Skanska AB
A miscommunication about load-bearing capacity or crane positioning can kill people.
Skanska, one of the world's largest construction and project development firms founded in Sweden in 1887, builds projects where acoustic communication is literally life-or-death: skyscrapers, tunnels, bridges, hospitals. A miscommunication about load-bearing capacity or crane positioning can kill people.
On megaprojects like the $5 billion LaGuardia Airport redevelopment, hundreds of workers from dozens of subcontractors operate across vast sites 24 hours/day. Skanska's communication protocols resemble synchronized chorusing: daily toolbox talks for peer-to-peer synchronization, strict radio protocols with closed-loop acknowledgment, layered briefing structures, stop-work authority for any worker, and shift handoffs that prevent information loss.
Skanska tracks 'safety conversation hours' and finds that projects with higher safety conversation hours have fewer accidents and fewer schedule delays. Their Total Recordable Injury Rate of 0.48 versus the industry average of 2.8 demonstrates that acoustic communication is infrastructure, not overhead.