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IDENTIFICATION OF FACTORS AFFECTING SAFETY

PERFORMANCE ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

GUJARAT Pranav Patel

1, Dr. Rajiv Bhatt

2, Dr. Jayeshkumar Pitroda

3

Student of final year, M.E., B.V.M. Engg.College, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India1

Associate Prof., Civil Engg. Department, A. D. Patel Institute of Technology, Gujarat, India2

Assistant Prof., Civil Engg. Dept., B.V.M. Engg. College, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India3

Abstract: In India, the construction industry is the second largest industry after

agriculture and it calls for large involvement of labours and skilled performance on

construction projects. Safety of people is always a main objective for all stake holders to

take feedback from construction safety performance to develop rating of factors by RII

technique. Thus, it is essential to study and analyse the factors affecting on the safety

performance of construction sites. This study works on identification of factors affecting

on the safety performance of construction sites in Gujarat. A literature review and

structured interview were carried out in selected cities of Gujarat region. The safety

performance on the construction projects are divided into seven main categories covering

various aspects of site safety measurement with the help of expert’s opinion and study of

previous research work. A systematic approach is suggested to carry out ranking of these

factors by RII (relative important index).

Keywords: Construction, Safety Performance, India, Relative Important Index

INTRODUCTION

Construction industry is the second largest sector in India after agriculture industry.

The construction sector is labour intensive and, including direct jobs, provides

employment to around 33 million people. It is estimated that about 70 per cent of these

are employed in the infrastructure segment and remaining 30 per cent in the real estate

segment. According to industry estimates, the industry is expected to generate

additional employment of 47 million, with the total number of persons employed in the

sector reaching 83 million persons by 2022. The sector is critical for enhancing the

productive capacity of the overall economy.

Construction industry is considered as one of the most hazardous industrial sectors

wherein the construction is more liable to worker accidents. Despite of recent

development to improve safety on construction site, it still accounts for a

disproportionate number of occupants-related fatalities. In developed countries, there

are strict legal enforcement of safety in the construction industry and also in the

implementation of safety management systems which are designed to minimize or

eliminate accidents at work places. However, occupational safety in the construction

industry is very poor in developing countries because lack of safety regulations and

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standards, low priority of safety, lack of data on safety at construction sites, lack of

safety training, lack of safety promotion, and lack of documented and organized safety

management systems.

Construction industry is both economically and socially important. The safety record in

the construction industry continues to be one of the poorest. Research shows that major

causes of accidents are related to unique nature of the industry, human behavior,

difficult work site conditions, and poor safety management, which result in unsafe work

methods, equipment and procedures. The emphasis in both developing and developed

countries needs to be placed on training and the utilization of comprehensive safety

programs.

The construction industry is observed as a dangerous industry due to decentralization

and mobility. The decentralization means that the employees are separated by sites.

Mobility implies that employees in the construction industry move towards the

companies, sites, and positions more frequently (due to completion of the work) than

those in other traditional industries. Due to decentralization and mobility of the work

force, while the promotion of safety management and working condition is achieved in a

manner that is used by several industries to consciously improve safety performance,

they are inadequate in the construction industry.

Safety performance is more related to the human factors. It is especially important for a

construction company to improve its safety culture to achieve better safety

performance. A positive safety culture means the safety attitude and values of the

company are totally accepted by its employees.

OBJECTIVE OF STUDY

1. To prepare list of factors affecting safety performance on construction projects in Gujarat.

2. To suggest methodology for carrying out ranking of above factors.

NEED OF STUDY

The construction industry is considered as one of the most hazardous industrial sectors

wherein the construction is more liable to worker accidents. Despite effects to improve safety

performance on site it still accounts for a disproportionate number of occupants-related

fatalities. Construction projects in the Gujarat suffer from many problems and complex issues

regarding the safety performance on site because of many reasons and factors. In Gujarat so

many construction sites are running, but the safety related rules and regulations are not

strictly followed on site due to lack of lower priority, lack of safety regulations and standards,

low priority of safety, lack of data on safety at construction sites, lack of safety training, lack

of safety promotion, and lack of documented and organized safety management systems.

LITERATURE REVIEW

A number of studies have been carried out to determine the safety performance affecting

factors on construction sites.

Sawacha et al. (1999) studied factors influencing safety on construction sites: historical,

economical, psychological, technical, procedural, organizational and the working

environment. They also summarised that the operative's expectation of their supervisor's

safety attitude was relatively high and they see their superintendent's attitude towards safety

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as being a major source of influence upon their behaviour on site, awareness of hazardous

material is important than their handling, lack and training and skill are cause of accidents in

technical area, use of safety equipment is important rather than availability of same, the most

contributing factor is organization’s policy towards safety. [7]

Choudhry et al. (2008) explained a successful, modern safety, health and environmental

management system for a leading construction company and concluded useful information on

eight aspects of construction safety, including safety policy and standards, safety

organization, safety training, inspecting hazardous conditions, personal protection program,

plant and equipment, safety promotion, and management behaviour. The findings of their

survey provide practical knowledge to construction project managers and construction safety

practitioners in order to make their sites safer. [2]

De-chun et al. (2010) evaluated the current safety management systems in developing

country (i.e. China) and prioritize these steps with the consideration of various decision

criteria which can provide a useful guideline for related government agencies and project

managers to focus on the safety management program, might significantly contribute to the

improvement of safety record. [3]

El-Mashaleh et al. (2010) concluded the areas safety training, occasional safety meetings,

occasional safety inspections, unavailability of safety protection measures, and hesitance of

workers to use safety equipment, high labour turnover rates and non-compliance with safety

legislation which need to improve for safety at construction sites. [4]

Laryea et al. (2010) investigated in Ghana using first hand observation construction project

sites. The primary reasons are, a lack of strong institutional framework for governing

construction activities, and poor enforcement of health and safety policies and procedures.

Even though Government regulatory instruments for ensuring health and safety on

construction sites are set, contractors are not aware of it or do not consider it which leads to

mishap at construction site and concluded that workers and civil society should ensure and

demand the provision of adequate health and safety policies, procedures and provisions to

govern construction work. [5]

Charehzehi et al. (2012) concluded the factors influencing in the improvement of safety

performance at construction site are safety management error, poor training programs, human

element, act of god, outdated procedure and no clear monitoring policy and suggests a clear

procedure to develop safety performance by reducing risk and hazards. In addition, they

provided the steps to enhance the safety performance at construction site by creating safety

regulation, identify hazard, assess and evaluate risk, decide precaution, record findings, and

updating finding in relation to the work condition. [1]

Sunindijo et al. (2013) conceptualized safety management in construction projects and

concluded that the conceptual skill helps project management personnel implement safety

management tasks, which in turn promotes an onsite safety climate. The implication of this

research outcomes is that construction organizations should consider improving the

conceptual skill of their project management personnel. [8]

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research methodology for present study contains two stages. The first stage

included a literature survey. The literature review was carried through books, conference

proceedings, articles, internet and international construction related journals. As the outcome

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of this phase, factors are identified which are directly affecting on safety performance on

construction site. These categories are: Self-protection category, House-keeping category,

Scaffolding Category, Access to height category, Organizational category, First aid category,

Fire protection and other general category.

The second stage includes preparation of survey questionnaire based on Relative

important index method based for ranking of safety performance factors. Relative Importance

Index (RII) of each factor can be calculated. A five-point likert scale measurement format in

which respondents are required to select a scale level of each item, ranging from strongly

disagree (scale 1) to strongly agree (scale 5) is used. Based on review of relevant literature all

the factors are categorised as given in below.

1. Safety policy 2. Management involvement

3. Safe opening procedure 4. Work place lay out

5. Safety organization 6. Health care facilities

7. Safety rules 8. Housekeeping

9. Machine guarding 10. Guard rail system

11. PPE compliance 12. Material handling

13. Lifting tools and tackles 14. General safety measure

15. Safety nets maintenance 16. Illumination

17. Electrical safety precautions 18. Maintenance of safety equipment’s

19. Fire control measures 20. Safety training to employees

21. Induction training 22. Job safety analysis

23. Work permit system 24. Training for special operations

25. Safety promotional activities 26. Emergency plan

27. Accident reporting system 28. Near miss reporting

29. Accident investigation 30. Accident and near miss reports analysis

31. Storage of flammable materials

An inspection of construction site and safety activities will be carried out. Civil engineers

will be interviewed for explanations on the things observed at various sites. The owner,

contractor and project manager/engineer will be involved to get feedback on survey

questionnaire with open ended questions to ascertain the extent of observations and to find

out in greater detail the reasons(s) underlying the observations. As a preference, building

construction sites constituting scaffolding operation and working on height operation are

selected.

A survey questionnaire is prepared for doing ranking of criteria. Survey questionnaire is as

given below.

DATA ANALYSIS

From available feedback of variety of construction professionals, ranking of factors will be

calculated use of following equations.

1. Relative important index (As described above)

2. Factor safety performance index:

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3. Safety performance category analysis

CONCLUSION

Safety on construction projects is main criteria for all stakeholders. Due to era of

mechanism, its importance and implementation is highly required. This paper reviews various

safety management related which as beginning. Then framework of factors affecting safety

performance on construction projects in Gujarat state is developed. A survey questionnaire is

prepared to develop ranking of these factors. Relative Important Index (RII) technique is

suggested to analysis. It is proposed to take feedback from various construction

professionals’ feedback on this survey.

REFERENCES

[01] Charehzehi, Aref, and Ahankoob, Alireza. “Enhancement of Safety Performance at

Construction Site”, International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology,

ISSN: 2231-1963, Volume 5, Issue 1, November 2012, 303-312.

[02] Choudhry, Rafiq M, and Fang, Dongping, and Ahmed, Syed M. “Safety Management in

Construction: Best Practices in Hong Kong”, Journal of Professional Issues in

Engineering Education and Practice”, ISSN: 1052-3928, Volume 134, Issue 1, January

2008, 20-32.

[03] De-Chun, Ning, and Jian-ping, Wang, and Guo-dong, Ni. “Analysis of Factors Affecting

Safety Management in Construction Projects”, International Conference on Management

and Service Science (MASS) 2010, ISBN: 978-1-4244-5325-2, 2010, 1-5.

[04] El-Mashaleh, Mohammad S, and Al-Smadi, Bashar M, and Hyari, Khalied H, and

Rababeh, Shaher M. “Safety Management in the Jordanian Construction Industry”,

Jordan Journal of Civil Engineering, ISSN: 1993-0461, Volume 4, No. 1, 2010, 47-54.

[05] Laryea, Samuel, and Mensah, Sarfo. “Health and safety on construction sites in Ghana”,

Ghana. In: The Construction, Building and Real Estate Research Conference of the

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, ISBN: 978-1-84219-619-9, 2010.

[06] K. Mauleeswaran. “Evaluation of safety performance level of construction firms in and

around Erode zone”, International Journal of Innovative Research in Science,

Engineering and Technology (IJIRSET), ISSN: 2319-8753, Volume-3, Special Issue,

2014, 1590-1596.

[07] Sawacha, Edwin, and Naoum, Shamil, and Fong, Daniel. “Factors affecting safety

performance on construction sites”, International Journal of Project Management, ISSN:

0263-7863, Volume 17, No. 5, 1999, 309-315.

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All rights reserved by www.ijaresm.net ISSN : 2394-1766 6

[08] Sunindijo, Riza Yosia, and Zou, Patrick X. W. “Conceptualizing Safety Management in

Construction Projects”, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, ISSN:

0733-9364, Volume 139, No. 9, September 2013, 1144-1153.

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

BIRLA VISHVAKARMA MAHAVIDYALAYA VALLABH VIDHYANAGAR

SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE EVALUATION OF THE SAFETY PERFORMANCE

LEVEL OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN GUJARAT

Dear respondent,

This survey is part of an ongoing research work on “Evaluation of Safety Performance

Level of Construction Projects in Gujarat” for safety level measurement. As we need

opinion from various stakeholders of construction industry like owners, developers,

contractors, site supervisors/engineers and project managers, you have been selected as one

of our valuable respondents. Your responses will be used to decide the ranking of below

listed criteria which are responsible for safety performance level assessment. I assure you that

the collected data will be purely used for the academic purpose and will remain strictly

confidential. For any query or more details about the research work, you can contact us by e-

mail at: erpatelpranav@gmail.com.

Thank you very much for your valuable response.

Pranav N Patel, ME student, Construction Engineering and Management Department, Birla

Vishvakarma Mahavidyalaya, V.V.Nagar

EVALUATION OF THE SAFETY PERFORMANCE LEVEL OF CONSTRUCTION

PROJECTS IN GUJRAT

PART 1 COMPANY PROFILE AND RESPONDENT DETAIL

(NOTE: Please (√) tick your answers.)

PLEASE FILL THE FOLLOWING DATA:

1. Name of the respondent :_____________________________________

2. Name of the company :_____________________________________

3. Position of the respondent :_____________________________________

4. Contact no :_____________________________________

5. E-mail ID :_____________________________________

6. Address :_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

_____________________________________

7. Average No of employees in last 12

months

:_____________________________________

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8. Project/Site Location :_____________________________________

9. Type of Respondent:

[ ] Owner/Developer

[ ] Contractor

[ ] Project Manager/Engineer

11. Years of Experience in line of work:

[ ] From 0 to 3 years

[ ] From 3 to 5 years

[ ] From 5 to 10 years

[ ] More than 10 years

PART 2: Main Questionnaire

Factors affecting safety performance

This questionnaire is designed to study more about the safety management practices in the

construction industry and ways to improve safety performance in construction works.

SD D N A SA

Meaning Strongly

Disagree

Disagree Not Agree/nor

Disagree

Agree Strongly

Agree

Please indicate by ticking (√) the appropriate column for the relative importance of each of

following criteria.

Please tick mark according to your point of view only in each row.

Sr.No Category Statement SD D N A Sa

1

SELF

PROTECTIO

N

CATEGORY

Workers normally wear safety

helmets in site

2 Workers normally wear safety shoes

in site

3 Workers normally wear gloves while

handling sharp and hot materials in

site

4 Workers normally wear goggles

when using cutting and welding tools

in site

5 Workers normally wear ear

defenders in noisy condition at site

6 Workers normally wear face mask in

dusty condition at site

7

HOUSE-

KEEPING

CATEGORY

Timbers with nails left in workplace

are cleaned daily

8 Fall openings are guarded through

barricades in site

9 Walkways, access routes and

staircases are cleaned for debris

10 Persons who are cleaning at heights

have throwing down objects

11 All tools and machinery are properly

stored and placed

12 Adequate lighting is provided at the

work site

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13 Stored water during work inside the

site is removed daily

14 Needed materials are stored safely

15

SCAFFOLDIG

CATEGORY

Scaffolds/ formwork are designed as

per the standards always

16 Working scaffold platforms are

checked for good condition everyday

17 Guardrails are good on working

scaffold platforms are checked every

day

18 Scaffold boards are placed correctly

is checked everyday

19 Personnel working at heights are

climbing up or down the outside of

scaffolds

20

ACCESS TO

HEIGHT

CATEGORY

Overhead power lines are removed

before start of project

21 Mobile tower scaffolds are checked

for safety everyday

22 ACCESS TO

HEIGHT

CATEGORY

Safety net and safety belts provided

for working on height

23 Equipment’s used for lifting are

maintained properly

24 Ladders are checked for safety

everyday

25

OTHER

GENERAL

CATEGORY

All near-miss incidents and accidents

are reported and investigated in site

26 About the system of internal safety

inspection during construction

27 About the safety induction training

for emergency on site

28 Whether safety-signs are placed in

hazardous place in site?

29 About substance abuse testing

program on this project

30

ORGANIZAT-

IONAL

CATEGORY

Company/organization has its own

Safety policy

31 Safety training provided by

organization is sufficient

32 Higher level management have good

attitude towards safe work

environment

33 Provision of necessary safety

equipment is satisfactory

34 Distribution of safety booklets

35 Provision of site safety

representative

36 Management-workers co-operation

(safety meeting held at site)

37

First aid stations provides with

supplies and equipment.

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38

FIRST AID

The expiration dates of supplies

checked monthly. Expired supplies

discarded.

39 Availability of trained medical

personnel

40 Injuries promptly and properly

reported to higher authority

41

FIRE

PROTECTIO

N

Fire extinguishers provided, charged

and identified easily

42 No Smoking@ signs posted

43 For flammable and combustible

material separate storage area

44 Fuel containers properly labelled

Please your response back to us by email or by post (return cover is also sent to you) after

attending all questions.

Thank you for sparing your valuable time. Your feedback will be used to generate weighting

to factors affecting for safety performance of construction projects/sites.

Your additional remarks / suggestions:

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

Thanking you for giving valuable feedback and becoming part of my research work.

REPLY SENDING ADDRESS:

Pranav N. Patel

B-301, Ramdev Appartment,

Opp. Gangaba Panchal Chhatralaya,

Karamsad Road,V.V.Nagar,

Anand 388120 (GUJARAT)

E-mail: erpatelpranav@gmail.com

Ph No: 09909765333