Supernova Award Category

The Problem

Pepper Construction is undertaking a $120 million industrial construction project in Indiana for an international manufacturing brand. The project spans one million square feet across two separate buildings that are divided by a highway. The distance between key project stakeholders and among tradespeople on campus introduces the potential for significant communication gaps.

Traditional jobsite communication channels include email, text, phone calls and jobsite meetings. While generally effective, a project of this size exposes the limitations in handing critical, group and broadcast communications, like safety alerts. Emails are easily ignored. Texting is limited to the contact numbers that are known. Phone calls often lead to a drawn out chain of communications, and jobsite meetings are not always timely enough. Pepper needed a more centralized safety communication platform to streamline the process.

The Solution

Pepper Construction and Trinity Safety Group's safety team decided to use an enterprise messaging app, Zinc, to bridge communication gaps on the project. They collaborated to customize the existing platform for the new application. The platform is designed to broadcast specific messages to targeted audiences instantly, within a secure environment. It helps with safety planning and allows for daily reporting and recognition – when the work is still applicable and corrective action can be taken. Essentially, it creates a more integrated and continuous learning process. For Pepper, this solution fits with the company's culture, which is already leading the industry through its focus on measuring leading indicators. Zinc also manages any events that happen and assists with more rapid closeout. All parties can contribute to the conversation at one time. Most importantly, it promotes transparency and encourages everyone to be aware of their role in the project as a whole.

The results

Since rolling out Zinc, Pepper has seen a significant impact on the project. This reporting system delivers a daily summary of all activities and is shared with key stakeholders at the end of each day. Though still in the early phases of construction, already the program has received complete buy-in from the end user. They see the value and fully support the platform. Recently, the Pepper and Trinity team received feedback that the client's corporate offices overseas consider the use of Zinc a best practice and are interested in expanding its use to other projects.

Using this new system of communication has also provided a more effective way of ensuring Pepper Construction workers are up-to-date on safety and any on-site issues. If, for example, there is a possibility for severe weather, administrative and managerial staff can simply send out a push notification to all on-site teams and alert them to impending danger. Read receipts on the app ensure that managerial staff is aware when team members have received and read the message.

Rolling out the new communication platform on the manufacturing project has captured the interest of Pepper's other offices, and they are now considering other ways of implementing Zinc beyond a single project to across all projects.

Metrics

Communicating with teams on small projects is pretty straightforward, but the logistics of a large project make it more complex. Currently, more than 100 people are spread across two buildings, divided by a highway, and that number varies each day. Project and client stakeholders are located across campus, offsite and overseas. Without the use of technology, timely communication would not be possible.

Pepper uses Predictive Solutions to track observations on a mobile device and distribute reports once or twice a week. Since Zinc integrates with Predictive Solutions, the Pepper and Trinity team distributes reports on a daily basis – providing the right information, to the right people, at the right time.

Recognition is a key factor in the success of a safety program designed to impact behavior. Each day the report starts with individual tradesperson recognition. Over the first 90-days of the project, 90 tradespeople have received individual recognition. This is followed by safe and unsafe metrics. So far, the job is 98.7 percent safe, exceeding Pepper's benchmark across all projects.

The metrics also show a high level of engagement in the safety program, with 893 audits completed in the past 90 days and 18,448 specific behaviors and conditions documented.

Crucially, daily monitoring and communication allow for more immediate corrective actions. So far, 246 corrective actions have been completed, with approximately 93 percent of actions corrected on time.

The Technology

We use Zinc, a mobile enterprise messaging platform that provides voice and video for in-the-field workers. Zinc brings together the fast, easy and feature-rich user experience that deskless and mobile workers are already familiar with, alongside the security, compliance and administrative controls that enterprises require.

Disruptive Factor

Pepper Construction and Trinity Safety found Zinc’s communication capabilities to be so critical to the project that they developed an entirely new role, the information analyst, to manage the training, dissemination of information and evaluation of metrics. The information analyst offers insight into day-to-day output that subsequently enables better understanding of how the team is tracking alongside project goals and metrics.

Moreover, Pepper Construction and Trinity Safety are able to better connect with stakeholders across the project in a more streamlined format. On a daily basis, they can share what's coming up, gain consensus around proposed solutions and draw attention to the key positives and opportunities.

As some safety metrics, and particularly high risk activities, continue to rise, the construction industry is ripe for a change agent. In an industry driven by competition, safety is one area in which competitors are open to sharing best practices with each other - contributing ideas for the greater good of the industry. Recognized among their peers as an industry leader, Pepper has made incremental improvements over the years that have evolved their safety program and continued to raise the bar. Their culture of seeking out solutions that push safety to the next level allowed for a quick adoption of Zinc by the project team, and their stature provides a platform to take safety to the next level for the entire construction industry.

Shining Moment

An event occurred this week and within minutes, a project manager sent a notification to alert the safety team, reaching each team member at the same time, despite different locations. Each person was able to contribute to the solution and for immediate action to be taken. Zinc provided transparency so that when the report came out, everyone was already aligned. It allows those who are responsible for the project to be present without being on site at all times.