By Michael Myers, president, southern California region, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced shutdowns of many global businesses, a coalition of leading critical infrastructure and construction companies has banded together to launch the “NEXT Coalition.” Based on the idea of the “next normal,” the coalition intends to promote and share industry safety best practices to help mitigate the impact of this pandemic or a future health crisis.
The peer companies in the NEXT Coalition combine established cultures of safety, operational excellence, and innovation to accelerate impactful change with the industry and beyond. They include Black & Veatch, DPR Construction, Haskell and McCarthy Building Companies.
As a coalition, we are launching a crowd-sourced campaign focused on ensuring the well-being of crews and office team members in the construction sector, where work can be difficult to conduct remotely and social distancing is a challenge. The need for rapid innovation and implementation in the construction industry has never been greater, and if we work together, we will move the needle faster.
To foster collaboration, we’ve introduced the “Construction Safety Challenge,” an open call to companies, startups and other innovators with emerging safety solutions that impact construction safety and can be quickly deployed and scaled. We’re looking for submissions that are as close to market-ready as possible, although proof-of-concept and prototype-stage solutions also will be considered.
The coalition is looking for solutions designed to minimize or quickly mitigate the onsite transmission of COVID-19 and future pandemics. The industry could greatly benefit from those which encompass issues such as safety policy compliance, screening, tracking and tracing, real-time communication, incident tracking, data analytics and others, as well as technologies for screening, mobile apps, disinfection, wearables, contact tracing, personal protection equipment (PPE) and more.
In addition to seeking both startups and seasoned companies to partner with our members to implement products and processes, we plan to use our collective scale and experience to quickly begin sourcing, testing and launching solutions that will enhance health and safety in the field and back office. What’s most exciting is that chosen solutions may be deployed by coalition members on active projects around the globe.
The Construction Safety Challenge is facilitated by Brightidea, the leading innovation management platform that accelerates the success of modern approaches by harnessing the creative potential of organizations. The developed solutions will be submitted through a web portal, a mobile app or by email, then reviewed by subject-matter experts at each company. Those interested in more information about the NEXT Coalition’s Construction Safety Challenge, including a full list of applications, can visit nextcoalition.co.
The NEXT Coalition and the Construction Safety Challenge are intended to complement trade associations’ training and advocacy programs on construction safety fundamentals and practices. At the end of the day, everyone’s mission is to ensure that workers return home safe and well at the end of each day.
Those of us participating in the NEXT Coalition agree that safety is not competitive and it truly can be open-source. Joining others in the industry to streamline a process for sourcing safety innovations will ultimately improve safety for everyone. Engineering and construction firms from startups to seasoned companies that are interested in joining the coalition may contact us at contact@nextcoalition.co.
