Read entire story in Construction Dive by Matthew Thibault.

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Balfour Beatty’s smart alarm

London-based infrastructure builder Balfour Beatty knows how dangerous roadside jobsites can be — for last year’s Safety Week, the firm recognized traffic as construction’s fifth fatal risk.

On those jobsites, heavy equipment operators have a lot to worry about, said Jason Sikora, construction manager for Balfour Beatty’s infrastructure work in the Southeast.

“So, the operator has to worry about the GPS telling him what to do. He’s got to worry about the traffic next to him. He’s got to worry about the people on the ground, the other equipment moving around, like a roller,” Sikora said.

That’s where Balfour Beatty makes use of equipment manufacturer Caterpillar’s Cat Detect system. Amid all that movement, the system uses intelligent cameras to track people who go near heavy machinery. If they get too close, the system sounds the alarm. 

The sensor, Sikora said, is based on speed and movement, with scaling alarms that heighten as a person gets closer to the machine. It’s like a regular backup camera, Sikora explained, that can differentiate between a person and an inanimate object. When a person breaks into preset ranges, an alarm, visual indicator or both will activate.

For the people on the ground, there may also be an alarm affixed to the equipment to get their attention, a big help on a roadside jobsite where the noise of passing traffic, heavy equipment and other distractions may drown out one source of noise.

With that in mind, however, Sikora was still adamant that the person was ultimately the focal point for making safety decisions. He echoed a sentiment he’d heard that a human brain was the best computer in the world.

“So we want to give the person in that seat all the information we can, and they’re going to make the right choice,” Sikora said.