What is construction PPE? and why it's so important - Kwant

What is construction PPE?

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), PPE stands for personal protective equipment. PPE is a way of showcasing hazards in a specific standard for the construction industry.

PPE is built for the safety of our construction workers and can be dated back to ancient times, but more recently, established and standardized by OSHA. 

Why is construction safety so important?

Construction sites can be very dangerous and we want our workforce to go home safe. Accidents happen all too often on construction sites and we need to take proper measures so our workforce can go home safe.

We can never turn a blind eye to safety due to the nature of the work. Protecting our construction workforce, the public, and environment should be top priority when it comes to safety and longevity.

When work sites are safer, productivity tends to rise on projects. Penalties are also rising when it comes to OSHA fines. Some of the top OSHA violations were fall protection, ladders, scaffolding, fall protection training, safety communication, and evacuation safety requirements. 

Most cited safety standards:

Below are the most frequently cited safety standards by OSHA in 2022.

1. Fall protection
2. Hazard communication
3. Ladders
4. Respiratory protection
5. Scaffolding
6. Control of hazardous energy
7. Powered industrial trucks
8. Fall protection training
9. Eye and face protection
10. Machinery & machine guarding

Types of safety fines to avoid:

Here are the six different types of safety violations to avoid.

• Serious violation
• Other-than-serious violation
• Posting requirements violation
• Failure to Abate violation
• Willful or repeated violation
• De minimus violation

Traditional construction PPE: 

Below are the main types of construction PPE necessary for building safe.

• Head protection
• Face & eye protection
• Respiratory protection
• Hand & arm protection
• Leg & foot protection
• Skin protection
• Fall protection
• Electric shock protection
• Visibility clothing

Why use smart safety wearables?

Due to the nature of construction sites, accidents are all too common. We need smart, reliable solutions that provide an extra layer of safety support for our workforce.

Smart badges like Kwant allow construction workers to be safe and productive on jobsites without getting in the way of their day-to-day job.

Each smart badge comes with built-in real-time safety features that provide insights and alerting is to help workers during times of need and management to respond and communicate faster.

Every smart badges made by companies like Kwant acts as an ID card and allows for RFID, GPS, LoRaWAN, and Bluetooth capabilities, so management knows where their team is working throughout every floor or building. 

The Kwant smart badges specifically have built-in real-time location safety features like fall detection alerting, SOS alerting, near-edge miss alerting, and zone restriction. Once there is an incident, management will get an alert of the location and incident type so they can follow up properly. 

Top benefits of smart safety wearables:

• Real-time insights & alerts for management 
• Premium real-time safety features for workforce 
• Timestamp incidents for compliance followup

Contractors that use smart safety wearables have seen a dramatic increase in worker safety and productivity on the field. With positive feedback and results, contractors are continuing to use this technology to improve project safety and outcomes.

Completing PPE safety with smart safety wearables

Our construction workforce requires quality safety measures in both physical and digital aspects. When blending traditional construction PPE with smart safety wearable technology, your workforce now has the tools to tackle any project smarter and safer. 

When using smart safety wearables, management receives real-time insights & alerts for fast response time. If an incident occurs, the first level of safety will be the traditional construction PPE equipment, followed by the second level of security being smart safety wearables and alerting. Having a layered approach to security is very important.

When completing your construction PPE with smart safety wearables, you will be able to identify hazards, provide and enforce PPE, as well as stay compliant. In doing so, our workforce can be safe and productive on and off the field. 

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Want to learn how to complete your construction PPE using smart safety wearables? Request a free demo and see how you can unlock real-time technology for your projects.