best practice for safer construction from a designer’s perspective

The 3rd International Conference of EACEF (European Asian Civil Engineering Forum) C - 23 Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, INDONESIA, September 20-22, 2011

BEST PRACTICE FOR SAFER CONSTRUCTION FROM DESIGNERS’ PERSPECTIVE

(CM-003)

Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid1*, Bachan Singh1, and Tan Kin Liang1

1Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Malaysia *e-mail of corresponding author: [email protected]

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the general overview on the designers about their perspective in order to have a safer construction. Construction industry always has high rate of accidents. It is considered that many safety hazards were “designed” into construction projects. Safety is evaluated from designer’s perspective to come out with best practices in order to achieve safer construction. Awareness of designers about construction safety and self-responsibility are also tested by conducting questionnaires survey, as well as the safety practices being implemented to achieve construction safety. However there are several factors that could significantly affect the adoption of safety practices such as motivation, knowledge on the concept and etc. The level of significance of those factors will also be tested. This research identifies the best practices to achieve safety in construction in relation to designers’ perspective, can be known.

Keywords: Safety and health, design, designer, construction, best practice.

1. INTRODUCTION

Construction industry is often linked up with the terms such as “accidents”, “hazards”, “high-risky” and etc. Something that one cannot deny is in most countries construction industry generally takes up the most percentage of industrial while the size of construction industry is relatively insignificant compared to others.

It is often considered by construction industry safety professionals that many safety hazards are “designed into” construction projects (Gambatese, 2003). So it comes to the core of this research which the construction safety comes into the topic. The construction safety will be evaluated from a designer’s perspective, and so to come out with the ideal practices to be implemented in order to have a safer construction on site. Basically it implies designing for construction safety, where it is more on preventing the risks and hazards. By doing so, it significantly improves the safety and health of those who build it, namely construction workers. The fact is the construction project design imposes prominent effect on both the safety of project contractors as well as end users.

According to statistics, there is more than one accident happen in construction sites each ten seconds around the globe, but yet construction industry comprises only a small percentage of overall workforces. It is also stated that the construction takes up 17% of the work place deadly accidents. Studies have shown that fairly large percentage of construction accidents could have been eliminated, reduced, or avoided by implementing better practices in the design and planning stages of a project (Hecker, 2005). Tony Baxendale et al. suggests that main task of designer is to cope with OHS issues by designing them out as far as practicable. Gibb et al. (2004) report that a change in design phase would have reduced the risk of injury.

The aim of this project is meant to identify the best (ideal) practices to be implemented in order to produce safer constructions from a designer’s perspective. While the objectives are:

a) To determine designers awareness towards the importance of design to achieve safer construction.

b) To determine designers’ responsibilities as a key role to conduct safer construction.

c) To explore the implementation of safety design principle practices by designers.

This report comprises the studies targeting the group of construction designers (i.e. architects and civil engineers) from the construction firms/organizations only in the area of Johore Bahru and Pulau Pinang, Malaysia.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228361075_Viability_of_Designing_for_Construction_Worker_Safety?el=1_x_8&enrichId=rgreq-ab7c23cb-3e5f-432e-8524-2a511cda656e&enrichSource=Y292ZXJQYWdlOzI3MDc2Mjc2NDtBUzoxODUwMjU3NDgyODMzOTJAMTQyMTEyNDk4NDcwNw==

Construction Management and Project Management

C - 24 The 3rd International Conference of EACEF (European Asian Civil Engineering Forum) Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, INDONESIA, September 20-22, 2011

2. BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Key Elements in Best Practices for Safety

It includes multi-level planning, communication, sharing information, monitoring, sharing stakeholders’ responsibility for safety, team building and mentoring, incentives, work-life balance, training and inductions, measuring safety.

2.2. Duties of Designers

The duties are making sure that they are competent and adequately resourced to address the health and safety issues likely to be involved in the design. They also have to check that clients are aware of their duties. When carrying out design work, avoid foreseeable risks to those involved in the construction and future use of the structure. In doing so, they should eliminate hazards (as far as is reasonably practicable, taking account of other design considerations) and reduce risk associated with those hazards which remain. They ought to provide adequate information about any significant risks associated with the design, and coordinate their work with that of others in order to improve the way in which risks are managed and controlled (Alves, 1999). Also they have to focus on the end-users and safety as well, promote design for safety, visit site regularly, manage risk at design level, analyze the design continuously, identify and limit risks, extend safety practices by incorporating safety aspects into designs and reviewing pre-tender design risk assessments after tender.

2.3. Design for Safety in Construction

At the design stage of construction, safety by design appears to be critical to enhancing OHS performance. Best practice in designing for safety also requires designers to retain a solid understanding of OHS and incorporate this into their designs. In order to bring about this solid OHS knowledge, designer training should be both competency- and experience-based. It should also encompass the following dimensions, viz., theoretical safety knowledge, industry experience, and interstate or inter-country experience. Structured review processes that facilitate interrogation of design are also critical to improving OHS. With respect to design, coordination among designers and architects is also facilitated by means of design administrator programs. Weinstein et al. (2005) observed that comprehensive safety review processes, which include the owner of the project, design firm, general contractor and the numerous trade contractors involved in the construction and operation of a particular project, effectively eliminate or mitigate OHS risk during construction.

2.4. How Design Influences Safety

Designers can manipulate construction safety by making more proper alternatives in the design and planning stages of a project (Behm, 2005). Statistic published by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions concluded that 60% of fatal accidents in construction were consequences due to decision made before the construction started. It is indeed a causal link between design decisions and safe construction. According to Smallwood (1996), 50% of OHS issues are attributable to inadequate design. In view of this, the concept of considering safety in the design phases of construction (Gambatese 2003) is gaining momentum on a global scale (Behm 2005).

3. METHODOLOGY

The approach used is to conduct survey by questionnaires and literature reviews on journals, books and online resources. The data collected will be on the duration of involvement of respondents in construction industry, the factors that affect the implementation of safety concepts, the duties of designers and the safety practices that they think that the implementation could help improving construction safety.

The questionnaire clearly denotes the level of agreement of the respondents and it is important to be in ordinance scale from 1 to 5. The respondents have to choose from one of the ordinance scale according to the understanding about such question. The said scale is composed based on Likert Scale of Five Ordinal

Measurement of Agreement. The data collected from the questionnaires was analyzed using average indices and relative indices to rate and rank the elements of data according to level of importance, level of significance and level of agreement. Tables and charts are composed using the data primarily from within the results of questionnaires. This method of data presentation is much more preferred among others, as it provides easier understanding and clearer picture of information to be delivered.



4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1. Respondents’ Duration of Involvement in Construction Industry

Among the 32 successive respondents, there are three (4) respondents with experience lesser than two years, five (4) with three to five years, twelve (12) with six to ten years, and twelve (12) with more than ten years. Figure 2 illustrates the percentage of respondents according to the duration of involvement in construction industry.

Figure 2. Percentage of Respondents According to the Duration of Involvement in Construction Industry.

4.2. Awareness of Designers in Construction Safety

This part of analysis (Figure 3) will answer the first objective i.e. “to determine designers awareness towards the importance of design to achieve safer construction”.

Figure 3. Result of Analysis on the Awareness of Designers in Construction Safety

4.3. Factors Affecting the Implementation of Safety Concept in Design

From the analysis, motivation is rated the most significant factor that could affect implementation of safety concepts in design (Figure 4). It has the average index as high as 4.13. In order to have safety by design to become an effective OHS strategy, designers must develop a high regard for safety and be motivated to design for safety. And others are as shown in the Figure 5.



Figure 4. The Factors and Consequences In Relation to Implementation of the Design for Safety Concept

Figure 5. Results of Analysis on the Factors Affecting the Implementation of Safety Concept in Design

4.4. The Duties of Designer in Construction Safety

The data analysis results in Figure 6 are about the level of agreement of the designers on which duty should be carried by them to achieve construction safety. This part would answer the second objective which is “to determine designers’ responsibilities as a key role to conduct safer construction.



Figure 6. Results of the Analysis on the Duties of Designers in Construction Safety

4.5. The Adoption of Safety Practices

Figure 7 was obtained by analysing data from questionnaires regarding the designers’ opinions whether those practices could help improving construction safety. From the overall data analysis on Part D, The overall average index is 3.858, which is satisfactory. This part would answer the third objective which is “to explore the implementation of safety design principle practices by designers”.

Figure 7. Results of Analysis on the Adoption of Safety Practices by Designers.



5. CONCLUSIONS

Based on the analysis of the result of this study, the objectives were accomplished and can be concluded as follows:

1. Designers’ awareness in construction safety is satisfactory, they are well aware with the laws and regulations, they understand about their responsibilities towards achieving safer construction, they understand that design could affect safety, they do know that there are potential benefits designing for safety, and they also consistently refer to Standard Code of Practice.

2. The responsibilities of designers in construction safety that they most agree are: coordinating with other parties, providing sufficient risk information to others, exercising safety management over other parties, eliminating hazards as far as practicable and eliminating risks during design with information provided.

3. The safety practices that the designers most agree to adopt in order to achieve safer construction are: including safety information in design documentation, being aware of the industry-specified requirement, reviewing design to eliminate risks, evaluating effectiveness of design safety review, considering constructability for the design, communicating the project safety risks with constructors, recording effective design solution for future reference, developing safety plans, addressing safety in tenders, including safety requirement in contracts, evaluating tenders against safety criteria, assessing safety criteria of constructors and reviewing safety risk of design changes.

6. REFERENCES

[1] Alves Dias, LM (1999) “Construction Safety Coordination in Portugal”, in id. and RJ Coble (eds), Proceedings of the Conference on Construction Safety Coordination in the European Union, CIB Publication 238, CIB Working Commission W99. Lisbon: CIB, pg. 153–163.

[2] Behm, M. (2005). “Linking Construction Fatalities to the Design for Construction Safety Concept”. Safety Science. 43:8, pg 589-611.

[3] Gambatese, J. A., Behm, M. and Hinze, J.W. (2003). “Viability of Designing for Construction Worker Safety.” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 131(9): pg 1029-1036.

[4] Hecker, S., Gambatese, J. and Weinstein, M. (2005). “Designing for Worker Safety: Moving the Construction Safety Process Upstream”, Professional Safety 50(9): pg 45–56.

[5] Tony Baxendale (1984). "Construction Management and Economics", 1466-433X, Volume 2, Issue 3, 1984, Pg 201 – 217.

[6] Weinstein, M, Hecker, S., and Gambatese, J. (2005) “Designing for Worker Safety: Moving the Construction Safety Process Upstream”, Professional Safety 50(9): pg 32–44.

best practice for safer construction from a designer’s perspective

Documents