Introduction:

Safety is often considered an issue supported by everyone. Unfortunately, when it

comes to spending money on safety, many people do not feel it is vital to the success of
projects. Thus, it is not normally a cost code item, and it is subject to cutbacks if
budgetary constraints develop. This stems from the failure of many to recognize that an
effective safety program can reduce job accidents and directly or indirectly reduce project
costs.
Identifying the appropriate means of achieving or maintaining acceptable safety
performances, particularly on large projects, was the focus of the study.

Definitions:
 National Safety Council (NSC) defines safety as “the control recognized hazards
to attain an acceptable level of risk”.
 A Hazard is defined as an “unsafe condition or activity that, if left controlled can
contribute to an accident.”
 Risk is a term applied to the individual or combined assessment of “probability of
and potential amount of loss”.
 National Safety Council (NSC) defines accident as an “occurrence in a sequence
of events that produces unintended injury, death, or property damage .Accident
refers to the event, not the result of the event”.

Objective:
 To identify the need of safety practices in Construction
 What are the requirements of safety standards in construction?
 To find out the effectiveness of existing safety practices in the construction firm
 To suggest a design flow model for safety practices in construction industry.

Methodology:
Field observation of phenomena in their natural size is a valuable tool for
understanding the effects of variables inherent to construction processes. Data ill be
collected at each site on the safety related aspects of the construction industry and worker
performance and the data’s gathered will be presented as a table form. For example

Categories of Construction Industry:

To improve the project safety performance and according to the size of the
company the whole construction companies are categorized into four levels such as,
 Low level Construction industry
 Medium level construction industry
 High level construction industry and
 Very high level construction industry
Regarding the high level and very high level construction industry, they will be an
ISO certified organization, they will follow all the rules and norms and they will be
having a Safety Engineer to look after the safety measures and preventing accidents. But
in medium level and low level construction industries it is not expected so.. Even though
they are aware of the safety issues and occurring construction accidents they will not
have a safety engineer as such. Thereby the project manager or the project leader should
take those responsibilities in addition to his job, this is the prevailing situation in low
level and medium level construction firms.
To avoid the accidents and enhance the safety issues in construction industry we
need a safety engineer in all types of construction industry.

Factors Affecting the Safety Practices in Low Level Construction Firms:

 Cost
 Legal Issues
 Lack of Government Support
 Lack of Awareness
 Improper Management etc..,

Safety Engineer:
 Safety engineers are responsible for creating products that are efficient, high
quality, and that work safely. An increasing number of safety engineers will be needed in
manufacturing to help increase productivity at a lower cost.

Scope of Safety Engineer:

To perform their professional functions, safety engineering professionals must
have education, training, experience in a common body of knowledge. They need to have
a fundamental knowledge of industrial process, engineering hazards, controls fire
protection system and process safety, safety and health program management, accidents
investigations and analysis, product safety, construction safety, education and training
methods, measurements of safety performance, human behavior, environmental safety
and health, environmental laws, regulations and standards. Many safety engineers have
backgrounds or advanced study in other disciplines such as management and business
administration, engineering education, physical and social science and other fields.
Others have advance study in safety. This extends their expertise beyond the basics of
safety engineering profession.

Functions of Safety Engineer:

The major areas relating to protection of people, property and the environment
are,
 Anticipate, identify and evaluate hazardous conditions and practices.
 Develop hazard control designs, methods, procedures and programs.
 Implement, administrate and advise others on hazard control programs.
 Measure, audit and evaluate the effectiveness of hazard control programs.
 Draft a future safety plan and statement based on real time experiences and facts.

Role of Safety Engineers:

  Safety engineers have to be ruthless about getting facts from other engineers. In
particular they have to be able to “sell” the failures that they discover, as well the
attendant expense and time needed to correct them.
 Safety engineers must also work in a team that includes other engineering
specialties, quality assurance, quality improvement, regulatory compliance
specialists, educators and lawyers.

Levels of Safety:
The safety programs can be based on two levels such as
 Company level Safety programs
 Project level Safety Programs

Company level Safety Programs and Injury Occurrence:

Questions were asked concerning how safety was addressed at the corporate level.
The top management must be supportive of safety in order for safety efforts to be most
effective. This support is evidenced by the appointment of a full time safety director;
however the safety should not be v4ested exclusively in that position. Top managers must
continue to be involved in the safety program.
The company must also recognize that the supervisors are the key to the success
of the safety program at the job level. Two effective means of demonstrating this are by
holding special safety meetings for supervisors, and by monitoring the safety
performance of individual supervisors. By holding separate safety meetings for
supervisors, the company can be assured that appropriate information is being
communicated to responsible individuals. Monitoring safety performances of individuals
communicates to supervisors that safety is important. Of course, it would be expected
that supervisors that have outstanding safety performances should be recognized for the
achievements. Otherwise, the monitoring effect would not be expected to affect
performance.

Project Level Safety Programs and Injury Occurrence:

 At the project Level, Safety programs would be expected to be more
clearly defined and specifically focused. Information was sought to identify those
characteristics of project level safety programs that were associated with better safety
performances.
As with the company level safety programs, it was that safer performances
are noted on those projects having individuals specifically appointed as safety officers.
The below table shows the type of project safety officer and injury occurrence

Person in charge of Number Average injury Frequency

project safety
Superintendent 11 84
Project Safety officer 3 18

It is also that the favorable influences that job site safety inspections have on safety
performances. The below table shows jobsite safety inspection and injury occurrence

Does the job supervisor or Number Average injury frequency

safety officer make
specific jobsite safety
tours
Yes 6 40
No 8 92

Human Error:
Human Error is a central element in accidents and has been researched
extensively by researchers of high risk systems. It is also defined an error as a set of
human actions that exceed some level of acceptability. Traditionally, the standard of
judgment is the normative behavior. From this perspective, human error is a deviation
from a normative procedure. The unsafe act is classified in three types of errors and two
types of violations.
Errors, Slips and Lapses are skill based errors and occur with little or no
conscious thought. A slip is an unintended error in the execution of an otherwise correct
plan. Mistakes involve the correct execution of a wrong plan. In other words, mistakes
are intentional behaviors that involve incorrect choice of action. Perceptual errors are
actions that result from misinterpretation of the actual situation.
Violations, Routine violations are habitual departures from the rules and often
tolerated by supervision. This may involve behaviors that are established practice as
opposed to the specified practice such as diving 5 – 10 mph faster than the speed limit.
Exceptional violations are neither typical of the individual nor condoned by management.

Safety Efforts to Control Conditions:

Safety measures to control conditions are barriers that confine the hazard
sources, and prevent exposure to the hazards, such as perimeter cable, support of deep
trenches, and closing- off the area under steel erection. OSHA regulations define what
conditions are hazardous and what safety barriers are needed. Safety efforts to control
conditions include training and inspections to identify hazardous conditions, and the time
and resources needed to provide and maintain the safety measures. Economic pressures
and time or personnel shortage may prevent management from providing and maintaining
the required safety measures. Management commitment and policies that support safety
increase the likelihood that the safety resources and effort will be committed.

Efficient Work Behaviors:

Efficient work behaviors increase production, but in the presence of
hazards such behaviors also bring the workers in the hazard zone, which in turn increases
the likelihood of incidents that may disrupt production and counter any prior gains. Thus
hazardous conditions, less efficient work behavior is required to prevent exposure.
Efficient work behavior is shaped by
 Production Pressures and work load, which increase
efficient behavior
  The tendency for competent action, which increases
efficient behaviors and
 Safety efforts to control behaviors, which reduce behaviors
and consequently exposures.

Design for Safety Concept implementation Factors and Impacts

The below graph shows the work conditions and work behaviors.

Fall Accidents:
Falls have been the cause of the highest number of injuries and fatalities in the
U.S construction industry, accounting for 33 % of all construction worker fatalities for
the inclusive years.
 It is obvious that the proportion of falls has increased with time in the past 12
years; the average proportion of falls was 34.1% during the years before 1996 and
increased to 38.4% in the following years. Most of the data analysis was focused on the
fall accidents that occurred in the most recent years, representing those falls occurring
between Januarys to October 2007.

Distribution Of Construction
Accidents
Accident Counts

800
600
Falls
400
All acci
200
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Year from 1990

Injuries Resulting From Fall Accidents:

In total 2,741 fall accidents resulted in 2,955 injuries. The occupations of
most injured workers are construction laborers, roofers, carpenters, Structural metal
workers, plumbers and pipe fitters. Since workers in these trades often work in
environments with fall hazards, they are mores susceptible to injury by falls.

Example:
Two men in their early twenties were crushed to death on the spot when
they came under a fall of 10 feet from the ground. They both were killed instantly.
This accident shifts focus to poor safety practices of daily wages workers.
 Distribution Of Construction Accidents
By Month

1200%
1000%
800%
600% Falls
400% All acci
200%
0%
Jan Mar May July Sep Nov

Current Scenario:
Every two seconds, a worker in the construction industry is injured or dies
somewhere in the world. The explosive growth of the construction industry could not
have been predicted. In Tamil Nadu alone over the next two years, the daily requirement
for cement was likely to touch 40,000 tones. While there was an increasing amount of
accident control in this high risk building industry, much more needs to be done. Most
electricity connections at construction sites were unsafe.
It is all because of,
 Lack of interest
 Corruption
 Bad Construction Material etc..,
All sites should have medical equipment for first aid and treatment of all
50 notified occupational diseases. Builders should be proactive and inform the
Bureau of Indian Standards. Though technology has improved over the years, the
buildings of the past were better as more resources were shared by less number of
people. With the increase in population, cost cutting measures and optimal
utilization of resources have come to play a major role in determining the quality.
 Since the construction industry was inherently full of risk, and that the
chances of accidents happening were much greater than in any other industry, we
have to be conscious of our own activity first and then adopt methods to reduce
the risk involved. Also the pro active measures should be taken to prevent the
accidents.
For Example, there are visitors always at the site; it is our duty to ensure that there is a
safety checklist even for them. Everyone who enters the particular areas of site should
wear hard hats and have safety kits.
It is “we”, the Construction people and Engineers should look at the
construction site and safety in a new light.
New Safety codes for Nuclear Energy installations- Code formulation is a
dynamic exercise that has to necessarily keep pace with changing technologies,
environment and challenges. The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board is working on
formulating a set of around 40 new safety codes pertaining to various aspects of
nuclear energy installations in the country. However, for any code to get accepted,
it has to encompass the overall objective of strengthening safety.

Engineering Safety:
Safety has become very important because each year a vast number of people die
due to workplace and other accidents. For example, in the United States for the year 1996
as per the National Safety Council, there were 93,400 deaths and 20,700,000 disabling
injuries due to workplace accidents, with a total loss of $121 billion.
Design civil engineers could contribute to construction worker safety by performing five
tasks differently than current custom and practice:
 Reviewing their designs,
 Creating design documents,
 Assisting the owner in procuring construction,
 Reviewing submittals, and
 Inspecting work in progress.
However, four sets of major barriers would prevent designers from increasing worker
safety through these tasks:
 Lack of safety expertise,
 Lack of understanding of construction processes,
 Typical contract terms, and
 Professional fees.
Potential ways for reducing these barriers is suggested in engineering safety.

Basic Risk Management Model

Top Construction Companies in the World:

 Cushman and Wakefield
 Jones Lang Lase (JLL)
 CB Richard Ellis
 L&T

Works Done:
 Literature Survey
 Created a model Framework for the project.
  Compared the methodology with past related journals
 Identified the companies to visit

Work in progress:
 Design of Questionnaire
 Collecting more journals related to the existing method of safety practices in
Construction industry.

Work To Be Done:
 Companies should be visited.
 Questionnaire survey is to be done.
 Founds out the existing methods of safety practices in construction industry.
 The gathered data’s should be analyzed thoroughly
 Found out a new solution to implement the safety practices in all level of
construction firms.