In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, McKenna Schutty, safety, health and environmental manager at TDIndustries, a Texas-based facilities services and mechanical construction company, discusses how her company brought AI into its safety organization. 

Below is an excerpt from the podcast:

Adrienne Selko, EHS Today: Can you please begin by letting our listeners know how safety fits into your company culture.

McKenna Schutty, TDIndustries: TD is an employee-owned mechanical construction and building services company. So we build, maintain, operate some very important facilities across the US. But what really makes TD different is our culture. And whenever I think about safety and culture, I really just go back to our core values of fiercely protecting the safety of all, passionately pursue excellence in building and maintaining trusting relationships. And I think that's really going to be our secret sauce of how we do it. These aren't just words; they're really woven into our daily operations. 

And as a company, as safety managers, we are very involved in those conversations that drive our relationships with not just internal relations, but also our clients and how we operate from day-to-day. So safety is a big part of our culture because that is really how we operate. That's how we treat each other and how we develop our work into what we're doing every day and then beyond into different years as well.

AS: So let's talk about AI. Since everybody in the world is talking about AI, we want to do the same. Can you talk to us about what strategy you use to bring AI into the company?

MS: Yes, so AI is everywhere. We integrate it in a lot of different facets across TD, but in safety specifically, we really emphasize it in our daily plannings. Our processes are already important to us. So that includes just our pre-task safety plans, our observations, our safety engagement activities, anything that we're doing every single day, that's what we were really focusing on because those are our routine daily tasks that really just drive our engagement. And that's already something that we're collecting a lot of data on. And so our question was really, how do we really learn from it? We already have all this data. So how are we effectively improving our processes with the data that we're collecting?

And so AI has really been a big tool for us just because we're not really changing the way that they're operating or the way that they do their work. We're simply just getting more value from the processes that they are already trusted by using and integrating that into their daily functions. So we're not really changing their day-to-day. We're more using it as a resource to multiply and just drive the engagement overall from an assistance type of standpoint and see how effective we can push that envelope.

AS: Okay, so this next question is actually a series of questions. We'll talk about how this was communicated to the workforce. Was there an opportunity for both employees and managers to have input into it? Did you need to use any specific training? And finally, was there any pushback from employees?

MS: Great question. We are always very intentional whenever we roll out new processes, especially around a big topic such as AI. Since we are employee-owned, we are very much more focused on involvement, especially with technology and processes. So the message was very simple. We were always going to use AI just to support our team as a tool and to enable us to just better serve ourselves and each other across multiple teams. And so yes, we did have different trainings, but it's really a way of integrating, a way of communicating as well of our daily conversations as well.

So it was a way to help us identify what was going on from a daily perspective, but also see what gaps we are addressing as we progress through our planning programs. And so it was able to help us see how well it was being implemented. We were able to see how the safety plans were being planned, communicated, engaged, and using that as a precursor to see how we can evaluate the positive behaviors and also learn from each other at a different scale. 

So yes, we did involve our supervisors. We do that very, very early on in the adoption process just to make sure that our initial pilot is successful. And so we incorporate them from ground zero. We incorporate any feedback. They're our first person that we talk to, essentially, because they're the ones, boots on the ground. They're the ones that know exactly what their team needs and see how we want to design a program and an interface for themselves. And so if we don't design and listen to our team, we're probably not going to be able to get the utilization aspect from it. 

And so if we are able to work together, that means that we'll have multiple engagements in the design strategies so that we are able to create an interface that's easy to use, because if it's not easy to use, most likely they're not going to use it. And so it's really easy to use that in our favor. And that's probably the best implementation strategy that we've developed and keep using, because with their feedback, we're able to take strategies and edit them in real time. And so we're able to make the interface a lot easier in terms of the field user and what they might need day-to-day.

AS: Was there any pushback when you introduced the system?

MS: No, I think our employees were very open. I think they saw it as an opportunity. They heard of AI, they know what it is, they're intrigued. And so it's a conversation that they want to be a part of just because the nature of not really knowing much at first. And so they have innately wanted to be a part of the pilot process. So it's a lot of value that they saw firsthand. 

What we saw was that they were able to see how it would benefit themselves throughout the day. And so it made their day-to-day easier. It reduced a lot of the manual processes. It increased a lot of the efficiencies overall and just helped them plan better daily. And so the adoption flowed quite naturally. And so that was just another reason that the engagement was quite high whenever we first implemented AI strategies into our daily planning programs, just because it was a way to communicate between across teams across people and across different geographies as well.

AS: Was there any specific training that you had to use with AI? As you said, most people are using it in some format, but it's a different application from home use and business use.

MS: Yes, so we do have different ways of training, because definitely one type of training does not fit all different facets of our workforce. So the first one we have is a learning module that kind of breaks down what AI is, how we're implementing it into our programs. And then we also really rely on the field teachings as well.

A lot of times the vessel of communication changes, whether that's an iPad, a phone, a computer. So that does look a little bit different per user plus user choice, their own preferences as well. And so our approach was to provide the most specific guidance to learn and teach others the way that they learn best, right? So we're able to do more on-demand training since the goal was to encourage just to increase engagement and then documentation over the company. So we were able to go into the field and do hands-on training, but also for those who made us need a refresher, we have like screen sharings of availabilities or pre-recorded videos of step-by-step what to do. And that was really beneficial, especially for those that are going on vacation or haven't gone for a month or two. And they saw that there was a change and was like, how do I do this? 

Sometimes just a how-to video is the best way to approach those conversations because a lot of people are visual learners in our industry. And so a lot of times it's as easy as just a video of walking them through the process to just explain. And that is the easiest way that I have found to be beneficial.