Monday, December 31, 2007

Security...Anyone???

In todays highly litigious environment there is nothing more critical to a major contrators risk management control system than effective static guarding security. Particularly in developments that are taking place in urban centres, the good old security guard is the thin blue line between a controlled construction site environment and completely unfettered public access. In some circumstances, the requirement for security will be imposed on you by local council.

So if you are going to have the expense of security at the gate it's in your own interest to get full value out of them. Think about the following points when engaging a contractor, as too often a security guard is employed purely as a "gate" - allowing entry or not. Think more widely when you engage your contractor - what else can they do to support your brand and corporate image? When drafting your security scope think about including the following items:

Clean Site Entry

  • Make security responsible for keeping the site entry clean. Provide brooms and shovels and a handy bin to facilitate this. A clean site entry says a lot about site managment - particularly when you have important (senior managment or government regulators!) coming to site unexpectedly.

Graffiti Removal

  • The best way to stop graffiti is to remove it as soon as it appears. Security (particularly night security) can be critical in this. Provide your guards with water based paint, brushes, overalls, and buckets. If your security provider can overwrite graffiti quickly and often enough, you will go a long way to stopping it altogether.

Access Control

  • For the security guard, knowing who should and should not be on site is difficult, particularly on large projects. Different workers starting and finishing on the project every day makes knowing who should be provided with access hard.
  • You can help his situation by providing a dedicated access control system. At it's most minimal level, this only needs to consist of identification cards issued to workers who have successfully completed the site induction - preferably with photos. These can then be presented to security at entry each day. Systems on this scale start at around 10k installed - which is a small investment for the benefit it delivers.
  • More sophisticated systems are available, ranging in price up to 160k. These include smart card technology. However, in considering these, really examine the value proposition attached to implementation and use. In my experience, the benefit you get from 10k is not that much different to 160k, so be wary.
Effective security can be a real asset. It sometimes requires you to think outside the square at the time of drafting up the scope of service.

Steve
http://www.misedio.com/


Sunday, December 30, 2007

REAL contractor risk mangement

Ive just seen the system that e-VERIFILE has implemented for Union Pacific Railroad in the US. The system is called e-RAILSAFE and it is used to control how Union Pac deals with its contractors. What e-VERIFILE have done here is THE future of operational risk management, and closer examination of what they've done is very instructive.

e-RAILSAFE requires all prospective Union Pac contractors to log on and register at the e-RAILSAFE website. Here, contractors upload company and employee information. e-VERIFILE then undertake background checks on the company and its employees. Where unacceptable risk is identified, Union Pac, the contractor and the employee are notified - and given the oppertunity to 'appeal'. If accepted, the contractor is then required to remain compliant with Union Pac requirements while ever they remain contracted.

How valuable is this for Union Pacific! Weeding out the problem contractors BEFORE they become a problem significantly reduces the organisations "risk footprint".

The only limitation here is that e-RAILSAFE doesnt extend the verification capability beyond e-VERIFILE to other industry experts. This small proprietary element is actually very limiting. As good as e-RAILSAFE sounds, it would be better if the qualitative process could be extended outside of e-VERIFILE's internal capabilities.

This of course is what Misedio.com is all about - taking this concept and extending it, without limitation, throughout the entire construction industry. Good on e-VERIFILE though! They are way in front in terms of bringing real risk management to the market via the internet channel.

Steve
http://www.misedio.com/

Links
Article at SecuritySolutions.com: http://securitysolutions.com/access_control/security_screening_safety/
e-railsafe website: http://erailsafe.com/
e-verifile website: http://www.e-verifile.com/

Hi and welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome to Construction Site Risk Management where you'll find information about construction sites and how risk affects the people that work on, and manage projects. My main area of concern (although not exclusively) is 'operational risk' - those things that affect how a construction project operates and how you can control the risk attached to operations.

If you work on major construction projects you will already know just how important managing risk is. There has never been a period in history where personal and corporate liability exposure has been as great, and more and more you can be punished (jailed!) for the actions of those that you engage to do work on projects.

So, read on and hopefully you will enjoy and find informative what is here. Feel free to tell me what you think!

Steve
www.misedio.com