Sasha Aurand snapped a photo of something she thought looked fine - safe, even. Then HammerTech Intelligence offered a perspective she hadn’t considered. That moment captured something important for the safety team at Holder Construction: AI construction safety is not replacing human judgment but sharpening it.
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COMPANY
Holder Construction
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HQ
Atlanta, GA, U.S.
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FIRM SIZE
~2,400 associates
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FIRM TYPE
General Contractor
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FOCUS
Commercial
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CHALLENGE
Staying ahead of safety risks in fast-moving project environments
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THE PROBLEM -
At Holder’s Scale, Paper Doesn’t Cut It
Holder Construction operates at a scale where manual safety processes simply can’t keep up. Multiple trades, compressed schedules, rotating crews, and safety observations happening constantly across sprawling jobsites. At that scale, disconnected documentation doesn’t just slow you down - it leaves you blind to patterns that are building right in front of you.
Before joining Holder, Sasha Aurand, a Trade Responsible Engineer at Holder Construction, managed safety using manual processes and fragmented storage systems.
Sasha Aurand, Trade Responsible Engineer, Holder Construction
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When Aurand joined Holder nearly a year ago, she began using HammerTech to centralize safety workflows and improve field visibility. The platform was easy to adopt, but what stood out over time was its ability to support a more proactive approach to construction safety management.
During a jobsite visit, the HammerTech team explained that while Holder had already implemented the platform, they were only beginning to tap into the full potential of the system.
Aurand agreed.
Since then, Holder’s safety team has been focused on expanding how they use safety data, analytics, and AI-driven insights to improve construction risk prevention across the site.
THE SOLUTION -
AI-Powered Safety Observations That Teach You to See Differently
On Holder jobsites, safety isn’t just one team’s job - it’s a core value that every person owns.
Every safety team member participates in daily safety observations, pre-task planning (PTPs), audits, and inspections. That means a high volume of observations being logged, which historically meant a high administrative burden.
HammerTech Intelligence now makes this process faster and sharper.
When Aurand photographs something for a safety observation - even something that looks routine - HammerTech Intelligence analyzes the image and identifies jobsite safety risks she may not have flagged herself.
That can include:
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Fall protection gaps
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Housekeeping concerns
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Barricade placement issues
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PPE compliance risks
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Access and egress hazards
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"HammerTech Intelligence is giving us bigger insights into what to look for. With all this data collection, we can forecast things that could happen and get ahead of them before they do. " - Sasha Aurand |
Combined with Holder’s energy wheel assessment process, HammerTech Intelligence adds a layer of AI construction safety analysis that trains people to see more over time.
THE RESULTS -
Turning Weekly Observations into Site-Wide Conversations
Holder’s safety team reviews observation data weekly, presenting visual trend reports at staff meetings - positive findings and negative ones alike.
This is where the shift from compliance to operational intelligence becomes visible. Whether it's a spike in housekeeping concerns or fall protection gaps, the team has learned to read this insight differently.
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BEFORE HAMMERTECH
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AFTER HAMMERTECH
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Over time, that feedback loop is turning every observation into a lesson in construction risk prevention.
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"We can easily say to our crews that we’ve been seeing a trend in something. It’s taking us away from small one-on-one conversations and instead getting to the root of the problem. Then, we can see if how that trend changes in later weeks or months." - Sasha Aurand |
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WHAT'S NEXT? Ask Aurand what excites her most about jobsite safety technology, and she doesn’t hesitate.
PULL QUOTE --- “Analyzing trends - not only seeing it but being able to predict outcomes.” Sasha Aurand
She’s already mapping out what that could look like in theory, like wind conditions correlating with barricade failures or holiday-season fatigue driving a spike in minor incidents. Patterns that only become visible when you’re looking at enough safety observation data over enough time - the kind of construction risk prevention that simply wasn’t possible before AI.
PULL QUOTE --- "HammerTech Intelligence helps us start to predict trends based on our safety data. The question is then how do we utilize that to get ahead of things, so that these incidents don’t happen?" Sasha Aurand
She’s clear that AI won’t replace what experienced people bring to a job site. The goal, as she puts it, is simple - and it’s the same goal it’s always been in construction safety:
How do we prevent incidents? How do we make sure when you show up to work, that’s how you’re going home?
As companies like Holder Construction continue investing in safety analytics and AI-driven safety workflows, the future of construction is becoming more proactive, and safer, by design. |
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LEARN MORE -
See How HammerTech Intelligence Helps Construction Teams Predict Risk earlierLearn how construction teams use AI-powered safety observations to identify emerging hazards, improve field visibility, and prevent incidents before they happen
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