Smart construction Sites - A People-Oriented Approach to Enhance Efficiency and Safety

Construction and medical services may seem unrelated, yet both are people-oriented professions that share a ‘life first’ commitment. Recently, Ir HO On-sing, Thomas, Chairman of the Construction Industry Council (CIC), Ar. Marvin CHEN, Member of CIC, and Mr. TSE Cheong-wo, Edward, Director of Architectural Services, visited the Phase 1 Redevelopment of Queen Mary Hospital site to learn how the project team used innovative technology to enhance productivity, shorten the construction period, and improve workers’ well-being. They also discovered how on-site safety training became more effective with the application of new techniques.
 

Giving Close Attention to All Aspects of the Smart Construction Site’s Core Zone

Since 2018, it has been a requirement for all major capital projects costing $30 million or more to be designed and built with Building Information Modelling (BIM). The Phase 1 Redevelopment of Queen Mary Hospital, which commenced in 2018, was the first such project to be undertaken. The BIM model enables the project team to accurately forecast project details and their respective locations, and precisely determine every aspect of the building process.

In addition to BIM, the project adopted other innovative technologies to create a smart construction site. According to the project team, the most important is the Common Data Environment (CDE), which allows centralised processing of all data. With CDE, Queen Mary Hospital’s Monitoring system, managed by the Care & Control Centre, provides complete information on all construction areas as well as an overview of their status. For example, the system provides on-screen real-time monitoring of tower crane lifting operations and will trigger an alarm should workers enter a ‘danger zone’, enabling engineers to follow up and resolve emergency situations. By such means, the system keeps Care and Control Centre staff fully informed of every aspect of the site’s status in real time.

Monitoring System Enhances Safety by Providing Clear Procedures

Every construction procedure at the Queen Mary Hospital site is assessed for its environmental impact to ensure that services at the adjacent operational hospital will not be affected. The CIC has always emphasised that construction safety is everyone’s responsibility; but the redevelopment contractors Paul Y. Engineering and Able Engineering have taken this a step further by requiring more than just safety officers to take responsibility for on-site safety. Workers use monitoring system to plan the next day’s work, pinpoint potential areas of risk, and devise measures to prevent accidents. Through the system, management staff can also view all on-site work procedures of the day, enabling them to check workers’ respective task arrangements and the possible construction risks side-by-side. After tasks are completed, frontline staff will inspect and photograph the relevant locations to ensure safety before starting the next process. Work can therefore be completed in a clear step-by-step fashion.

Applications of Technology Ensure Safety on a Complex Site

The Queen Mary Hospital project entails the demolition of the old Clinical Pathology, University Pathology and Housemen Quarters buildings, and construction of a new block and access point. Pok Fu Lam’s narrow hillside roads add to the project’s challenges, as does the possible presence of unexploded wartime bombs under the site. As a result, every construction step requires extra care. For example, levelling work on the site needed to be accomplished without affecting the hospital’s sensitive robotic surgical system. With traditional explosives ruled out, the project team instead used aluminum powder to generate high-pressure heat for ‘blasting’. This method delivered the same rock-shattering results as explosives while reducing vibration by half. The use of a fogging system to suppress dust minimised the environmental impact of levelling work yet further. As the site has a record of groundwater flooding, the engineers also installed IoT sensors to constantly monitor water levels and alert workers to carry out regular sludge treatments.

Planning Ahead to Prevent Accidents

As electric-powered equipment is now common at construction sites, a large number of batteries require recharging every day, creating another source of potential risk. In response, the project team at the Queen Mary Hospital site restricts all recharging to fire-resistant stations equipped with air conditioning and firefighting equipment. Smart locks were installed on the site’s distribution boards so that power switches may only be activated by designated and registered electrical workers.

Considerate Actions Benefit Construction

Workers A variety of building technology and safety measures are used to keep frontline workers informed of areas of special attention on a daily basis so as to raise their safety awareness. The project team used BIM to create a 4D animation of the actual site environment, and integrated the model into the VR CAVE. Workers walked through this immersive environment to gain a greater understanding of potential site risks. This has greatly enhanced the effectiveness of safety training. Another thoughtful initiative was the installation of a dispenser to provide workers with hot, cold and even sparkling water. This extra amenity allows workers to chill out during breaktimes.

Mi Medical Room

During the pandemic, the Modular Integrated Construction (MiC) method aided in the swift completion of a number of Hong Kong’s community isolation facilities. MiC was also adopted for the Queen Mary Hospital project, with new features such as the two-level negative pressure isolation wards and the positive pressure bathroom beneath them being prefabricated at a factory. Other building features such as toilets and even some core areas and staircases were also prefabricated, ensuring building quality while accelerating construction.

Breaking Boundaries and be Courageous

Ar Edward TSE Cheong-wo, Director of Architectural Services, explained that when the project commenced, many of the technologies used were still new to the construction industry. He appreciated the project team’s and leadership’s courage and resourcefulness in overcoming the challenges of implementing such innovations. While the project has already won several safety awards, he encouraged the team to keep up the good work and set ‘zero accidents’ as target. Ir Thomas HO, Chairman of the CIC, also thanked the project team for their efforts, and remarked that the project’s applications of innovative technologies not only enhanced safety, but also may reduce the project duration. He stated his belief that future projects would take this as an example for their own applications of new technologies. He hoped that continuous innovation would raise Hong Kong’s competitiveness and ability to cope with the forecasted hundreds of billions dollars of annual construction output, leading the industry to excellence.