// Business
THE ROBOTS ARE COMING… AND WE ARE BUILDING THEM! We have all heard about the robots and how they are going to steal our jobs and do everything that humans can do, right? The big question we need to ask ourselves, says Simon Boyes, is “Are we turning humans into robots?”
S
ome of you may have seen the videos being circulated on the internet of robots installing scaffolding couplers and delivering scaffolding components to different parts of the scaffolding structure, but are the most sophisticated robots we are creating in fact human scaffolders? Now you might have read up to this point of the article and thought ‘What is this guy talking about?’ but stick with me because I think you will understand where I am coming from in a moment. Over the last five years, the scaffolding industry has evolved, and we have experienced more change than at any other time in our history. When any industry experiences rapid growth and advancements in techniques, materials and technology, there is often a delay in the legislation keeping up with the new ways of doing things and we experience a period of confusion and misinterpretation. Companies and individuals find new ways to solve old problems and the legislation may not have considered such methods in previous editions, so we experience a divide in the industry between people who are still doing things the old way and people who have harnessed the change and are finding more efficient ways to do business. Slowly over time, legislation catches up with the advancements and new rules and regulations are implemented, and this is where things can get scary. Many of the older generation of scaffolders tell stories of a truck load of materials being delivered to a
22 | S CAFFMAG.COM
job site where the scaffolders would use their skills and knowledge to use the materials the best way they knew how. If they were short of some items, they would find a way to substitute different components to get the job done. This process has worked well for many years and still happens in some places today with great success. The biggest challenge with this method is that the guys on site are completely responsible for the success or failure of the project and the skill of the crew will impact how well the scaffolding has been built. You could send 10 different scaffolding crews to build the exact same job and they would all build it differently. All 10 crews will still get the job done and still give the client what they are paying for, but which crew will be the most efficient, fastest, safest, etc? In a competitive market where, often, the cheapest price will win the job, time and efficiency are key to the success of the business and this forces senior management to find new ways to get an edge on their competitors. In comes the introduction of technology, and innovation and businesses must ask themselves, how can we make the scaffolders work faster, what materials can we use to make it quicker, how can we save transport and delivery costs, how can we use less equipment so we can do more jobs? And so on... The answer to all the above questions is to plan out and design the project before arriving on site. There are many great scaffolding design platforms on the market that will help design the scaffolding layout, provide a bill of materials, generate accurate transport take-offs and provide the client with a
