ABC and Construction Executive joined more than 2,300 attendees at Viewpoint’s Collaborate 2018 User Conference, held Oct. 16-18 in Portland, Oregon, where the construction management software company provided three days of in-depth educational sessions and unveiled new software innovations to help construction companies transform their operations, lower risk, gain efficiencies and improve productivity. 

As an ABC strategic partner, Viewpoint provides educational content and safety and technology assessments that enable ABC member organizations to modernize, streamline processes and help grow their businesses. 

“The construction industry is in the midst of a significant digital shift, adopting new cloud-based technologies and operational innovations that are helping contractors realize previously untapped potential,” said Viewpoint CEO Manolis Kotzabasakis. “Our clients are at the forefront of this shift, implementing integrated construction management software and solutions to achieve new heights in productivity and profitability.”

ABC member Steven Drouin, IT director at Interstate Electrical Services Corp., Billerica, Massachusetts, was featured in the opening general session video, during which he discussed his company’s use of prefabrication and business intelligence practices. 

In an hourlong breakout session called “Best Practices to Keep Your Employees and Bottom Line Safe,” Mike Bellman, ABC president and CEO, Steve Wilshire, ABC director of safety, and Greg Sizemore, ABC vice president of health, safety, environment and workforce development, presented on ABC’s Safety Training Evaluation Process and the Roadmap to World-class Safety. Attendees joined collaborative discussions on encouraging employees’ safety buy-in, creating a top-down and bottom-up safety culture, engaging with all stakeholders including owners and subcontractors, taking personal responsibility for everyone’s safety and being a proactive leader regardless of job title.

“If you want to make incremental changes in behavior, change your performance. If you want to make big leaps, change your paradigm,” Wiltshire said.  

“You have to have leadership that is unwilling to compromise safety,” Bellaman said. “Have you ever heard the phrase, actions speak louder than words? A world-class safety culture is created by getting every employee in your company to be a leader, whether in your back office or out in the field. If leadership is involved in safety, we can improve recordable incident rates by up to 70 percent.” 

“We’ve got to get people engaged in safety without the cop mentality,” Sizemore said. “The best thing leaders can do is grant permission—to stop work and encourage employees to speak up from the field.”

At the end of the conference, Viewpoint presented one of three Viewpoint Technology Awards to ABC member Stansell Electric, Nashville, Tennessee, for its innovative use of Viewpoint Vista and Viewpoint Field Management to ensure that crews could easily verify Tennessee OneCall 811 information before digging at jobsites. Stansell created a mobile 811 lookup tool to give foremen easy access to current marking information in the field. 

“This tool is an example of how the best ideas come from the field,” said Michael Arnold, Stansell’s technology product manager. “Some equipment operators were frustrated by not having the information they needed when and where they needed it. Their feedback to the office staff led to this project.” 

In the exhibit hall, Construction Executive Editor-in-Chief Lauren Pinch joined Bellaman, Sizemore and Wiltshire to network with Viewpoint users and learn firsthand about their usage of technology to improve their company’s productivity, profitability and safety. 

For more information on Viewpoint’s technology predictions for 2019, visit constructionexec.com.