Excavation activities support construction projects in many ways including digging foundations and footings, creating trenches to install utilities, soil corrections, and reshaping the landscape. All of this is accomplished with the use of heavy equipment that moves large volumes of soil and rock daily.

While Much of this work is accomplished without injury, still each year in the U.S. approximately 200 workers die in excavation related incidents including trench collapse. In some cases, a trench excavation exhibits the same conditions as a permit-required confined space. For that reason, trench excavations are a particularly hazardous part of excavation work.