scholarly journals Safety Assessment and Risk Management in Indian Building Construction Sites

Construction sites records high accident and incident rate due to lack of safety measures. Safety assessment rating is significant for every construction site to know safety status of the particular site. In this research TR safety observation method is used to assess the site performance. As unsafe condition is the key factor in every construction site, this research considers the possible unsafe conditions to assess the site performance. A questionnaire survey is done with the workers to know the existing safe conditions. Results showed that the safety performance of the site is 39%. Then every unsafe condition is ranked with respect to severity rating for detailed analysis. Furthermore bowtie analysis is used to identify the causes and consequences of the unsafe conditions. Through this analysis the owner can reduce the risk of every event and improve the site performance.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takuma Akaki ◽  
Tomoyuki Gondo

The purpose of the present study is to grasp the situation of construction sites easily by distinguishing the movements of construction workers at construction sites from the accelerometer data attached to their waists. For the construction manager to accurately perceive the active or inactive state of his workers, their movements were classified into three distinct categories: walking, standing, and sitting. We tracked and observed two rebar workers for 5 days at a large building construction site. Their movements were classified by two-axis plots of (1) the difference between the maximum and minimum absolute values and (2) the value of acceleration at each second, and visualized by a heatmap among others for this trial. The results showed that despite the difficulty in distinguishing rebar work without a total body movement while sitting, the accuracy of discrimination was 60–80% in walking and sitting. From this analysis, we were able to identify repetitive tasks and the differences between morning and afternoon tasks. Furthermore, by applying simple visualization, we could concisely represent changes in work intensity over a relatively long period.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Yılmaz

PurposeThe research was carried out to statistically evaluate the relationship between the safety measures at the construction sites and the actual and perceived knowledge levels of the employees about these measures.Design/methodology/approachFace-to-face surveys were conducted with the workers. The survey included some perception-based questions about preventive measures at the construction site, as well as determining the level of awareness of employees on occupational health and safety (OHS) practices. The data were analyzed with descriptive statistical methods and bivariate correlation analysis.FindingsThe actual knowledge levels of workers on OHS measures in the workplace is significantly lower than their perceived knowledge levels. However, there is a positive, linear and strong relationship between the actual knowledge levels of the employees about some OHS rules applied in the workplace and the general level of knowledge they perceive about themselves. Some protective measures such as occupational safety expert, OHS board, employee representatives, training and information activities at construction sites positively affect the safety awareness of employees. However, low-frequency and documentation-intensive activities such as risk assessment, emergency activities and periodic controls have no or weak correlations.Originality/valuePerception-based opinions of construction site workers on occupational safety issues are transformed into numerical data and analyzed with a quantitative method.


In India as well as in the global scenario Construction industry is viewed as one of the largest employment and economy generating sector, which in turn increases the probability of hazard & risks in the industry. Many developed countries have adopted technological interventions as safety measures to minimize these risks. Comparing to the safety scenarios in Indian construction sites, the hazards are twenty times higher than in United Kingdom and thirty times than in U.S.A. In developing countries like India, the completion of the project is given more importance than the safety rules and regulations. Most of the hazards in Indian Construction site arises due to the carelessness of human beings, improper safety trainings, and lack of technology as well as communication. This study aims to find the applicable technological tools that can be utilised for ensuring safety at construction sites. The study also gives the information about various hazards and applicable technological tools for a particular kind of hazard. The study utilizes the data from the existing literature available with OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and research papers & journals to find the most commonly occurring hazards and also the technological tools that are existing in the market and employed to cope with the identified hazards. The data collected is then analysed and on basis of the hazard identification, a comprehensive list of technological tools used for the preventive or safety measures for that particular hazard at construction site are formulated. The findings of this research will be helpful to produce a better safety management plan for construction sites in India.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Amoah ◽  
Fredrick Simpeh

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic drastically changed safety measures in every industry, including the construction industry. Thus, the construction companies have instituted safety measures at the construction sites to curve the disease’s spread among the workforce. This paper aims to examine the challenges encountered by construction firms in implementing COVID-19 safety measures at construction sites. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative research approach was adopted for this study using open-ended interview questions to solicit data from 19 construction professionals currently working on a construction project in South Africa. Content analysis with the assistance of an Excel spreadsheet was used to analyse the data collected. Findings The findings indicate that there are numerous challenges such as ignorance of COVID-19, the supply of poor personal protective equipment (PPEs) by contractors, lack of compliance, sanitising construction materials, difficulty in sharing tools and equipment, public transport usage by workers, superstition (COVID-19 is for a particular group of people), complying with social distancing rules, among others in the implementation of the COVID-19 safety measure at the construction site to curb the spread of the disease among the workers. These challenges have, therefore, hampered their effort to strictly adhere to the safety measures in accordance with the COVID-19 safety protocol at the project sites currently under construction. Research limitations/implications The interviewees were construction professionals working in the South African construction industry during the COVID-19 period. Practical implications The implication is that, due to the challenges faced in implementing the COVID-19 safety measures, workers on the construction site are not adequately protected from contracting COVID-19. The workers may thus contract the disease at the project sites and transmit it to their families and vice versa, which may have further implications on the spread of the disease within the communities and society. Originality/value The study has identified implementation challenges of the COVID-19 safety measures at construction sites of which the construction stakeholders must institute measures to overcome since COVID-19 has become part of our daily life. The study also recommends some preventive measures to the owners of construction companies to help overcome or minimise these COVID-19 safety implementation hurdles to minimise the spread of the disease among the construction site workers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
John F. Y. Yeung ◽  
Daniel W.M. Chan

Amongst all types of construction accidents, industrial practitioners tend to pay less attention to the prevention of fires at construction sites.  Although fires may not occur frequently on construction sites, statistics show that when they do, the consequences are very serious; involving fatalities, injuries, serious project delays and financial loss.  There are many reasons why fires occur on sites, but a simple lack of awareness of the risks of fire is a major contributor.  Fire risk assessment is not commonly performed on sites.  Hence, it is believed that an appropriate assessment method for evaluating potential fire risk is required in order to improve the awareness of fire risk on construction sites.  This paper reports on the key findings of a research project which aims to develop a comprehensive, objective, reliable, and practical fire risk assessment framework for building construction sites based in Hong Kong.  A comprehensive list of those factors (or conditions) which may constitute a fire risk was compiled using desktop research and structured face-to-face interviews with experienced site personnel.  This list of factors was then used to develop a questionnaire survey form and the Reliability Interval Method (RIM) was used to analyse the survey results and determine the relative importance and rankings of the various fire risk factors at a broad level and risk sub-factors at a detailed level.  It was found that the fire risk factor of “Fire Services Equipment and Installations” has the greatest impact on construction site fire safety, with “Means of Escape in Case of Fire” being the second, and “Attitude of Main Contractor towards Fire Safety” being the third.  In fact, it is the main contractor who plays the pivotal role in maintaining construction site fire safety, which is in line with the high ranking given to the fire risk factor of “Attitude of Main Contractor towards Fire Safety”.  The proposed fire risk assessment framework can be used to develop a useful checklist for assessing the overall level of fire risk for a construction site, and to identify any areas needing improvement.  Although the fire risk assessment framework was developed locally in Hong Kong, the research methodology could be replicated in other countries to produce similar frameworks for international comparison.  Such an extension would aid the understanding of the management of fire risk on construction sites and help discover differences between countries.


Author(s):  
Syed Faraz Jafri ◽  
Khawaja Sheeraz ◽  
Zubair Iqbal Rao ◽  
G. B. Pirzada

Based on the statistical evaluation of accidents, the construction industry on an overall basis is full of dangers and risk oriented. The natures of the activities involved become hazardous when compliance with the safety rules and regulations are not properly followed, as a result high rates of accidents occur on the construction sites. In the metropolitan city of Karachi, Pakistan, a poor safety record has been observed in the construction industry. The primary reason existing for this situation is a non-preventive construction safety practice during execution of the projects. The secondary causes are dependent on the lack of resources, skills and interest of the concerned public sector agencies in enforcing the safety protocol regulations for the construction sites. In-addition, this situation also arises due to the lack of training in construction practices, child labor and a minimum awareness about the safety rules and regulations concerned with working on the construction sites. This necessitated a need to embark on a program of collecting data in connection with the accidents occurring on construction sites in Karachi; a six months program involving Construction Site Accidents (CSA) was accomplished. This involved different districts of Karachi region to be included in this study. In particular, CSA contributory factors relating to skilled, semi-skilled, and non-skilled labors were evaluated and marginalized. Through this study, it will be shown how by properly implementing the safety and operational measures, based on statistical conclusions, the rate of accidents can be significantly reduced.   Index Terms— Construction, Construction Site Accidents (CSA), Safety, Labor, Construction Industry.


Author(s):  
Albert Ben-David ◽  
Aviad Shapira

Mega building projects typically employ numerous tower cranes covering the entire area of the building footprint and staging areas with multiple overlapping work envelopes. This paper aims to answer the following question: Are the determinants of crane selection for mega building projects similar to projects serviced by a small number of cranes? On-site interviews found: (1) the visibility of the crane forest in the surroundings of the project affects the approach to crane selection; (2) various modes of action are taken by project management to share information with the neighboring residents and business and to ease the hardships of living and working near a busy construction site; and (3) cranes are often selected and located such that they could dismantle other cranes, due to difficulties of using a dismantling mobile crane in the depth of the crane array.


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.


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