The Role of Technology in the Future of Work

on behalf of the nios future work initiative thank you for joining us for today's webinar the role of technology in the future of work my name is Scott Ernest and I'll be the moderator before we get started I'd like to let our attendees know that the nios future of work initiative which was launched in 2019 uh and its corresponding work group have many ongoing and upcoming activities the initiative launched its we webinar Series in 2021 the series will have a total of nine webinars each focused on one of our future work priority topics this is the ninth and final webinar in the series you can review the recordings on the previous webinars on the nios future work initiative web site or on YouTube if you'd like to learn more about the series and the initiative please visit our website now I'm going to introduce speakers your first Speaker today is Dr Gary Roth Gary's the coordinator for the institute's future work initiative and a senior service fellow in the emerging Technologies Branch part of the division of science integration at naos his research interests are in emerging Technologies broadly and specifically a focus on nanotechnology addtive manufacturing and artificial intelligence and how these Technologies are changing the nature of work and experience of the future worker Dr Roth has been a participant in the institute's nanotechnology Research Center the center for occupational robotics research and the manufacturing sector program Dr Roth is a graduate of the University of Al Albany where he obtained a doctorate degree in nanoscale science and engineering and a master's degree in environmental health and toxicology the second speaker today is Gavin West Gavin graduated from the University of Virginia and has a master's degree in public health from George Washington University he's the director of nanomaterials research for cpwr the center for construction research and training where he has worked for over a decade to prevent occupational illnesses and injuries in construction Gavin is the author of two books on construction hazards and 20 peer-reviewed papers spanning the fields of respiratory physiology occupational epidemiology and Industrial hygiene he was a lead author of a study awarded best paper by AA nanotechnology working group in 2019 and recipient of the Randy augle Paul Baron award in 2022 he believes in the importance of translating research to practice and works with cpwr colleagues and partners to accomplish this goal and with that Dr Roth thanks for joining us today I'll turn things over to you um thank you Dr Ernest uh before we begin uh I'll give you all the mandatory disclaimer which is anything that I say here is my own current belief it's not necessarily an official position of Nash the CDC or any other agency and if I mentioning names firms products or the like and that's not an endorsement necessarily by Nash CDC or any other agency either and as we are dealing with shifting Targets in the area of emerging Technologies I will reiterate also that this is my current perspective and may not necessarily hold true at future points for those of you who are not familiar with Nash thank you for telling webinar uh we here at Nish conduct research dedicated to preserving and enhancing the total health of workers this is per the charge given to us in the in the OS Act of 1970 we also support some other activities Beyond research but the main thrust is developing knowledge to protect workers and helping to implement it our role is decidedly non-regulatory with a few notable exceptions such as respir certification mining equipment um instead our focus is to provide recommendations which may then be taken up by employers workers and sometimes Regulators Nish includes approximately 1300 staff from Anchorage Alaska to Atlanta Georgia this Geographic diversity really matters since the US economy and Workforce is just as diverse for myself I'm based out CCNA Ohio our staff expertise runs from traditional industrial hygiene to economics to psychology to Information Technology this breath of expertise is vitally important for uh for a perspective on the future of work with disclaimers introductions out of the way we'll dive into the future of work we're going to start with the most basic question which is what is it and the future of work is in fact quite hard to Define because both the future and work uh defy definition intrinsically due to both their breath and their relative uncertainty are we talking about we talk about the future work we're talking about the technology that changes on tasks on a regular basis use of exoskeletons and algorithms are being more Incorporated by the day are we talking about the aging and or or more diverse Workforce are we talking about how work is increasingly remote the relative decline in we use traditional career work or even contract arrangements for more non-traditional work arrangements or maybe we're talking about how workers will need to contend with increasing levels of social disruption extreme weather and other hazardous um phenomena it's not any one of these things it's actually all of these things and more they have synergistic effects they're real Trends and they build upon one another another and they're all going to result in changes that are felt on every level in work the workplace and the workforce and underneath all that are a collection of drivers and issues that Propel us towards the future these includes things like demography globalization climate shifts and more but maybe it's that I'm a technologist at heart I see technology as perhaps the most fundamental driver of the future of work and well it's not well it's obviously not an all encompassing thing you can hardly uh blame demographics assly on technology it still ties into nearly every other aspect of the future of work information and Communications technology has revolutionized organizational design such as the impact of Tela work on workplace flexibility is also revolutionized work Arrangements consider the impact of platform based employment versus contract or career work the re of technological advancement also ties directly into technological job displacement worker res Skilling and by extension Economic Security even if technology continues to make jobs at a greater rate than it obsoletes them and this is a big if we will still need to contend with the mismatch between the skills workers have and the skills workers need this process of catching up will often take years and meanwhile both the workers earnings and the results from that technology will suffer due deficiency in the labor pool some emerging technology Industries like Ed manufacturing build pipelines to ensure they have a labor pool with the necessary skill set in short the the changes of the future of work are highly interconnected and Technology at least in my perspective is at the is at the heart of it so let's take a moment to get a little bit more specific about what technology means for jobs themselves we'll look at this going through a couple of sectors in transportation warehousing utilities we have self-driving Transportation vehicles on roads and in warehouses and these are coupled with loading Robotics and sensors which can track everything from humidity levels to worker positioning and productivity in agriculture we have self-driving tractors autonomous grain levelers cow milkers and drones that both assess and help tend the fields in healthcare we see increasing use of robotic surgery lifting assistance in nursing and increasing use of AI and Diagnostics and in Services AI is now used as an analytical tool in nearly every industry from finances to real estate it has a growing role in customer service in programming the term co-pilot is used both for a particular product but also in many ways because that AI serves as a co-pilot um for the process of developing software AIS have been writing news articles on many sites for years before the public became very conscious of large scale of large language learning models at scale in the last year or two in short there really isn't a sector that isn't being impacted by emerging Technologies and from the tools of the trade to tasks to jobs so what are the specific technologies that we're looking at which are creating change the most obvious are Robotics and artificial intelligence the implications of these two technologies are Myriad and far-reaching mag the machines being able to take over many tasks which previously required highly specialized and skilled human effort these technologies have each received their own dedicated treatment in previous webinars in the series so we're not going to go into them at length nanotechnology is another is another emerging technology which has had subtle and far-reaching impacts now technology is a key enabling technology in creating the materials which allowed the which allowed the development of almost every other technology that we're going to discuss here today biotechnology and biomanufacturing have been accelerated by recent advances in gene editing and protein modeling techniques Beyond Pharmaceuticals materials are being mass-produced or grown and ts are now being handled biologically if previously would have been purely in the realm of chemistry Beyond this we know humans are biological and the implications being alter biology itself may be profound for the worker but it's a little bit too early to really speculate exactly the impacts of that yet additive manufacturing commonly called 3D printing has long been a tool of product design but recent advances have made it more affordable H for a wider variety of tasks and users not only is it in more hands but it's opening the design of part geometries that were previously impossible or at the very least impractical it's also transforming Supply chains as its flexibility is very well suited for distributed manufacturing or just in time fulfillment Advanced Imaging and modeling techniques have further increased its applications clean and Green Technology solar wind so on are transforming energy but they're also transforming Transportation construction and more advanced Computing information and Communications technologies have created and also obsoleted countless Tas tasks and jobs um and the impact has enabled entirely new approaches to work organization and Arrangements Advanced sensors enable the collection of more data from a wider variety of inputs than ever before and more cheaply which is itself a key enabling technology for a lot of other computation based Technologies and The Internet of Things is uh it enables us to have a finer degree of remote control and coordination of interconnect devices than was ever previously possible opening a lot of new doors before I continue I want to make two key points the first is that these Technologies are interrelated advances in any one of these often feed the others for instance advances in now technology enabled advances in Computing and sensors which enabled advances in Ai and Robotics which enables advances in additive and biomanufacturing second emerging technology is a moving Target it doesn't necessarily mean recent EDI of manufacturing nanotechnology Robotics and Arizon this list have actually existed for decades emerging is about the Innovations in the technology or its applications having a heightened impact on work Technologies burst onto the scene in this way rather on predictably as Innovations add new applications or drive down costs while it's hard to generalize about hazards from these Technologies given how diverse they are a few stand out first we're still dealing with health and safety concerns around materials and processes aluminum powder added manufacturing for instance is still going to require minimizing the risk uh for powder inhalation or for fire and explosions The Internet of Things uh machines that are connected to the internet of things are still going to need guarding and other safety features as apply so this does not necessarily obviate many of things we already know but what might be different is that some materials and processes are going to be new and this is going to necessitate more study and precaution in addition to those things which are brand new if you will uh materials and processes might be introduced in workplaces and workforces by which with which are they are unfamiliar and this is going to require a lot of adaptation a good example this might be biological materials which might require translating biosafety practice into new work environments for workers of different background I.E just because that the technology is not new and safety R isn't new putting it into a new setting might require re-evaluation of how we approach health and safety related to processes is how worker interacts with the system a poorly designed interface can pose direct health hazards such as muscular skeletal uh risks due to porac ergonomics ey strain issues du display usage and so on systems that demand impossible levels of sustained attention or tracking too many items or or decision- making can also make errors more likely and these can have other safety and health ramifications note that many of these Technologies are functionally enabling Technologies for algorithms and automation processes and extension changes in work organization and this can actually make it difficult to disentangle the hazards of that technology itself in specific from the broader context of the future of work additionally many of these Technologies are data driven with sensors being the most obvious as more data is captured and utilized it will be important to protect collected worker data data disclosures and breaches can have both direct and indirect effects on workers relatedly information security um which is an expansion of the term cyber security uh has implications for the safety of the work itself with breaches potentially causing outages of systems with safety implications these Technologies can also create psychosocial hazards as well some may be a result of anxiety over data collection possible misuse or from excessive system demands mentally over taxing a worker so connected to some of the points we made previously but that said it's also not possible to separate the advance of Technology from the risk of technological displacement or from the additional mental and time demands of upskilling to keep Pace with advancement finally when we think about hazards we should really be thinking about them in terms of life cycles you can't view any particular item or at at a single point a vacuum each these Technologies are going to have hazards Associated or may potentially have hazards associated with production the use and Disposal for instance if we think about green energy will have hazards associated with producing the parts the insulation and maintenance of the parts and eventually disposal in effect the technology will impact at a minimum manufacturing construction and services sectors and will implicate safety and health for topics as varied as respiratory protection ma machine safety fall prevention ergonomics and more we may not need to reinvent the wheel for most of this but without a broad perspective it's going to be hard to gauge the impact of any technology on public health so I'd like to now take a moment to discuss nisha's history with emerging Technologies and I'm going to start this journey with the N technology Research Center or ntrc which n started in 20 4 which was the same year as the US national now technology initiative released its first research plan we realized that if now technology took off as we expected there'd be a large pool of exposed workers and we wanted to avoid having potentially millions of workers exposed before exposure limits and established uh controls were and and before exposure limits were established and controls were developed and this means being proactive we also knew we were going to need an interdisciplinary perspective and that Partnerships going to be key so so we coupled lab based studies with a very active outreach program and field studies team to gain practical experience on how down technology was being developed and used and this team helped many early pioneers and now technology safely develop their processes while we benefited from more robust understanding that helped us to develop pertinent guidance this guidance ranged from the voluminous tones uh supporting recommended exposure limits and controls for carbon nanot tubes to the index size reference cards for Safe nanomaterial Handling we had products for the regular worker the academic researcher and the enterprising innovator and we think that this breath and accessibility contributed significantly to our success in 20 years we've yet to see an epidemic of now technology related illness that Rivals ASB bestus or heavy metals now despite Nom materials being present in nearly every economic sector and while the ntrc was the first ni Center focused on an emerging technology others have followed the center for motive Vehicle Safety is interested in automation sensors and other applications of emerging technology within Vehicle Safety one example of a product that they produce Rel to emerging Technologies is a fact sheet on selecting fatigue detection systems and these detection systems themselves are highly dependent on emerging Technologies the center for direct reading and sensor Technologies has developed numerous highly accessible and portable uh techniques and tools from Air from new purchase air sampling to smartphone applications such as the sound meter app and ladder safety app which uses sensors built into most common mobile devices this leverages technological advances to increase worker access to valuable safety resources the center for occupational robotics research has conducted testing of exoskeletons studied human robot interactions and drone usage though not every emerging technology has its own dedicated Center a desire to mitigate the harms from a desire to mitigate the harms of emerging technology to find Opportunities to employ it for worker health and safety permeates The Institute many activities related to emerging Technologies are being pursued outside the centers by individual programs while our work on emerging Technologies is diverse there are some lessons that really seem to Echo throughout it the first is that interdisciplinary approaches are absolutely key most of these Technologies are very technically complex and they also have a multitude of applications and challenges being able to properly understand their uses the worker population the hazards and the applicable control schemes requires multiple fields of expertise and is frequently a collaborative effort similarly uh proactive approaches are key are key to addressing hazards many of these Technologies are just now scaling up in terms of usage and adoption many are still in a phase of Rapid Tech technical development and iteration we know from history that waiting until negative outcomes later materialized before studying issues results in a large number of exposed workers a high burn of society and high cost to making existing products safer instead early study can identify lower cost higher Effectiveness interventions and related to this prevention through design and similar decision-making models can reduce the risk to workers key features of ptd include the dialogue which involves occupational safety and health experts workers designers and management and such a group brings multiple perspectives together and this can be absolutely critical when you're dealing with new technology IES and techniques where no one individual has a sufficient vantage point to be able to piece together all the implications second moving controls higher on the hierarchy of controls tends to drive down the costs and increase the effectiveness of interventions and this will result in better outcomes and these outcomes for workers and the businesses themselves really matter we're looking to Foster responsible development of Technology Partnerships are also key for res resarch as I mentioned there was a need to be multidisiplinary we really want to engage with technical experts in a technology and maximize the relevance of research and recommendations even more important is access to the technology itself with the diversity and rate in advance of emerging Technologies there no one could support Labs devoted to every single aspect and area of Interest Partnerships give us the chance to study the technology as it's being developed and used providing practical insights while also better utilizing available resources additionally opportunities really abound for positive uses of these Technologies while occupational safety and health is a profession often focuses on new or increased hazards many of these Technologies provide opportunities to reduce risk consider the ability to work remotely away from dangerous processes or improved exposure assessment from sophisticated sensors developing safer materials and processes for making them or improve decision support for control for control strategies all these and more can be enabled by these new technologies and finally success means being both aware and adaptive the Technologies at player changing all the time and the hazards risks and opportunities may be in very different forms than what we traditionally study so we need to keep an eye on industry and also be ready to innovate in our study design to sum up the future of work is driven by technology and the inovation that will shape the future is happening today and while it's still early days an impact may be Downstream we cannot wait for it Nash will continue to pursue research that will help ensure the responsible development of these Technologies and help to safeguard the American worker now and into the future I want to take a moment to acknowledge my colleagues in the emerging Technologies Branch the ntrc and all the other ni centers and programs who have who have made contributions to these efforts and thank you all for listening that I'll turn it over to Mr Gavin West from cpwr thank you so much Dr Roth I'll pull up my slides and I I I thought you did an excellent job um there's there's so much to unpack with this topic it's it's very broad the the future of work but I I thought you did a really a great job of giving a very comprehensive overview of the the important Concepts and trends that are shaping um in terms of how technology is shaping the future of work so for this portion of the talk I'd like to hone in a little bit um and and look at the construction sector and I think that technology as as Dr o mentioned is is a a very important driver of of change and Innovation um and we and I think that construction is also very emblematic of change Itself by its very nature which which uh was the reason I chose the title for this talk construction has changed here's a disclaimer that's uh very similar to the one that Dr Roth mentioned at the beginning of his talk and just for a quick primer on my organization cpwr the center for construction research and training we've served as the naos funded National Construction Center since 1990 through a series of Cooperative agreements and um we are a nonprofit organization ation created by North America's Building Trades unions I encourage you to learn more by visiting our website we you see a screenshot here at cpw.com or to learn more about the National Construction Center on the CDC website cpwr is mission is to reduce occupational injuries illnesses and fatalities in the construction industry and um our uh as shown in this diagram our ni funded res search programs work hand inand with our training programs funded by the Department of Labor and National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences as well as our medical screening program I've been fortunate to work with this dedicated and skilled team of professionals that we like to call our big Nano team uh in particular I'd like to acknowledge Dr Bruce Lippy who is a longtime mentor of mine uh a close colleague who still works with our team and uh was the founder of of our nanomaterials research program uh which which I'm currently directing I have many other great colleagues shown on this slide and um I did not have a good picture of our good friend and colleague not pictured here bill kajola at Ms but after this webinar you should be able to one describe factors affecting the growth and Adoption of technology and construction and two you should be able to explain Key findings from naos funded extramural research on emerging Technologies in construction historically the construction sector has been slow to adopt emerging Technologies as it turns out ancient civilizations were pretty good Builders and material scientists the Coliseum in Rome is almost 2,000 years old and even older structures can be found around the globe uh building materials and methods used centuries ago are still being used today but technology is beginning to have a greater impact on how we build our world as well as those who build it including their health and safety investment in architecture engineering and construction technology is accelerating so uh these estimates from the McKenzie Global Institute show that funding for this type of Technology nearly doubled during the three-year period beginning in 2020 compared to the three years prior so note that the figures shown here are in billions of dollars supply and demand in Es are fueling technology growth in the construction sector So currently we're facing a pretty severe labor shortage with over 400,000 job openings in the construction industry um in the US as of February of this year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics that is coupled with um quite strong demand for construction globally partly due to uh the infrastructure packages shown on the slide with a $1.2 trillion infrastructure law uh passed recently here in the US as well as 800 billion euros dedicated towards infrastructure in Europe the pandemic coupled with an aging Workforce contributed to these skilled labor shortages so this is from interactive data dashboard developed by the cpwr data center and you could see I like this chart because it shows uh a lot of different things for one it shows that the the us working population overall is aging and we see that even more so for construction workers on the orange line which on average are older than than workers in other Industries and workers have been getting older over time but we see around the time of the pandemic uh decrease in the average age reflecting uh retirement and uh workers exiting the industry especially workers 55 and older in construction were more prone to leaving and it's worth thinking about the effect of that loss of institutional knowledge of these experienced workers and how that relates to safety and health one response to the labor shortage has been to recruit more women to work in the trades so women make up nearly half of the US Labor Force but account for only 177% of blue collar workers and roughly 11% of construction workers although the latter number has been uh steadily increasing they're gradually increasing over time to address the gap between between supply and demand contractors are also increasingly looking to technology to boost productivity safety and health cpwr administers the Liberty Mutual safety Innovation award in construction which was awarded in 2022 to DPR Construction and the canvas robotic drywall finishing tool shown here so this robot leverages several emerging Technologies to eliminate multiple passes of finishing improves productivity and efficiency and it also mitigates risks associated with working in height dust exposure and repetitive motions and you can see in the bottom left um you know it's also uses artificial intelligence machine learning and lar 3D Technologies so lar stands for light dete light detection and ranging sometimes called laser scanning or 3D scanning and it essentially uses uh laser light reflection to measure distances between objects to generate 3D maps this slide courtesy of Dr Scott Ernest shows how automation has already been occurring in construction for quite some time maybe not as uh and not such a technologically advanced manner as a previous slide but um using the power tool shown here with an extension handle to tie rebar instead of pliers was shown to be twice as fast and reduced awkward postures that contribute to load back disorders construction lags in digitalization relative to other industrial sectors but Technologies offering a competitive Advantage are accelerating change construction is a very Dynamic industry and it can be quite complex we have mixed crafts multi-employer sites changing environmental conditions work sites themselves are variable and you can have some very large scale projects involving many years and and huge sums of uh Investments excuse me dig digitalization can benefit safety and efficiency or win-win by improving communication planning coordination as well as data collection and Analysis so I've highlighted Communication in red here on this slide uh because it's shown in work uh conducted by my colleague Lind Dr Linda goldenhar to be in a very important piece of uh building a good safety climate at construction sites so Dr Goldman har has really done some excellent work in measuring safety climate looking at the indicators of a good safety climate and how to improve them and there is this overlap between um you know productive firms and safety cpwr has partnered with Dodge construction Network since 2012 to conduct the banal construction Safety Management survey 298 contractors participated in 2023 from a panel Dodge maintains across the United States o excuse me uh roughly half were larger companies like large General Contractors or design build firms and the other half were specialty trade contractors survey respondents cited SA and productivity is the main reasons for using technology although increasing sustainability and decreasing Reliance on labor were also viewed as important especially among large firms which are shown in the lighter Blue Bar um on this graph the report also presents a case study to describe how rosenan one of the largest electrical contractors in the United States embrac this technology to build a data driven safety program um aside from extensive data collection and Analysis the company uses QR codes in a pretty Innovative way I thought to to access information about proper tool use as well as information about Job Hazard analysis or jha as it's commonly referred to in the industry uh they also use reality capture and AI powered analytics to create interactive digital 360 reviews of projects which is um becoming more common and a lot of uh interesting Technologies involved with that type of approach and they use Virtual Reality training for lift operators as well as a company app to share safety resources now this slide courtesy of Dr Scott Ernest helps to illustrate how various Technologies can be used to improve operations as well as health and safety Technologies shown include prefabricate ated materials sensors wearable Technologies robots and Technologies to enhance collaboration and communication and so this was from a conference in 2016 and so I think we're seeing a lot of this is uh is starting to come to pass and continuing to shape the future as well I'll pose this question rhetorical question to you as an audience will the uptake and impact of technology be distributed evenly throughout the industry moreover will technology exacerbate existing Health inequities consider that construction is dominated by small employers over 80% of firms have 10 or less employees shown in by the orange slice of this pie chart more than 90% have less than 20 employees you look at the Orange and the blue sliced together firms with 100 or more employees represent just 1% of all establishments but it's important to note that they employ roughly 30% of all workers in the industry oh small construction establishments experience higher rates of fatal injuries so firms with less than 20 employees are represented by the red line on this chart and as you can see over a period of many years the rate is consistently been higher among these types of firms compared to uh mid and large size employers small firms were also the least likely to use emerging Technologies in the Dodge 2023 survey the majority 55% said they were not using any of the emerging Technologies asked about in the survey uh conversely the majority of large contractors were using these Technologies as well as msze large firms are more likely to collect and use safety data so we see on the chart on the left that there's a clear trend of increasing uh number of percentage of firms that were gathering safety data from small to mid to large but one thing that was common among all the types of firms was that a fair amount said that they collect data but most goes unused um the larger firms were more likely to use the data effectively but I think this is not unique to the construction industry as Dr Roth mentioned you know sensors and other technology IES are increasing our ability to collect large sums of data and there's a real challenge in being able to make use of it all so I think that's one area where artificial intelligence and machine learning can really help to make better use of data that's being collected for the purpose of of improving safety programs Bim drones and Laser scanning were commonly reported Technologies in survey so uh building information modeling and particular particular was used by you know roughly half of firms at both of the time points um compared here 2021 and 2023 um and I would note that this this question asked about specific Technologies so inferences shouldn't be drawn about how commonly other Technologies are used that are not shown here um aside from these three big ones we see remotely controlled equipment Predictive Analytics virtual reality training being used as well as weable sensors Robotics and exoskeletons so let's pause for a quick recap what are some of the main points that we've we've covered so far one construction technology Investments are accelerated and and quite a rapid paste in recent years two productivity safety and sustainability are important drivers of Technology use and construction and three smaller Construction firms are less likely to adopt new technologies which could widen existing disparities so that's I think something that can is underlying or is important to think about in a lot of different contexts as we discuss technology let's move on to our second objective uh and explain Key findings from nios funded extral research on emerging Technologies and construction engineered nanomaterials are used in multiple Industries so understanding the risk they POs to to workers excuse the typo is is critical um naos has published three uh recommended exposure limits in these current intelligence bulletins shown here and you can access some of the other nanotchnology Publications that Dr raw referenced in his talk at at the URL here so cpwr has documented uh quote unquote Nano claims for over 900 Construction Products to gain a understanding of how uh nanomaterials are used in which types of applications so this U information is primarily derived from manufacturers and Distributors of these products and you can learn more uh by visiting uh the inventory online into the URL shown here my colleague Sarah Brooks typically uploads new content to the site weekly so you can go and look at individual products learn about their applications learn about the benefits of the uh or the property of the nanomaterials that are added um there's also a news and related information section A lot of good information and um we have an interactive dashboard that allows users to explore the data um through charts and so you can look at the most commonly reported nanomaterials in an inventory including nanoscale polymer silica graphine different types of metal oxides as well as looking looking at nanomaterials used by specific trait so in terms of products paints and Coatings count for more than half of the inventory we've we've clearly um you know that's been one of the very important applications in construction others we see include cement and concrete insulation and and lubricants so cpwr has measured exposures to engineered nanomaterials which I may abbreviate to abbreviate in subsequent sizes enm during common construction tests so here's a test chamber where we've conducted some of our studies and we've used uh traditional industrial hygiene methods with filter-based sampling as well as electron microscopy and uh more modern instruments like the particle counters shown here a research in general shows that engineered nanomaterials tend to remain embedded in the construction materials to which they are added so on the left we see nanop particles suspended in larger paint spray droplets from one of our studies as well as sanding debris containing white nanop particles cpwr Studies have also found release of free engineered nanom materials in some instances although this is less less uh common um and potential to exceed Nas recommended exposure limits while spraying paints and Coatings so um in this in this Mo in this study we were looking at on the right cutting tuck point Ing and grinding of cement and concrete and morar and found um release of graphine a 2d nanomaterial in where where the material was not bound to The Matrix um and we see other tasks that we've examined including spraying and sanding cutting nailing drilling of roofing tiles and a key message that we EMP emphasize from our work is that engineering controls used in construction are effective in reducing exposure to engineered Mana materials so we have the hierarchy controls from most to least effective top to bottom and here on the right we show some of the type uh types of engineering controls we've studied including local exhaust ventilation and dust suppression using water and we've uh shared this information with the trades through toolbox talks like these that are designed to be delivered on the job site based off of the studies that we conduct we've also developed and delivered training materials through a train the trainer approach that explain how respirators offer effective protection against nanop pars so the training actually goes through all the levels of the hierarchy from the top to bottom with the most to least effective and uh participants have really enjoyed this video that we show on explaining how the filtration process works because it's often counterintuitive when you think of um filters capturing these tiny particles but they are indeed um very effective partnering with naos and skilled trade professionals has been instrumental to our work so on the right uh we is is uh working with skill trade professionals at the international masonry Institute we also had naos colleagues from health effects laboratory division were there and they've joined us with on other studies that we've worked with as well and use measurements as well as samples from our studies in their uh toxicological investigations and so that's been really important to understand potential health effects from occupationally relevant exposures and I was very excited um to see some of the work uh presented just last month um here's a poster session from some of our colleagues that they presented at the Society of Toxicology and they actually actually presented a two poster sessions on on the work that we have done together and and in this case um where we were looking at Nano zinc oxide it was good news for workers that that the levels of exposure we were measuring didn't did not seem to elicit acute um toxicity in in Vivo cpwr has an ongoing research project on exoskeletons led by researchers at the University of California San Francisco and Virginia Tech uh I've included links to two webinar recordings where you can learn more um about uh these these devices and just published this month and applied ergonomics was was a new paper by this group and I'm including the link here and a quote the use of exoskeletons has the potential to be accepted as an intervention to reduce work rated muscular skeletal disorder risk expand accessibility to construction jobs and even enhance performance another important finding was that um perceptions about the barriers to using these Technologies to using this technology differed by demographic factors so more specifically uh females and and non-white workers perceive higher barriers to to using this technology which has implications for how we um communicate roll out these uh these types of Technologies and how we train workers cpwr initiated the small study program in 1993 to provide seed money to investigate promising news re research initiatives so this allows for funding up to $30,000 for 12 months and there have been 143 studies awarded with priorities defined by Nia strategic goals and the National Occupational research agenda for construction and so in this list on the right we see um of recent small studies we see a lot of a lot that address emerging Technologies including drones intelligent hearing protection for construction workers and so I think that um this program is really well suited to uh studying emerging Technologies given the nature of its scope and and the funding and its ability to to respond to things that that are coming out as we really want and so here's an example of a study entitled using unmanned aerial systems for automated fall Hazard monitoring and high-rise construction projects so unman aerial systems is another uh way of referring to drones and this study found that the proposed automated fall Hazard recognition system could facilitate recognition of guard rails in high-rise Construction Products and this slide is courtesy of cpwr deputy director Dr Rick ronmart uh here's another example of a study entitled protocol for assessing human robot interaction by the at the conducted at the University Alabama so this study developed uh practical process and tools for practitioner for practitioners to identify and quantify human robot interaction safety risk when using robots and Automation in construction operations um this example entitled embedded safety communication system for robust Hazard perception of individuals in work zones at unlb uh was a very interesting one um and the results of the study indicate that tacti file signals transmitted with the system uh which is a prototype can communicate hazards to workers especially in harsh environments where workers innate sensing is limited I would note that those interested in work Zone safety technology U might want to register might want to consider registering for another webinar at 2m Eastern today on developing and enforcing internal traffic control plans so if you search for CPW webinar series you should find that one right at the top of the list additive manufacturing also known as 3D printing is beginning to take a foothold in the industry but the health and safety hazards are still not very well understood um I would say that nios has a lot of very good intramural research on hazards and controls for 3D printing and I would like to conclude today's talk about the future on a positive note so I had a very interesting discussion just just last week with uh a researcher um professor pheni at the UN at Arizona State University so her group is looking at the toxicity uh um other types of toxicity not yet studied for asphalt fumes which are a known carcinogen um and so that's part of their research is looking at the toxic effects but they're also looking at an alternative asphalt binder which is actually a biobased material this iron rich biochar which when incorporated into the asphalt uh can benefit not only workers but the public by reducing exposure to volatile organic compounds so um as Dr Roth mentioned you know possibilities for uh improvements in safety through technology abound and I thought this was this was a really interesting one in terms of material Innovations so thank you very much and I think now we are going to open things up for questions and comments and I'm going to stop sharing my screen great uh thank you Gavin and thank you Dr Roth we appreciate your uh informative presentations we have just a few minutes now for a Q&A so if there are uh participants that um have any questions feel free to go ahead and enter those into the Q&A box and we'll um we'll try to answer those um in the meantime I have a few questions I'll just uh touch on and we'll go from there so my first question is um and this is really for either but what are what are the most promising Technologies for reducing injuries and fatalities in the construction sector I mean obviously the sector is a very hazardous sector there's a lot of you know injuries to focus for that sort of thing there's also a lot of issues with um opioids and suicides and the impact on on workers and their families so Are there specific technology that you think could particularly um you know really really make an impact on on getting those numbers down I'll go ahead um I'll go ahead and and talk in terms of the the construction sector and I think that you know there's there's maybe no one technology it it it goes back to what Dr Roth was saying in terms of how these are all very interconnected so I think you know it's going to be one of these cases where the sum is of of the the whole is greater than the sum of the parts excuse me but you know maybe some that I would highlight where there's there's really a lot of of of promises um you know wearables and sensors for increasing the amount of data that we can have in real time connecting that uh through through the internet of things for being able to have a much better idea of what's happening on a construction site and that ties into this um idea of digitalization and creating you know these digital twins of construction sites so just the ability to really kind of monitor what is happening on a site as well as safety Trends in the long term I think you know could could have a really big impact on the industry you coupled with things like artificial intelligence and machine learning to power them I would uh venture to add a little bit to it because I think you mentioned opioid uh usage and suicides and we do know that there is a link between those and uh and muscular skeletal disease um and that there are opportunities for emerging Technologies such as exoskeletons and their use to reduce uh to reduce the burdens of those diseases so while I while I I have not researched the specific area that would be uh that would be one that I would be inclined to you know to keep my eye on yeah great thanks for thanks for that answer from both of you really interesting and it's great that there's a lot of work going on in those areas to move the ball forward looks like we do have a question in the Q&A chat um and I'll just open this up to either either of you it says are there some ways that technology is enabling reuse of real estate more economically that may encourage reuse versus clearing new land so uh what I can say is that we do know that um that that various emerging technologies that have um allowed uh new approaches to work Arrangements such as telework have reduced the amount of demand for certain types of office space and things like that um as for how that how those areas are being reused and repurposed I can't really you know I'm not really an expert on that but it would stand a reason that this would create opportunities to redevelop um to redevelop in different ways okay great thank you for that response U there's another question that just came into the the Q&A and it is when Technologies are being developed to address efficiencies such as automating equipment how or where do safety researchers have an opportunity to evaluate the impacts of on safety and I mean I can go ahead and pick a crack at that to begin with I mean we have you know we've sent up the the center for occupational robotics research so that's really kind of what they're doing they're looking at Technologies they're working with manufacturers of some of these new technologies and evaluating it for uh the impact on safety and health so that's really as well as I think the whole future of work initiative it's looking at the Technologies and really trying to determine what are the positive impacts of those Technologies and what are the potential negative impacts resulting in you know increased uh hazards hopefully we can leverage the technology to you know have have the most positive impact it can on the workforce I agree with that I add that partnership that this is a a very good example of why we view Partnerships is so essential because finding the partners who are using automating Technologies in this way are really what would provide us the opportunity to do a lot of those S kinds of studies okay thank you any other questions let me uh let me ask another one here um this is to Dr Roth we talked about the start of the ntrc which was approximately 20 years ago and I was just curious um is there still a need and how does that topic compare to other priorities for the whole future work initiative the Nano versus other other areas because there's a lot lot under that umbrella I think that's a very good question so uh so one of the things that we often uh that we often um discuss is the question of when does something cease to be emerging um and it's it can't really strictly be a question of age because that uh to some degree it's about the about when you're feeling a change in in the nature of work the workplace and Workforce as a result of it um so a good example for that is a manufacturing has been around technically since like the 1970s but it's really BL uh blossomed an impact in the past decade or so um so in terms of now technology uh there there's a couple of different aspects to it first it is act it is a congressional priority so investment in that is is is um is considered National priority for that reason um but beyond that we also have a constant flow and development of new nanomaterials and new applications for them all the time and as long as these materials represent new toxicities new applications new Workforce that are exposed that's going to create a demand um for more research into the into those into those new uh processes materials and applications um how that measures how that measures in terms of versus other priorities well in the future of work we've got a a large number of other priorities now so the competition is of course stiffer but that doesn't mean that now Nano has ceased to be a priority it just means it's competing with a lot of others okay great thank you um let's see we got just a couple minutes left let me ask one other question well here's one I just popped in let's see are you seeing any particular Trends or changes in public attitudes towards biomaterials I'm not familiar with any public uh opinion polls or data on that particular technology unfortunately neither am I okay thank you and then um let me just ask one other one and this and then we can finish up but um in terms of cpwr and the work that's going on at cpwr um this is really for Gavin can you just say a little bit about the amount of energy or resources that are being put on the substantial existing hazards like the focus for a fall struck by C in between electrocutions versus you know the future work and these and these Technologies and their impact yeah that I think that's a great question and you know construction is is a very hazardous industry and we have existing issues long-standing issues that have been very tough to tackle you know Falls uh you know falling off of buildings that's been a very persistent and serious problem so you know at cpwr we maintain a balanced portfolio I think it's important to to keep an eye towards the future and have that as part of the work we're doing but in no by no means are we neglecting you know hazards that that we've been dealing with for a long time and making strides to improve so um I think that probably we we would learn lean more towards if I look at our current projects you know we have um you know roughly a dozen I think active research projects uh you are larger ones and two of those are looking that I highlighted today our nanomaterials research and exoskeletons are kind of looking at issues that are shaping the future considered emerging Technologies whereas the others um you know have some aspects of that but I think are maybe more focus on traditional hazards in the industry and and I mentioned our small studies program gives us a lot of flexibility to to look at different priority topics as they as they emerge okay with that uh just want to thank everybody for for participating thanks to both of our speakers Dr Gary Roth and Gavin West and hope everybody else enjoys the rest of their day take care everyone bye-bye

2024-05-26 03:21

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