scholarly journals Virtual Fence System Based on IoT Paradigm to Prevent Occupational Accidents in the Construction Sector

Author(s):  
María del Carmen Rey-Merchán ◽  
Jesús M. Gómez-de-Gabriel ◽  
Antonio López-Arquillos ◽  
Juan A. Fernández-Madrigal

Many occupational accidents in construction sites are caused by the intrusion of a worker into a hazardous area. Technological solutions based on RFID, BIM, or UWB can reduce accidents, but they still have some limitations.The aim of the current paper is to design and evaluate a new system of “virtual fences” based on Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) to avoid intrusions. First of all, the system was designed using a number of beacons, a Bayesian filter, a finite state machine, and an indicator. Secondly, its safety attributes were evaluated based on a scientific questionnaire by an expert panel following the staticized groups’ methodology. Results showed that the proposal is inexpensive and easy to integrate and configure. The selected experts evaluated positively all the attributes of the system, and provided valuable insights for further improvements. From the experts’ discussions, we concluded that successful adoption of this “virtual fence” system based on BLE beacons should consider the influence of factors such as cost savings, top management support, social acceptance, and compatibility and integration with existing systems, procedures, and company culture. In addition, legislation updates according to technical advances would help with successful adoption of any new safety system.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3326
Author(s):  
Wei Tong Chen ◽  
Hew Cameron Merrett ◽  
Ying-Hua Huang ◽  
Theresia Avila Bria ◽  
Ying-Hsiu Lin

Construction occupational accidents are often attributed to workers’ having an insufficient perception of how their actions influence safety in the construction site. This research explores the relationship between safety climate (SC) and personnel safety behavior (SB) of construction workers operating on building construction sites in Taiwan. The study discovered a significant positive relationship between SC and SB of Taiwan’s building construction sites, and in turn SC level had a positive impact on SB participation and overall safety perceptions. The higher the SC cognition of Taiwan’s building construction workers, the better the performance of SB was found to be. The dimension of "safety commitment and safety training" had the greatest relationship with SB. Safety training also had a deep impact on the cognition of SB. Therefore, the organizational culture and attitudes to safety coupled with the successful implementation of safety education and training can effectively enhance SC and worker SB on building construction sites in Taiwan, thereby potentially reducing the impacts of the underlying organizational factors behind safety related incidents.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (11) ◽  
pp. 262-275
Author(s):  
D. Solieva ◽  
A. Teshabaev

The research presented in this article shows the experience of implementing new Managerial tools in context of management and employees’ development which is carried out in the large vehicle manufacturing company GM Uzbekistan. The paper describes the details of some new management techniques implementation and evaluated the results of implementation. Analysis of the results of innovation activity, questionnaire survey and special interview reveals of main influenced factors. Result of the research illustrates the importance of in-company culture and managerial style, empowerment and involvement of personnel, top management support and managerial stress, education and training programs. The management of the JVC General Motors Uzbekistan has actively tried to induce new managerial tools and techniques as Continuous Improvement activity through Employee’s Suggestion System, Quality circle, 5S, TPM and others and MBO — Management by Objectives as tools for activation personnel potential and establishing self-managed teams within company employees. Within the framework of the visions of the Continuous Improvement a common understanding has developed, and the future direction of development has been negotiated. The history of Continuous Improvement in General Motors Uzbekistan demonstrates that success of new managerial techniques is not easy. The focus on the real problem areas, as quality, was, however, not a failure even though the targets were not met. The new managerial technology of human factor activating was later successfully utilized in the introduction of the focused Improvement team. The conclusion drawn from this is that management of company should, if possible, focus on collectivism aimed for real, vitally important areas and creative leaders.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-117
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Karimi ◽  
Shirazeh Arghami ◽  
Ali Behroozi ◽  
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Author(s):  
Jaya Ganjikunta

Market demands such as generating power at lower cost, increasing reliability, providing fuel flexibility, increasing efficiency and reducing emissions have renewed the interest in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants in the Indian refinery segment. This technology typically uses coal or petroleum coke (petcoke) gasification and gas turbine based combined cycle systems as it offers potential advantages in reducing emissions and producing low cost electricity. Gasification of coal typically produces syngas which is a mixture of Hydrogen (H) and Carbon Monoxide (CO). Present state of gas turbine technology facilitates burning of low calorific fuels such as syngas and gas turbine is the heart of power block in IGCC. Selecting a suitable gas turbine for syngas fired power plant application and optimization in integration can offer the purchaser savings in initial cost by avoiding oversizing as well as reduction in operating cost through better efficiency. This paper discusses the following aspects of syngas turbine IGCC power plant: • Considerations in design and engineering approach • Review of technologies in syngas fired gas turbines • Design differences of syngas turbines with respect to natural gas fired turbines • Gas turbine integration with gasifier, associated syngas system design and materials • Syngas safety, HAZOP and Hazardous area classification • Retrofitting of existing gas turbines suitable for syngas firing • Project execution and coordination at various phases of a project This paper is based on the experience gained in the recently executed syngas fired gas turbine based captive power plant and IGCC plant. This experience would be useful for gas turbine technology selection, integration of gas turbine in to IGCC, estimating engineering efforts, cost savings, cycle time reduction, retrofits and lowering future syngas based power plant project risks.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Maano Nghitanwa ◽  
Lindiwe I Zungu

Non compliances towards occupational health and safety legislations has been on increase globally which leads to higher incidence of occupational accidents, injuries and diseases. The aim of the study is to determine the presence of occupational hazards in the construction industry and to investigate the occupational health and safety provision and compliance among construction sites in Windhoek. A quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive design was used to conduct the study. Census sampling was used to include ten construction sites with project running during data collection time and whose site managers agreed to participate in the study. Data was collected in ten construction sites with the site inspection checklist to assess the occupational hazards and OHS compliance in participated construction sites. Data was analysed with SPSS software. The study findings indicated that occupational hazards are prevalent in the construction industry, but there is poor mechanism to control hazards and to prevent hazard exposures. Furthermore, most construction sites are non compliant towards OHS legislations. It is recommended that OHS legislations should be enforced to promote the OHS in the construction industry.


1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 110-116
Author(s):  
Petras Čyras ◽  
Arūnas Jaras

Social instability, violation of human rights to work have made the conditions of safe and harmless work worse. 19 mortal, 42 serious and 796 slight accidents occurred on construction sites during 1995 in Lithuania. The main reasons of occupational accidents are violation of work discipline and lack of organization. 24 708 days are lost because of occupational injuries, or in other words 96 builders did not work for the whole year, and 528.9 thousand litas was paid out according to the lists of disablement. The bad state in occupational safety is unprofitable. Besides, old norms and regulations are still valid at the present time, and hundreds of them are approved as far back as 1980. The drawing up of new regulations is just taking place in Lithuania. The compensation system being in force for employees, who work under harmful and hazardous conditions and social security system for those, who had suffered injuries and occupational diseases, do not stimulate employers to create healthy and safe working conditions. The factor of rest can be observed on construction sites. The heads of construction sites entrust the workers themselves to organize the work without the projects of work execution. Instructions on occupational safety and fire protection are just formal. Many of employees work without the employment contracts. Employers start to understand already that it's better to have labour protection service instead of paying fines for violation of labour protection regulations. The intellect and exacting every-day control of labour protection service specialist brings much more benefit for the prevention of occupational accidents than seldom visits of State Labour Inspection inspector to the enterprise or construction sites. The state of occupational safety depends on psychological factors, too. These factors can be grouped into three groups: natural of the human—natural inborn dispositions (the nervous system, memory, attention, the speed of reaction, intellect); psychological peculiarities of personality (the features of human professional activities, leadership, erudition); professional knowledge formed during learning, studying and training. The human psychology determines how the person interprets and copes with the things going on around him and related to him. Two different persons will act differently in the same situation. When a person reacts sensitively to weak and insignificant signals, he will pay attention to preparative and preventive work, think about potential danger and will take care to avoid accident. And vice versa, people who are not sensitive for such signals takes too little care to insure against accidents. It is reasonable to test psychologically an employee before signing an employment contract with him under market circumstances. It will be one of the conditions fulfilled for professional selection, which will decrease expenses for further training and professional activity of an employee. Fatal and serious disasters on construction sites decreased twice in 1995 as compared to 1994. And the total number of accidents decreased by 12 cases only (Table 1). Dynamics of mortal, heavy and slight accidents in 1991–95 is depicted in Fig. 1. The usage of alcohol is closely related to psycho-emotional stress. It has an influence on the accidents, too. 8 employees were killed while being drunk in 1995. It is 42.11% of total number of killed employees. The most dangerous occupations on construction sites are those of auxiliary workers, bricklayers, carpenters, welders and concreters. Majority of accidents happen to the persons who work for less than one year (fatal accidents—8, heavy accidents—16, slight accidents—163, or 44.44%, 41.08%, 32.21%, respectively).


2020 ◽  
Vol 72 (12) ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Judy Feder

While drones have been used on oil and gas facilities for video inspections and other tasks, they have been operated by an on-site pilot or one positioned on a bobbing workboat adjacent to an offshore platform. Now a proof-of-concept study conducted by TechnipFMC has tested the feasibility of a global drone system with drones operated remotely by pilots based anywhere in the world. The study is the subject of a paper (OTC 30241) presented at the Offshore Technology Conference Asia in Kuala Lumpur in November. Construction supervision and health, safety, and environmental (HSE) monitoring were the main drivers of the study. The construction supervision application is part of a larger digitalization ambition to monitor and manage construction activities with data generated from the drone ultimately feeding an internal software dedicated to this business process. Potential HSE applications include crisis management, human safety, evacuation assistance, hazardous-area identification, traffic control, carbon-footprint reduction, and environmental surveys. One of the study’s main objectives was to move from traditional unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAV) to resident systems and to investigate the possibilities they could offer. Aerial views have been used extensively to reduce personnel exposure in specific situations such as difficult access or potentially dangerous inspection areas like active flares, confined spaces, or high structures. In these cases, the drones are controlled by an on-site pilot who is either within their line of sight or a short distance away. Combining AUV technology with embedded and associated intelligence from the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud and edge computing should enable drones to fly safely in complex and dynamic environments, resulting in integrated, resident systems that are permanently deployed at construction sites and available 24/7 without the need for an on-site certified pilot. Implementing these technologies will make data accessible and available in real time to people working on the project worldwide and it will also generate new work processes for project management and execution. Flight and Operations Testing According to the paper’s primary author, Nicolas Tcherniguin, manager of offshore business and technology with TechnipFMC, digital tools such as image recognition, machine learning, and simulation of digital twins based on the drone’s flight have been tested. Remaining bottlenecks have been identified, and some have been addressed while others will require additional efforts. AI development will offer additional features, especially if they can be integrated with other ground monitoring devices.


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