How AI impacts health and safety – the future of digital operations
Kicking off our latest blog series which invites insight from our partners and customers, we hear from Benjamin Legg – Global Corporate Health, Safety and Wellbeing Director at Ferrovial – a global operator of sustainable infrastructure. Ben delves deep into the purpose of AI, how this can benefit health and safety processes, and how adoption is key for tech to flourish and develop further…
With over 30 years’ experience in the construction and support services industries, working in every continent, I have discovered that AI and the benefits it brings needs further explanation, accessibility, and implementation for the masses to successfully adopt. There has never been a ‘one size fits all’ solution available to help achieve optimum health and safety standards.
In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in development of technologies to execute a robust health and safety program of work. It is important to strike the balance, however, between automation and social interaction. Humans are social beings, and technology can be viewed as a sterile method of communication and operations.
However, FYLD has changed the game for rolling out, at scale, user-friendly and comprehensive assessments – empowering not only health and safety standards, but productivity levels too.
Accessible tool for the workforce
A challenge of implementing AI solutions and technology at this scale, in a wider sense, is factoring in literacy levels of the workforce.
When you think of older, more traditional technologies, and how information was communicated to its users, you think of great, long manuals with small writing and confusing jargon. As a society, we are impatient – long, complicated processes are a thing of the past. AI facilitates this change of consumer preference, with safety at the heart of decision making, cutting out any friction, and accommodating a more visual way of working – less dependent on literacy.
This can be seen as a double edge sword, however. It’s important to strike the balance between independent thinking and evaluation, and the assistance AI provides. Appreciating the sheer power of AI solutions before development and implementation is key.
Creating value for the company and customer
Al and technology must create and nurture value – whether it’s to a person, team, business, or industry process. Whatever the AI technology is, it needs to be adding significant worth including the overall health, safety, productivity and well-being to the customer and public.
Digital solutions like FYLD are like the bridge between corporate and operational teams within a company. Communicating laterally across an organisation enables comprehensive and stronger connections – all adding value to the front-line operational work, while keeping the workforce and public safe.
Similarly, we at Ferrovial have recently launched a Digital Hub, allowing content and information to be accessed in a simpler, visual and more efficient way. The Hub features online and offline accessibility and boasts trackable data to understand how people consume and use the information provided.
We are not relying on typical, traditional business formats. We are reflecting society. Publishing important content, manuals, assessments and more – enabling intelligent processes of sharing and consuming information at ease.
The future of AI
AI is inevitably going to merge how people function in general society into a business setting – the outcome being conversational and interactive operations. The hierarchical way of communication is being phased out as technologies develop.
AI can understand the situation and recommend the right way forward. By enabling proper, sophisticated learning – AI can start to educate on a real time basis. Breathing life into functions and processes carried out every day.
Of course, you must be careful what you teach an AI algorithm – learning the right behaviours is crucial.
Adoption is key
Data can be used to alienate people, processes, and outcomes. However, if implemented correctly, it is an invaluable solution.
Platforms like FYLD start to inform the future planning of workflows and processes across an organisation. The huge potential of AI is in the learning process. FYLD enables workers to feed into, and analyse, information and data that was npt previously captured before in this industry. Providing a brand-new perspective for safety and productivity.
Ferrovial’s relationship with FYLD is in the proof-of-concept stage, and performance and adoption is going from strength to strength. Enabling people to access communications and assessments more efficiently has the potential to provide a step change in safety and productivity.
Removing risk, measuring positive change, and bringing systems off the shelf and into people’s everyday life are just some of the benefits our teams have fed back through using FYLD.
FYLD goes beyond safety – into health and well-being, mental health, and productivity for a progressive company. There is scope to develop into even more avenues. We can’t wait to continue to be part of the journey.
Discover more about FYLD is powering productivity in field operations here.
About Ferrovial
Ferrovial, a leading global infrastructure operator, is committed to developing sustainable solutions. It is a member of Spain’s blue-chip IBEX 35 index and included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index and FTSE4Good; all its operations are conducted in compliance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, which the company adopted in 2002.
