Covid-19 has forced many global businesses to shut down. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, a coalition of leading critical infrastructure and construction companies have launched the NEXT Coalition to promote and share industry safety best practices.
McCarthy – in collaboration with Black & Veatch, DPR Construction and Haskell – is leveraging deep safety expertise and best practices in a campaign to ensure the wellbeing of crews and office team members facing complex challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak.
The coalition looks to identify and bolster processes, practices and technologies to enhance safety in the construction industry – in response to the ‘new normal’. The NEXT Coalition has launched the Construction Safety Challenge and is calling on companies, startups and other innovators with emerging safety solutions that can be quickly deployed and scaled.
Working remotely and social distancing can be challenging in the construction sector. Build to Rent developers will be looking to implement processes and solutions to protect the safety of staff as the industry begins to restart. So utilising solutions to minimise or quickly mitigate transmitting the coronavirus onsite is essential.
“The need for rapid innovation and implementation in our industry has never been greater. This coalition has joined together to source the best solutions to ensure the safety and sustainability of all of our projects.
“As we continue to deliver critical infrastructure across the country, our companies have the reach and the resources to move the needle on an industry-wide basis.”
Michael Myers, President, McCarthy Southern California Region
The Construction Safety Challenge is looking for solutions in areas including safety policy compliance, screening, tracking and tracing, real-time communication, incident tracking, data analytics and more – areas Build to Rent developers will be considering as construction works begin again. Technology solutions may include screening, mobile apps, disinfection, wearables, contact tracing, personal protection equipment (PPE) and more.
So the NEXT Coalition is looking for new startups and seasoned companies to partner with its members – to implement products and processes that will enhance health and safety in the construction field and office. Solutions need to be close to market-ready as possible, although proof of concept or prototypes will be considered.
“The Construction Safety Challenge is another example of organisations turning to crowdsourcing as the best way to generate reliable and vetted solutions for mitigating the impact of this pandemic.
“The solutions that come out of the Safety Challenge will surely be applicable to other industries as they start to grapple with what the `next normal’ looks like.”
Matt Greeley, CEO, Brightidea
