Fresh from her talk about how technology can make building safety compliance easier for asset owners, PBC Today caught up with Zutec CMO Maria Hudson
Building safety compliance was one of the hottest topics at this year’s Digital Construction Week. Here, Maria Hudson expands on the topics of her talk about the important role technology will play in achieving modern safety standards.
How is your time at Digital Construction Week going so far?
It’s been very busy this morning. I think DCW is a great place to network and connect with people that you can either partner with or get to know better, but also understand what other players are doing in the industry. It’s a good opportunity to see what other tech is out there too, and the advancements being made.
In your talk you covered how technology can make achieving regulatory compliance easier for construction companies. With events like DCW so well attended, is the industry moving in the right direction?
I think it’s a great place to see what innovation is coming out across the industry, particularly the advancements in tech for construction.
Construction has been a bit of a laggard industry in terms of tech adoption. It’s taken a bit of time there in terms of businesses knowing what they need, but I think the industry is embracing technology and what it has to offer, as the fastest-growing industry in tech right now.
We’re not quite there in terms of tech adoption if you compare construction to industries like manufacturing or finance. But we’re getting to a place where automation is starting to play a part.
With deadlines for building owners to submit relevant information to the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) fast approaching, how is Zutec making compliance easier for its clients?
One of the key parts of the Building Safety Act is actually making sure that building information is digitised so that it can be accessed and understood, so that a building can be managed properly and safely.
The problem is that there is now a deadline for most companies that manage high-rise buildings or own high-rise buildings to get information to the building safety regulator. And that October deadline is looming.
A lot of companies or building owners still have information in disparate systems, different formats, and siloed, so they’re not able to manage it effectively – they certainly can’t share it with the building safety regulator.
So they’re now trying to get information into this one place or platform – one like Zutec provides.
Zutec is working with a number of companies to do that to support compliance and their submissions to the BSR – where they not only need to submit key building information by October, they have to register every high rise building in the UK, and then also create a building safety case.
The building safety case can start small in terms of description, but it can lead to hundreds of thousands of documents for a high rise building. And that includes your fire and safety information, operations manual, so everything that you need to know. Some companies will be dealing with this complexity and not knowing where to start.
How is Zutec working in collaboration with the Safety Case Partnership to meet these requirements?
The Safety Case Partnership can help guide building stakeholders through the process, making sure they address the right questions, have the right information available and also ensure that the building safety case meets compliance.
I think the companies have got a long way to go, but we’re starting to make progress in the right direction.
Where it probably wasn’t so strict before, the Building Safety Act has put processes in place where regulators can heavily penalise asset owners or accountable people if they don’t have that building information together.
Nobody wants to ever have to go through what happened with Grenfell Tower again, so accountable persons need to be prepared.
Business owners and asset owners are starting to understand that information is absolutely key so that they can manage risk, control risk and operate and manage that building properly and make people feel safe.
Given that Grenfell was six years ago and some tenants still feel unsafe in their homes – it, unfortunately, indicates there’s still a lot of work to do.
How important is it for building owners and managers to involve their tenants in these processes?
As an asset owner, a facilities management company, or if you’re operating a building, I think communication is key with tenants and, with our own research, we have seen communication improve with tenants, but I think there’s still more to do.
It’s making sure that information is consistent, and that tenants understand procedures when it comes to fire safety so that if something does happen, they can act fast as well. Tenants need to know where to find the information, it must be accessible.
There’s still issues in buildings, unfortunately, where fire hazards are still there, sprinklers are not working, fire safety hoses our out of date or not working- and tenants can see this when they’re living somewhere.
So as an industry, we need to ensure that tenants are heard, that issues are addressed quickly and information is accessible.
How can asset owners not only meet but exceed building safety compliance expectations?
Having a platform like Zutec and a solution on top that helps with not just making sure that asset owners have visibility of all that information, but they can also understand how compliant they are and where the gaps in information may be. With a solution from Zutec, asset owners or operators can see if there’s data missing and respond to that swiftly.
Zutec having that platform and dashboard to bring information together is key.
We also have Createmaster as a service provider, which helps companies bring that information together.
We have a team of professionals and experts that work with contractors, and asset owners, making sure all that information has been brought together is standardised, and is in the right templates that align with the Health and Safety Executive and the Building Safety Regulator.
It ensures that the building is not just ready for handover, but approved for safety and that a building is ready to be moved into when complete.
You can read more about how Zutec’s platform streamlines workflows and increases project efficiency here.
