2019 US Insurance Awards: Gilbane Building in partnership with Travelers, Risk Management Team of the Year

Falls are a stubborn workplace safety challenge for construction sites, but Gilbane Building Co. in partnership with Travelers Cos. Inc. and Triax Technologies took it on headfirst.

Gilbane officials were examining technologies to improve safety when they came across the Spot-r clip technology from Triax, said Donald Naber, Gilbane’s senior vice president and director of risk management based in Providence, Rhode Island. The device detects falls and identifies the person, location and fall distance, improving response time by up to 91%, according to Triax.

The technology allows employees to generate alerts based on unsafe work conditions, which facilitates an immediate response from the project team, he said.

There were some early stumbles, namely false readings on one project site. “It was almost as if the little boy was crying wolf and the project team was getting frustrated,” Mr. Naber said, read more here.