An Analytical investigation on Improving Safety Performance in Construction Sites

Safety refers to the absence of accidents. Stated differently, safely refers to the protection of workers form the danger of accidents. Safety, in simple terms, means freedom from the occurrence or risk of injury or loss. Industrial safety or employee safety refers to the protection of workers from the danger of industrial accidents. An accident, then is an unplanned and uncontrolled event in which an action or reaction of an object, a substance, a person, or a radiation results in personal injury. Accidents are of different types. They may be classified as major and minor ones, depending upon the seventy of the injury. Construction sites are dangerous places where injury or death or illness can cause to workers. These can happen due to electrocution, falling from height, injuries from tools, equipment and machines; being hit by moving construction vehicles, injuries from manual handling operations, illness due to hazardous substance such as dust, chemicals, .etc. Even a nail standing up from a discarded piece of wood can cause serious injury if trodden on in unsuitable shoes. Statistics of accidents in the construction industry in India are scarce. The rate of accidents on construction industry is very high not only in India but also in many other countries including the developed. Statistics of UK, USA and some other countries indicate that the industry has a very high hazard potential and high incidence of fatal accidents. For example, the average yearly rate of accidents for 1000 worker in the construction industry in UK is approximately 4 times the corresponding average rate of all manufacturing industries. This article will focus on various aspects of safety in construction sites. However, it does not deal with the aspects relating to the use of personal protective equipment in construction sites, which will be dealt in a separate article.

• To study the different safety norms and regulation for building and infrastructure projects .

• To study the causes of unexpected circumstance on construction site by taking suitable case study

• To identify the hazards in the construction site and to quantify the risk involved in each task using HIRA technique

 To analysis the effect of these circumstance

The risk is quantified for every task in the construction site using Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) technique. As HIRA is a generic method for quantifying risk in all types of workplaces, this method is adopted to classify and prioritize the risk zone. The purpose of risk assessment is to identify all the factors that may cause harm to employees and others (the hazards) and consider what are the chances that harm and the possible severity that could come from it (the risks) . The person who is performing risk assessment should be familiar with all the tasks in the construction site, must have in-depth knowledge of the likelihood and severity of the hazards The risk involved in the construction site is quantified through HIRA technique. This study proposed an improved methodology for risk assessment where the hazards in the task and the consequence to the workers are integrated. Risk zones are categorized and the percentage of risk in each category is determined. The proposed methodology helps the builders/owners to look into unsafe conditions which further seeds to the improvement of the safety performance of the site. The data collection method involves a questionnaire survey, face-to-face interviews, referring field book and experts‘ opinion. The respondents are workers, supervisors, site engineers, safety officers and project managers. The various types of questionnaire survey which is adopted in this study and it will analysis HIRA Techniques

Hazard identification is a process of determining whether any condition or an event has the potential to cause damage both to the workers and the site. In order to identify the hazards in the construction site checklist method, workplace inspection method, job safety analysis and accident investigation method can be used. Hazards are classified as physical (i.e., manual handling, ergonomics and fire), chemical (i.e., flammables), mechanical (i.e., types of machinery) and electrical. In this study, hazards are identified using workplace inspection in which observation is done through site visits and a discussion is done with the safety engineers and supervisors for better understanding of hazards in the site.

In this study, a building construction site in the Pune city will be chosen which follows all the rules and regulations as per the Indian standard safety code of practice. The managerial team consists of a Project Manager, Planning Engineer, Site Engineer, Safety Engineer, Safety Supervisor and Site supervisor. There is a separate department for environmental health and safety where all the contractors are asked to update their safety documents periodically. A training center is established in the site where accident-causing visuals are displayed and sufficient training is given to the workers. . After constructing each questionnaire, a discussion is made with the safety engineers/supervisors to ensure the sufficiency of the addressed factors.

occurrence of a particular hazard and is used in quantifying the risk for each task in the construction site. Likelihood ratings are used in risk assessment studies to know ―how likely the identified hazard can occur?‖ These ratings may differ based on the site safety conditions and mitigations measures that are adopted in the site. The respondents for this survey are only safety engineers/supervisors and the level of agreement is obtained as mentioned in Table

The severity rate is defined as the impact of the hazard on people and the environment. For each hazard mentioned in the risk assessment sheet, the safety experts are asked to give the severity rate as per the description mentioned in Table 4.4.These ratings are used in three different forms of the study viz., to perform risk assessment, to determine safety performance and to quantify the risk involved in non-usage of PPE. The severity scale is adopted from the code of practice on workplace safety & health as mentioned. For each study, the severity

For this study, the respondents are the workers from whom the information on basic traits/characteristics namely age, experience, education, competency, accident and safety knowledge are collected. A total of 100 responses are received with satisfaction. The competency level and safety knowledge level are collected from the field data book. A sample questionnaire to collect the workers' basic traits is mentioned in Table 4.5.

A questionnaire survey is conducted with 45 workers to determine the safety performance of the site. The first part of the questionnaire consists of basic details of the workers such as name, age and experience whereas the second part consists of factors pertaining to site safety performance such as tool box talk, safety supervision, safety training, availability and use of PPEs as mentioned in Table 4.7. Other factors such as the type of accidents that occurred in the particular site and the competency of the worker have been extracted from the site data book.

The main objective of this questionnaire survey is to quantify the risk of workers by non-usage of PPE in the site. Two safety engineers in the particular site were consulted to acquire necessary details such as a list of PPEs needed for each task as shown in Table 4.8 and severity values if PPE is not used. For this construction site, the use of safety helmets and foot wears are the mandatory PPEs for all the Gloves (HG), Safety Mask (SM), Goggles (Go), Ear Plugs (EP), Safety Shoes (SS), Coverall (Co), Apron (Ap) and Safety Harness (SHa)

The first part of the questionnaire consists of basic details such as name, age and experience whereas the second part consists of a list of tasks with their associated PPE as mentioned in . A five-point Likert scale is adopted (5-strongly disagree to 1 strongly agree) to determine the level of agreement. For example, if the worker doesn‘t use safety helmets during excavation their level of the agreement will be ―strongly disagree‖. When this is compared with the likelihood scale it will be equivalent to the rating ―rare‖. Then the risk is quantified by multiplying the severity and likelihood values.

The risk is quantified for every task in the construction site using Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment (HIRA) technique. As HIRA is a generic method for quantifying risk in all types of workplaces, this method is adopted to classify and prioritize the risk zone. The purpose of risk assessment is to identify all the factors that may cause harm to employees and others (the hazards) and consider what are the chances that harm and the possible severity that could come from it (the risks) . The person who is performing risk assessment should be familiar with all the tasks in the construction site, must have in-depth knowledge of the likelihood and severity of the hazards

The risk in the construction site is assessed through HIRA and the risk zones are classified accordingly. The relative percentage of risk involved in the

Therefore, to calculate the relative percentage of risk in each zone, the number of hazards in each zone and the number of hazards in the site must be known. In this particular construction site the percentage of high risk is estimated to be 44.4 which is higher when compared to other risk zones as presented in Figure 4.2. It is also found that the relative risk for both the high and the extreme risk zone is 49% indicating almost half of the tasks are high- risk tasks. Hence determining the relative percentage of risk zone in construction sites will create awareness to the owners/builders to discover suitable mitigation measures to reduce the high and extreme risk zones to low as possible. Also, the allocation of workers in the extreme/high-risk zones must be allocated with their competency and skills to reduce the injury/accident rate in the site.

In order to determine the relative percentage of risk for each task, the risk value calculated from Table 4.3 is considered. The risk value for a particular task is calculated by dividing the sum of the risk value for all the hazards identified in the activity by the overall risk. It is given by Equation (2) where H is the risk value of each hazard in the task and R is the overall risk. After calculating the relative percentage of risk in each task it is ranked to know the high-risk construction task. From Figure 4.3 it can be known that crane operation, scaffolds/ladders and drilling the particular task, implement suitable mitigation measures and then restart the task. By doing so the task will be safer, workers who are working might not be harmed and future accidents can be minimized. Furthermore, the safety engineers must give regular toolbox talk before the start of these tasks and the workers working in these tasks must use proper PPE to avoid the severity of the hazards.

1) Construction industry is considered as the back bone of the country. Its contribution in the development of the country is very crucial, since it is the second largest sector employing the workers next to the agricultural sector, but in case of accident it is the first sector next to the road accidents. 2) This does not result only in loss of life and property and slow down of the work, but also create a feeling of fearness amongst its operators (management, supervisors, workers, etc). Safety Management therefore plays a very important role in construction industry 3) HIRA techniques can be a best suitable for Investigation on improving performance on construction sites The maximum hazards involved in each and every task of the construction site are identified through direct observation. 4) Risk is quantified through the likelihood and severity values as pointed out by the safety expert. Risk classification is done according to the risk range and it is observed that 13.3 % of low risk, 37.7 % of medium risk, 44.4 % of high risk and 4.6% of extreme risk are present in the construction site. 5) The percentage of risk in each activity is calculated and it is ranked to know the high-risk activity. It is known that crane operation (10.4%), height work (9.1%) and drilling (8.6%) are the major high-risk activities. Development of a safety performance index assessment tool by using a fuzzy structural equation model for construction sites, Automation in Construction, 85 (2018), 124- 134. 2. O. Rozenfeld, R. Sacks, Y. Rosenfeld and H. Baum, Construction jobsafety analysis, Safety science, 48 (4) (2010), 491-498. 3. IWH. Fung, VWY. Vivian, TY. Lo, and LLH. Lu, Developing a riskassessment model for construction safety, International Journal of Project Management, 28 (6) (2010), 593- 600. 4. C.F. Chi, C.C. Yang and Z.L Chen. In-depth accident analysis of electrical fatalities in the construction industry, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 39 (4) (2009), 635- 644. 5. T. Aksorn and B.H.W. Hadikusumo, Critical success factors influencing safety program performance in Thai construction projects, Safety Science, 46 (4) (2008), 709-727. 6. M. Gunduz and B Ahsan, Construction safety factors assessment through frequency adjusted importance index, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 64 (2018), 155-162. 7. Pinto, I.L. Nunes and R.A. Ribeiro, Occupational risk assessment in construction industry–Overview and reflection, Safety Science, 49 (5) (2011), 616-624. 8. J.W. Garrett and J. Teizer, Human factors analysis classification system relating to human error awareness taxonomy in construction safety, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 135 (8) (2009), 754-763. 9. T. Vondráčková, V. Voštová, and V. Nývlt, The human factor as a cause of failures in building structures, MATEC Web of Conferences, 93 (2017), Article no. 03005 10. K. suguna and P.N. Raghunath (2015) A Study Of Safety Management In Construction projects 11. Mohd.Aqleem Mir,Bibha Mahto (2015) Site Safety And Planning For Building Construction 12. Krithika Priyadarshini (2010) Safety Management And Hazards Control Studies On Labour Safety In Construction Sites 14. Todd W. Loushine & Michael J. Smith (2006) Quality And Safety Management In Construction 15. Nadeera Abdul Razak (2014) Case Study Of Safety Management At Construction Site An Analytical investigation on Improving Safety Performance in Construction Sites JSPM‘s ICOER Wagholi Page 2 16. Irshadhusen Shekh (2015) A Study On Health And Safety Measures: A Study Of Selected Employees In Innovative Cuisine Private Limited 17. Reese, Charles D.; Eidson, James Vernon (2006). Handbook of OSHA Construction Safety and Health 18. Helen Lingard, Steve Rowlinson (1999) Occupational Health and Safety in Construction Project Management 19. Liu, G.W. (2007) Innovate Safety Management to Build Safe and Harmonious Enterprise. City High-Speed Rail Transit, 20. 34-40. 20. Chapman, R.J. (2001) The Controlling Influences on Effective Risk Identification and Assessment for Construction Design Management. International Journal of Project management, 19, 147-16 21. FHA (1999) Asset Management Primer. Office of Asset Management, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. 22. Liu, G.W. (2011) The Research and Application of GMC Safety Alarm and Emergency Platform. Modern City Rail Transit, 18-21

Research, Scholar, JSPM Imperial College of Engineering and Research Wagholi, Pune.