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It can be easy to spot scaffolding at an industrial job site. It is enormous and readily visible, even among high-rising units and cranes. The cost of scaffolding, however, can be much harder to pinpoint.

It’s challenging for plant managers and industrial contractors, who have myriad responsibilities, to keep track of scaffolding erection and tear-down schedules, which can dictate the cost of scaffolding use. Thousands of scaffolding pieces can be in play at a time. However, if it’s left standing for too long, scaffolding can easily burn a hole in any client’s balance sheet.

Like with any other industrial work performed today, clients and contractors need real-time data readily available to make effective decisions with scaffolding that lead to peak safety, efficiency, and reliability. What if you could track scaffolding use in real-time? And what if that tracking technology could be readily available in the field?

Guess what? There’s an app for that.

Companies have begun rolling out mobile apps that can streamline scaffolding operations. They can identify the exact location of scaffold materials and deliver real-time data to custom dashboards. Here’s more about how using a tracking app—like the one offered by Turner Industries—can make scaffolding efficiency a reality.

1) Track each and every scaffold piece

Obviously, the most important function of a tracking app is locating scaffolding materials on a jobsite—not just whole scaffolds, but individual pieces as well.

For example, the Turner Industries Scaffold App can be used to catalog each and every piece of material in use on a site. The app—a module within the Turner Tablet suite of custom programs built to increase efficiency, safety, and reporting accuracy—is a frontline tool that captures scaffold tag information at the location of the scaffolds. Using barcodes placed on tag holders, previously paper-based build tickets are entered into a digital scaffold tracking system, and the locations of the scaffolds and their individual pieces are captured and stored within the system. Managers use GPS-enabled maps to locate the scaffolding without the need to take walking tours of entire facilities.

The app allows users to track cost and time for each and every scaffold on a site. Both contractor and client will know what’s being built, where it’s built, how long it’s been there, and what it’s costing, all through the app.

Location information for scaffolds isn’t enough. Clients need their scaffolding data available in the form of comprehensive, easy-to-understand dashboards that can guide them when making key decisions.

While using the Turner app, frontline supervisors are able to input the data for the project on-site while tagging the location through GPS. The data is updated in real-time to a dashboard that organizes and calculates the data for Turner managers and clients to quickly and easily review. The app also implements standardized KPIs that are readily trackable and able to be reported.

Today built-in processes can be implemented in apps to help clients understand the status of their scaffolding-related projects.

For example, clients can use the Turner app to track their material requests from shipment to onsite receipt. They’ll no longer have to wait and wonder where their scaffolding is. Dispatchers receive instant notifications of the material request and can source stock from the entire company’s inventory.

Turner’s app also has a built-in quantity and quality audits that can provide clients with accurate piece counts and allows Turner to track and provide tailored crew training based on results of the quality audits.

As technology evolves, the industrial sector must evolve with it to deliver the best solution possible. Scaffold tracking apps are no different. Turner is always seeking to improve the tracking app’s performance. Future features to be implemented include automated scheduling requests and the ability to design and model scaffolds within the app.

Clients can’t settle for just any scaffold app out there. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, cost savings are paramount, and proven technology must be used in order to make efficiencies a reality. Apps like the one provided by Turner Industries can make the previously challenging task of managing scaffolding logistics and costs all too easy.  

For more information, please contact Justin Cruice at jcruice@turner-industries.com or 225-214-2402.

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