There’s no getting away
from the fact that construction sites are easy targets for thieves
looking to turn a fast buck. High value plant equipment and materials
make it a veritable gold mine for any self-respecting criminal. In
addition poor security can leave a construction site open to
malicious damage or arson, potentially jeopardising project
completion. With this in mind, how much of your budget should be
spent on ensuring your site is both safe to work in and secure?
Investment in security
is often seen as an undesirable expenditure of a building project,
but the truth is that for large scale construction projects, project
managers should be looking to spend somewhere between 1% and 1.5% of
their overall budget. So what areas should they be looking at?
Plant equipment and
machinery
Did you know that over
$1 million worth of plant equipment and heavy machinery is stolen
every single week in Australia? What’s more less than 10% of
equipment is ever recovered. In most cases it’s shipped out of the
country in containers within 24 hours. In order to prevent this from
happening to your plant equipment/heavy machinery you might want to
think about investing in physical locking devices such as track and
leg locks, restrict keys to trusted persons, and mark up machinery so
it’s easily identifiable. Finally you might want to invest in
installing racking devices.
Materials
In June of this year
(2016) over $7 million dollars worth of construction materials were
stolen from just one construction project, and they’re not alone.
According to statistics 39% of construction site owners have suffered
material theft in one form or another, so it’s big business. The
truth is that unattended materials present an easy opportunity for
thieves. To avoid this, consider keeping only the minimum amount of
materials you need for a particular phase of a project. With ‘just in
time’ delivery scheduling this should be relatively easy. If you do
have to order materials in bulk make sure that they’re kept in a
secure place, preferably under lock and key.
Perimeters and
outbuildings
Construction sites are
the ideal place for criminal activity because they’re generally away
from busy areas, and away from prying eyes. Therefore it’s important
to make it difficult for any criminal to enter. This means CCTV
stationed on prime entry and exit points, secure fencing around the
site, and plenty of lighting, particularly in dark corners. In
addition all out buildings should be locked and kept under some sort
of key control. You might also want to consider manned security
patrols who can keep a watchful eye on the site during non-working
hours.
Here at MA Security we
take on a wide range of security roles including construction
security. So if you’re concerned about whether you have enough
security for your site or you would like us to conduct a risk
analysis, then contact us on 1300 020 406 today. Our
friendly experienced team are happy to assist.
