Pepper Construction wins AGC Innovation Award for AR/VR training

Dive Short-term:

• The Associated Widespread Contractors of America introduced The very biggest three winners of its 2021 Innovation Award on Oct. 13, recognizing corporations That are creating novel options to pressing enterprise challenges. 
• The primary-prize winner is Chicago-based mostly contractor Pepper Enchancment, which created an augmented/digital actuality (AR/VR) teaching program To assist contractors practice staff in protectedty procedures in an immersive, real but protected method, Based on an AGC launch.
• Judges award prizes by grading the options in the direction ofs Every completely different When it Includes influence and ingenuity. Sarah Gallegos, director of the AGC’s Constructing Division, said that In current occasions, corporations that lean in the direction of robotics have had greater Possibilities of worthwhile.

Dive Perception:

The award is damaged up into first, second and third prizes. First place is a $7,000 reward, the second $3,500 and third $1,500. Under are the three winners from this yr’s contest:

Pepper Enchancment

Chicago

Pepper Enchancment created an AR/VR teaching environment that sought to deal with two issues: the boredom That almethods accorporations protectedty teaching, and the one-method conversations thOn they typinamey entail. This method, developed with BIM modeling and level-cloud scans, additionally involves Unity Engine, a Computer software primarily used to develop video video games.

Pepper used its personal knowledge, Similar to its damage historic previous, To assist make the program extra focused and believable.

“To be a protectedr contractor, to be extra productive, We now Want to leverage completely different devices That basinamey assist us accomplish these goals,” said Jennifer Suerth, Vice chairman of technical providers at Pepper Enchancment.

Skiles Group

Richardson, Texas

Skiles Group, a general contracting and lean construction agency based mostly in Richardson, Texas, gained second place Inside the rivals with its app, SmartSafety. Described as a “disaster administration software” by Skiles Group COO Keyan Zandy Inside the video, The purpose is to make website-particular emergency response directives accessible On the contact of a button. 

Zandy said thOn the disaster administration pipeline was “pretty antiquated” and thOn the app would reduce dpersonal on response occasions, making Dealing with these threats simpler and faster. Zandy said thOn the app leverages smartphone and geofencing know-how, digitally like an Amber Alert, with everyone on the jobwebsite Having the capability to hit the “alert” function to sound the alarm.

Patriot Enchancment

Dunkirk, Maryland

Patriot, a contracting agency based mostly in Dunkirk, Maryland, gained third place for creating individualized containment models to protectedly accommodate areduceely sick COVID-19 sufferers Which will assist any medical facility. 

In accordance to a Patriot press launch, the models function alarms for sufferers to name medical staff, emergency backup power, exhaust followers with HEPA filtering, absolutely self-conditioned heating and cooling and completely different medical and structural requirements. The unit Might be utilized each indoorways and outdoorways.

Wanting forward

The award was created in 2018 Inside the affiliation’s centennial yr as A Sort of picture for the place the AGC needed to go Finally, Gallegos said.

“The thought was that we Did not need our centennial celebration to be A mirrored picture on the previous 100 yrs,” Gallegos informed Enchancment Dive. “We additionally need it to be A mirrored picture of The subsequent 100 yrs.”

Outside of the developments in the direction of fixing key factors in construction, the improvements Can additionally assist open doorways For A lot of who Will not completely differentwise have thought-about working Inside the enterprise. Jeff Christianson, senior superintendent at contracting agency Exxel Pacific, Inc. And positively one of many judges for the award, said that he hoped these tasks would reveal thOn there are good careers in construction, notably in fields that outdoorwaysrs Will not immediately Take into consideration.

“I really feel These Sort of utilized sciences actually break dpersonal the obstacles to entry and break dpersonal the prejudices that maybe exist Regarding The development enterprise, And that is about The type Of people and the people that maybe have traditionally labored in construction,” Christianson said