Remote Construction Site Monitoring, Part 5: Contactless Entry

Matthew Ramage

In a post COVID-19 world with extended health and safety checks, including removal of any unnecessary shared surface contact, how do you quickly take time and attendance, or perform compliance checks on site while still getting the remote monitoring data you need?

Contactless site entry and compliance checks

When a construction site is still operating, there are four core actions that need to happen when workers enter site during a public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic:

1. Collection of time and attendance data

2. Social distancing

3. Compliance and health/well-being checks

4. Reduction of shared surface contact

To handle this, contractors need to deploy a solution which can hold all worker data on compliance questions/checks/documentation, read a worker’s identification from six feet away, populate your remote site monitoring system, and manage access to a construction site without having to touch a common surface, i.e. a turnstile.

This sounds difficult, but it is possible, and being deployed on sites across the country today. With many roles having to run the site remotely, we need to be able to communicate live data including how many people are on site and what contractors and trades have arrived. We need this to compare to schedules and ensure that projects keep moving forward as planned, or we use this data to quickly revise our models.

We also need to keep security guards and workers safe by maintaining a robust social distancing practice on site. This means that whatever system we use to capture worker attendance, it needs to be able to work from a safe distance.

With reduced staff on site, we need to make sure our system can include mandatory questions , forms, fields, checks which keep us compliant with ever evolving guidance. The system should be self-service and allow you to make the changes yourself.

Equip your site security with handheld devices which can read worker ID badges from a safe distance. Make sure that system is able to store all your mandatory site requirements and is flexible enough to allow you to add questions and checks as required. If it can monitor expires on those checks, that would be even better.

Trimble Nomad handheld computer

No matter what protocols you are dealing with, the health and safety of your people is still the number one priority. With a contactless entry system solution, you can ensure compliance while still getting all the data you need to monitor your site remotely.