's Angaston facility, said this allowed him to monitor health and safety on the premises and reduce the risk of accidents.

"I needed a tool that would allow me to be able to quickly visualise where these incidents were occurring, and how frequently," he commented.

Mr Aurora said the BI package displayed the data in a simple manner that meant he did have to go "delving" into the company's database.

He added that he has been able to easily extract the relevant information in a report format.

This comes after enterprise software provider SAP suggested that small and medium-sized businesses should use business intelligence systems to streamline their internal processes.

[Doug Heywood]

Manufacturers' Monthly | 31 August 2009 | by David Bass

DURING the past decade, business and government interest in employee safety has jumped several notches, making OHS an essential concern for any organisation.

No longer merely an adjunct to human resources management, OHS is being taken seriously as an essential part of any organisation's code of practice.

The management at Adelaide Brighton Cement understands this only too well. Its employees operate in a production environment defined by heavy machinery and high temperatures - a combination that could easily prove risky without thorough safety measures.

In 2008, Adelaide Brighton Cement's Angaston plant embarked on a new approach to reducing workplace injuries and hazards. It began with the appointment of Vince Aurora to the role of plant manager.

Aurora had previously been employed as the Angaston production manager. He had a good understanding of the safety and performance data relating to production activities and was experienced in using the company's SQL database to obtain hazard and injury reports.

While the database was not particularly user friendly and it was impossible to drill down into reports for additional detail, the database did play an important part in notifying a broad range of management and staff when safety incidents occurred.

However, with his newly expanded role Aurora had assumed responsibility for a number of additional departments.

He didn't have the luxury of in-depth historical knowledge of each department and he soon realised that if safety was to continue to improve, he required something more than the database.

"We needed to be able to visualise the data that was being reported, but we certainly didn't want a complete ERP software implementation," Aurora explained.

Low-risk, high-gain BI

After investigating the market, Aurora introduced myDIALS, a business intelligence system that can take input from any of the Angaston plant's existing data sources and present it in a series of interactive, online dashboards complete with highlighted KPIs.

The system offers Aurora the ability to create a real-time snapshot of critical safety, hazard and environment data for all relevant staff and management.

Immediacy of OHS information and the ability to analyse data have been amongst the biggest benefits arising from the new software.

"The interface is crisp, clean and easy to understand. Even the back end is designed for a simple end user, not a technology freak, so it is very easy to go in and modify the dashboard.

"We can slice and dice data as never before. Plus the dashboard gives live information every time an incident is raised. We never used to see this kind of reporting in anything other than monthly reports," he added.

Since deployment, management has seen an increase in reporting culture at the Angaston plant. Hazard identification doubled in 2008 while incident reporting improved by 70%.

A new cross-functional weekly OHS review meeting has been instituted to help manage the increase in reports and to ensure follow-up action where required.

The supervisors who attend these meetings are leading the plant's drive to improve safety and eliminate hazards.

"We could only get to this level once we started to get reliable, real time information."

The next step for Angaston is to increase visibility of the data and to give employees immediate notification of hazards by displaying the dashboards on LCD screens throughout the plant.

With OHS improving, Aurora is now turning his attention to other responsibilities. This year he hopes to incorporate despatch data in the dashboard so that the sales personnel can more easily monitor customer order status.

Metrics such as tonnes of product, by-product, the site, weighbridge and potentially even the silo involved in shipping will be recorded and updated hourly so that plant managers can better plan and allocate production scheduling. The ultimate aim is to ensure that customers never run out of product.

myDIALS 07 3118 5013, Optimize operational performance with right-time visibility and analytics for performance metrics | myDIALS.