I’ve been doing some part-time carpentry and site supervision for a large high-end home builder. They are in dire need of full time site supervisors for huge projects at the Yellowstone Club. I found myself in a room full of principals, explaining that the reason I didn’t want one of those positions is because I find myself in a steady state of rage at how people are constantly fucking up/not showing up, and that’s unhealthy. Everyone nodded.
As an agency truck driver, I worked for a company that had contracts with a couple of major housebuilders to supply white goods.
As the houses neared completion, the cookers, fridges, washing machines etc, that the new owner had chosen were delivered. They were able to choose from the builder’s catalogue and have the cost added to the price of the house.
It was a problem job because we were delivering to huge building sites where many of the houses were only partially completed. There were no street numbers and it was often difficult and time-consuming to find anyone who could identify the particular house I wanted and then to sign for the items as they went in.
On a really big construction project, a lot of this is controlled by what’s called a Permit to Work system. Workers know what they’re going to be doing because they need to be issued a permit to do the work, and completed work has to be inspected and signed off by someone else. Permit-to-Work systems were initially developed only for high-risk activities, but nowadays are used for a lot of fairly routine activities on sites as well. At least, that’s my experience with current construction of various LNG terminals and power plants, globally (well, Europe and Asia, at any rate)
There’s a great Liam Neeson flick where he’s on the phone managing a huge concrete pour while driving to see his child born. I can’t think of the name of it, but would give OP a sense of how things are managed in real time.
Okay, that’s embarrassing. I thought I might have started a similar thread, but I didn’t find it. I blame being tired and having my mind otherwise occupied. Still, no excuses. Thank you for being patient with me.
Thank you for the conversation, y’all, even if we did cover somewhat similar territory in the past. This conversation has taken a bit of a different course and I appreciate that.
What is a “high-risk activity” in this context? The construction site that inspired my thread this time is a large freeway and interchange project. If a flyover bridge fails, the cost in lives could be large. Is that “high-risk”, or does it mean something that poses a risk to the construction worker himself?
Him or people around while they’re doing the activity or immediately after, not much later as a consequence of just the thing existing, like your bridge example.
Typical examples of high-risk activities include working at heights, working in enclosed spaces, excavations, working with very high (or low) temperatures, working with high voltages, working with pressurized gas, etc. So many commonplace construction activities - things like welding, setting up tall scaffolding, or digging foundations - are all actually high-risk activities in the Control of Work space.
Also note that this type of system considers individual tasks to be activities, not the overall project. “Welding the rebar for a concrete pour on June 20, 2023” or “setting up the scaffolding for bridge pillar number 4, June 20-24 2023” are examples of high-risk activity in this sense, “Building a bridge in 2023-2024” is not.