Safety systems reach new heights: as construction projects become increasingly ambitious the importance of on-site safety is becoming ever more critical, especially when working at height.(Construction)

THE AMBITIOUS CONSTRUCTION tasks being tackled nowadays present structural and formwork engineers with some very tough requirements indeed. In the building construction sector, height records are being ratcheted ever upwards, while in the bridge-building field, the spans are being extended to absolutely unprecedented dimensions. Using advanced Doka systems and the safety features that go with them, it is now possible to tackle in-situ concrete works which not too long ago would have been reckoned to be impossible--or at least extremely dangerous--to carry out.

Long neglected for reasons of cost, "safety on the site" has since become a crucial issue in the mastering of large, complex construction-engineering challenges. As is now well-known from both long-standing empirical experience and systematic studies, outlays on building-site safety are the sort of investment that pays off not only in the short but also in the long term. Although safety requirements may vary from one project to the next, they will always be a component of every project in one form or another, from the planning phase right through until final completion--and in many cases this will go well beyond the shell construction phase.

Recent investigations have revealed that more than 800,000 construction accidents happen every year in Europe alone, with 1,200 fatalities. Every …