Doing field inspections is nothing new. Even back in the Stone Age, when Fred Flintstone was done with his workday at the Slate Rock and Gravel Company, Mr. Slate probably came around with a stone tablet and a small dinosaur with a sharp beak to chisel in the results of a field inspection of Fred’s work.
In late 2021, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) encountered a severe problem. A former contract worker was accused of falsifying up to 3,000 electric system inspections over two years. The deception was revealed when a power pole, allegedly inspected and declared free of rot, collapsed into a residential backyard. It sent a live electrical wire into a swimming pool, fortunately without causing any injuries.
It’s been a wild ride for the construction industry. First we have the pluses: a surge in construction spending due to pent up demand post-lockdown, $550 billion in federal funding which will spur large infrastructure projects, and a (temporarily) red-hot housing market leading to new residential housing starts increase of 15.6% in 2021. In this dynamic environment, digital field inspection management platforms have become increasingly important.
OSHA makes your company do safety inspections. So do your insurers, your investors, your unions, your contractors, your state and local agencies. At times it may seem like a line of people is at your front door with pen and clipboard in one hand and a flashlight in the other, looking to nitpick and find fault. We invite you to move away from the mindset of the inspection as an annoyance, a deterrent, and a punishment. Instead look at it as a valuable tool with benefits far beyond those of keeping all the clipboard-wielders appeased.
Like most governmental agencies, OSHA is not immune to political will, and the numbers of inspectors can vary wildly from administration to administration. In 1980, for example, there were 3,063 workplaces for each OSHA inspector; in 2020, there were 9,286. Further demonstrating OSHA’s diminishment: in 2010, there were the same number of OSHA inspectors (1,106) as there was 30 years earlier, but by January 2019, there were only 875 inspectors, despite the incredible growth in the American workforce.
Better safety programs through digital inspection data
The recent release of the widely-circulated annual SmartMarket Report Safety Management in the Construction Industry 2021 from the Dodge Construction Network, in partnership with CPWR and Newmetrix, re-confirms one of their long-standing findings: contractors consistently report that safety programs have a wide range of positive impacts on their business as a whole.
Everything about 2020 was strange. The way we worked, shopped, socialized, and learned was upended seemingly overnight. Most of us have since adapted (out of necessity). Tools like Zoom and Google have helped us work and learn from home. However, a significant group of workers faced unique challenges. They were vital for maintaining operations but couldn’t work from home. These workers had to adapt to new ways of working and find tools to perform their tasks effectively.
As a property manager, it’s your job to not only help your clients preserve the value of their property, but to ensure it stays in compliance with local ordinances. In many states, a code violation multiplies every day it goes unresolved. So a $1,000 violation, left unattended for a week, becomes an $8,000 violation, and so on. To protect your clients (and your company), you need to conduct regular inspections, respond quickly to problems, and confirm that your contractors are performing high-quality work. Between contracts, inspection reports, and maintenance records, it’s a lot of paperwork — and paperwork is the enemy of expeditiousness.
Regular roof inspections are critical for detecting damage from severe weather, improper construction, and even regular wear and tear. Using a mobile roof inspection checklist can help you streamline the process and conduct more thorough inspections in less time.
