The Standards Institution of Israel (SII) is promoting an initiative to improve safety on construction sites whereby people will be trained to inspect sites, and construction site managers and workers will receive safety training.

"We are aware of the severe situation on construction sites when it comes to safety, and we have therefore come up with a new service - construction site safety checks," says Adi Cafri, safety engineer at the SII. "The Safety Administration tries to visit all the sites, but they have limited manpower. The service we are offering is not regulatory, and is nothing to do with fines. It is intended to help contractors improve safety at the sites themselves. Today's concept around the world is less regulation and more independent safety awareness on the part of companies and workers, and not to wait until accidents happen at building sites."

Cafri says that those selected to implement the program are people with a background in construction. "We built a theoretical and practical training course with the help of Dr. Avi Griffel, whose field this is. Our perception is that the industry wants to improve safety, and this can give contractors the tools to do it right. We have no connection to the Safety Administration in the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, but we are in touch with all the entities involved. Later on, perhaps, after the pilot is shown to work, someone might decide to turn it into a compulsory inspection at every building site."

Currently, a building contractor can ask the SII for training, and the SII itself approaches contractors. So far, 30 people have been trained for the job, which is more than the number of safety inspectors at the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.

The service is not provided free of course. Each visit and training session will cost the contractors money - probably NIS 2,000-2,500 per visit. "This hasn't yet been finally determined," the SII says. "We are aiming at a price that won’t deter contractors or put up the price of homes."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare has announced that from this May it will start a pilot scheme for identifying safety breaches at 400 construction sites using new technologies. "In the coming months, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare will start to use the services of technology providers to gather information and identify safety breaches," the ministry said. The pilot is designed to test the performance of these technologies.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare says that the technologies, to be provided by Manam Applications, Geokom, Safeguard, Just Manage, and Practical Innovation, will assist in gathering, analyzing and processing data, and will make the ministry's inspection of sites where safety hazards may exist more efficient and comprehensive. The new technologies will collect information through video and still pictures from the ground and, apart from in the case of Just Manage, from the air as well, using drones.

"By means of the drones, we shall be able to visit more sites without preparation, documenting the deficiencies in real time, with their precise location," said Minister of Labor and Social Welfare Haim Katz. "At the same time, we shall create a database that will facilitate analysis of the data, which will assist us in concentrating our efforts on the more dangerous sites."

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on April 30, 2018

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018