Poster Paper Proc. of Int. Conf.

on Advances in Civil Engineering 2011

Current State of Construction Safety Planning Practices

Satish Kumar1 and V.K. Bansal2
1

Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Hamirpur, H.P., India Email: satish_katwal@yahoo.co.in 2 Department of Civil Engineering, National Institute of Technology Hamirpur, H.P., India Email: vijaybansal18@yahoo.com

AbstractThe construction industry involves many operations those are risky and unhealthy. The number of injuries, accidents and work related illnesses reported on construction sites make the construction industry one of the most dangerous industries when compared with other industries. Construction accidents result in many human tragedies, discourage construction workers, disrupt construction processes, delay progress and adversely affect cost, productivity and reputation of the industry. The present paper discusses various construction hazards, their root causes and factors affecting construction safety and gives an insight into factors which can help in maintaining safe and productive construction sites. Data collected from the literature has been categorized into various relevant parts to know the impacts of various factors individually as well as collectively. Further, the role of various professionals involved in planning, designing and execution of construction project has been discussed. Paper also highlights the role of IT advancements in enhancing construction safety planning on work sites. These considerations will enhance safety on construction sites and accordingly increase productivity. Index Termsconstruction industry, construction safety, information technology

I. INTRODUCTION The Indian construction industry is an essential contributor to infrastructural developments of the nation. These construction works are the physical foundation on which development efforts and ever evolving standards are established [1]. Indian construction industry employs 2.5-10 times more workers per activity which generates demand of skilled and semi-skilled labour [2]. The construction work with uncertain working environment is risky due to lack of safety, health and welfare facilities [1]. Unskilled workers migrating throughout the country face communication problems which cause safety problems on the construction sites [3]. The Indian construction industry employs largest labour force that accounts for about 11% of all occupational injuries and 20% of all deaths resulting from occupational accidents [4]. Accidents are costly, expenses may be in the areas of health care, litigation, wastage of managements time and workers compensation, transportation costs, workers productivity loss, cost of fixing or replacing damaged equipments or materials and cost of hiring new workers [5]. 2011 ACEE DOI: 02.ACE.2011.02.24 47

Construction employs only 5% of the United States workforce but claims a disproportionate 20% of all occupational fatalities and 9% of all disabling occupational injuries. Although these figures declined since mid-1980s, injuries and fatalities on construction sites are still a major problem [6]. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that on an average of one death and 167 injuries costs $100 million of annual construction spending. The total cost of these accidents reached $8.9 billion or 6.5% of the $137 billion spent annually on industrial, utility, and commercial construction [7]. One out of every six construction workers can expect to be injured, at an average cost of $18,000. This staggering number translates in to more than 2,000 deaths and 200,000 disabling injuries each year [8]. The need for safety awareness among construction companies has greatly increased due to the high cost associated with work related injuries, workers compensation, insurance premium, indirect costs of injuries, and the increased chance of litigation [9]. Every year, a considerable amount of time is lost as a result of work-related health problems and site accidents [10]. There are numerous factors responsible for health problems and construction site accidents. Proper site planning can play a vital role in reducing hazards and accidents on construction sites [11; 10]. An effective safety planning can reduce job accidents and directly or indirectly reduce project costs [12]. Safety planning in construction may be considered as important function against unnecessary loss of property, injury or death [3]. II. LITERATURE REVIEW Safety usually conflicts with production of construction works. It is believed that safety hinders the progress of construction work and costs more money [13]. Generally, safety and construction are managed separately [14]. Construction Project never achieves the objectives of cost, time and safety unless construction planning and safety planning are integrated [13]. Construction safety can only be ensured if process of constructing the facility and the constructed facility are safe [15]. In developing countries, the regulatory authorities are usually ineffective in implementing safety rules [16]. Safety planning may include better quality control, avoidance of human error, robustness of structure, design

Poster Paper Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Civil Engineering 2011 of temporary facilities and the construction process against unexpected catastrophe, as well as safe site operations. Safe site operations involves the selection of temporary facilities, equipment and their operations, the selection of well trained construction personnel, and the planning, organization and design of an effective and efficient layout design [15]. Exhaustive literature available on the construction safety planning has been categorized into the various parts and is discussed in subsequent subsections. A. CONSTRUCTION SITES HAZARDS The construction sites are unsafe and the workers are subjected to many construction hazards [17]. Hazard means the inherent property or ability of some-thing to cause harm, potential to interrupt or interfere with a process or person. Hazards may arise from interacting or influencing components [18]. Work hazards at the construction workplace are either not perceived at all, or perceived to be less dangerous than what they actually are [16]. Twelve major groups of hazards at construction sites have been categorized into two major hazards in construction namely: physical injury hazard and health hazard. Every construction work is full of hazards and every hazard is full of risk, so awareness about safety is a good method of preventing accidents at construction sites. B. ROOT CAUSES OF CONSTRUCTION A CCIDENTS Accidents occur during all types of construction activities. The identification of the root cause of accidents is a complex process. Accident mitigation requires a comprehensive understanding of construction process. Immediate or primary causes of accidents and the failure of management to anticipate and not having safe systems of work in place are unsafe practices and unsafe conditions [18]. According to Abdelhamid and Everett [19] response of the workers to the events which are existing and developing unsafe conditions or unsafe acts is a logical route to accurately determine the root causes of accidents on construction sites. C. FACTORS AFFECTING CONSTRUCTION SAFETY Sawacha, et al., [20] suggested that seven groups of factors that influences the performances of safety on construction sites are historical; economical; psychological; technical; procedural; organization and working environment. The construction safety factors influence a project to a larger extent and result in human suffering, delay in project duration, schedule or milestones, and cost overruns [21]. Aksorn and Hadikusumo [22] have identified that sixteen critical success factors (CSFs) affect the implementation of any safety program. Study further suggested that these CSFs can be grouped into four dimensions: worker involvement, safety prevention and control system, safety arrangement and management commitment. D. RISK ESTIMATION AND SAFETY PLANNING Yi and Langford [23] considered the issue of safety risks on construction sites. It was suggested in the study that safety managers should be well aware of direct causes of accidents along with indirect factors which adversely affect 2011 ACEE DOI: 02.ACE.2011.02.24 48 site safety. In order to predict when and where the risks will reach its highest level, analysis should be performed based upon available information. Study analyzed the result of accident history and provided the information about vulnerable situations. Study presented a safety planning method to estimate the risk distribution of a project and consequently helped the safety managers in estimating risks and in rescheduling the project accordingly. E. CONSTRUCTION SAFETY CULTURE AND CLIMATE Adrian and Barrie [24] and Guldenmund [25] have dened the safety culture and safety climate. The concepts of safety culture and safety climate originated from organizational culture and are not well dened [26]. Generally, safety culture is a set of prevailing indicators, beliefs and values that the organization practices in safety, while safety climate is a summary concept describing the employees beliefs about all the safety issues [25]. Safety climate is usually considered as more superficial than safety culture as it involves the current position of a company [27]. Researchers have described safety climate as an indicator of the overall safety culture of an organisation [28]. Mohamed [29] suggested that safety culture is concerned with the determinants for the ability to manage safety, whereas safety climate is concerned with the workers perception of the role safety plays in the workplace. Study further stated that the safety climate is largely a product of safety culture and the two terms should not be viewed as alternatives. Safety culture is crucially important due to the characteristics of decentralization and mobility in the construction industry [26]. F. OWNERS R OLE IN CONSTRUCTION SAFETY Huang and Hinze [30] developed a model to evaluate the impact of different owners practices on project safety planning. Study established four indices which quantitatively describe the project characteristics, the selection of safe contractors, the contractual safety requirements and owners participation in safety management. Study suggested that owner s involvement can favourably influence safety performance by setting safety objectives, selecting safe contractors and participating in safety management during construction. Studies conducted by Hinze and Figone [31]; Hinze and Talley [32]; Hinze [33] elaborated that the means by which the owner can help into construction safety are similar to the methods where contractors and sub contractors have positive impact on project safety. G.. ROLE OF DESIGNERS IN CONSTRUCTION WORKERS SAFETY Hinze and Wiegand [34] developed a rationale and suggested that in development of a project, designers play a significant role. It was highlighted in the study that construction workers safety depends on decisions made by designers during design phase. Toole [35] explored that design engineers respond to two site safety situations, one observing a site condition that poses a hazard to construction workers and other during design in choosing between a traditional component and one that is more expensive but inherently less risky for construction workers.

Poster Paper Proc. of Int. Conf. on Advances in Civil Engineering 2011 Hinze and Wiegand [34] suggested that designers should not only consider the users of a facility after project completion but must consider the facility users as the project is being constructed. Designers can play a strong role in reducing the incidents of injuries and fatalities among construction workers. Decisions taken by designers will not only ensure workers safety but shall also reduce compensation, loss of working days, project cost and unnecessary delay in project duration. H. LAYOUT OF CONSTRUCTION SITES CONSIDERING SAFETY Site layout planning involves identifying, sizing and locating necessary temporary facilities (TFs) on a construction site. TFs range from simple lay down areas to ware-houses, fabrication shops, maintenance shops, batch plants and residence facilities [36]. TFs are needed to support construction operations and to provide services for the workers on site. The inclusion of all necessary construction facilities, in addition to properly positioning them on site can have a positive benefit on health and well being of site personnel. TFs that have an impact on health and safety issues include access roads, lay down areas, warehouses and welfare facilities which include: rst aid station, toilet on site, labour rest area, washing facilities and cafeteria [37]. I. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN CONSTRUCTION SAFETY Information Technology (IT) based-safety tools aim to integrate IT and construction site safety plan for assisting users in analysing and utilizing safety plans in terms of what, when, where and why a safety measure is needed. Benjaoran and Bhokha [13] described a 4D CAD technology application that analyzes the design information to automatically detect jobsite hazards and generate necessary safety measures. Four-Dimensional Computer Aided Design (4D CAD) model helps in creating explicit visual perceptions of the construction sequences in identification of hazards and is an effective collaboration media for construction teams [38]. Building information modeling (BIM) improves occupational safety by connecting the safety issues more closely to the construction planning, providing more illustrative site layout and safety plans. BIM provides methods for managing and visualizing up-to date plans and site status information, as well as by supporting safety communication in various situations. GIS technology is also capable of performing a wide range of manipulation on geospatial information, including analysis, modeling, storage, visualization, and many more operations which can be helpful in safety planning [39]. III. CURRENT STATE OF CONSTRUCTION SAFETY IN INDIA Construction safety in India is still in its infancy, mainly due to the fact that safety laws are not strictly enforced. Also, contractors and their employees ignore basic safety rules and regulations. The government has enacted specific legislations, to improve the working conditions of the labour force in the country [40]. India has laws like the Minimum Wages Act, Workmens Compensation Act of 1923 (modified in 1962), the Contract labour (Regulation and abolition) Act of 1970, The Building and other Construction Workers Safety and Welfare Act of 1996, The Indian Explosives Act, however a very little of these are put into practice. National Building Code (NBC) of India provides guidelines for building construction activities across the country. Even then, workers safety in Indian construction is frequently pushed to the bottom stage of priorities. Most of large firms do have a safety policy on paper but employees generally are not aware of its existence. For the majority of contractors, maximizing their profit is the prime concern. Unsafe conditions exist on many sites and labourers are subjected to numerous hazards. Even large national firms who execute megaprojects in different parts of India with a typical workforce consisting of 100 technical staff, 500 skilled labours, and 2,000 unskilled labours do not have effective safety programs [3]. On many sites, no training program for staff and workers is available. Employees are required to learn from their own mistakes or experience. Beside this, lack of medical facilities, poor housing, and pitiable sanitation exists on many Indian construction sites. CONCLUSIONS The paper sensitizes construction managers regarding the importance of construction safety and its consequences if due care is not taken during planning, designing and execution stage of a project. Paper stresses that designing for construction worker safety is one important element capable to minimize construction project risk and to enhance workers safety. The paper indicates that there is a lack of responsive tools and resources to assist designers in addressing construction safety. Paper highlights various IT technologies to facilitate the integration of construction and safety so that optimum objectives in terms of time, cost and safety could be achieved and delivery of project can be ensured without accidents, litigation and delays. Current and growing movement of IT tools such as 4D CAD, BIM and GIS technology is offering new ways and means to improve safety in the construction industry. IT helps in performing virtual construction during projects preconstruction stage by enabling the user to analyze, criticize designs and perform what-if scenarios in the selection of safe construction methods. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors wish to thank Dr. Bhanu Marwaha, Dr. Pradeep Kumar, and Dr. D. Jha, NIT Hamirpur for their constructive criticism and valuable guidance.

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