Keywords: construction safety plan, safety plan performance, fuzzy logic, construction accident, evaluation, safety components, construction firm.

Construction worker safety has been given more attention than any other aspect of safety throughout the lifecycle of a constructed facility with good reason. The construction and deconstruction phases of a structure' lifecycle are the most hazardous. The United States construction industry employs 6% of the total work force in the country but at the same time it accounts for 20% of the total work place fatalities [1]. These fatalities are all encountered during the construction phase of the construction.

Construction site safety is one of the most important issues in any construction firm's agenda. Maintaining the safety of the construction workers, the machine operators, the structure under-construction, and the public is a crucial goal for every construction firm. Government safety codes and safety inspections alone do not guarantee the effectiveness of the firm's safety plan. Every construction firm needs to implement its own safety plan in compliance with the guidelines established by the government agencies, for example the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) or Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The safety plan creates a culture of safety embedded within the firm that protects the workers, the structure, and the public.

This paper describes software written to assist the contractor in evaluating the firm's safety plan in accordance with established safety codes. Evaluating the firm's safety plan versus safety codes and guidelines is an essential task that should be carried out by the contractors. This strategy creates a strong safety plan and emphasizes the role of the safety codes in establishing every construction firm's safety conduct. The compliance evaluation automatically leads to the importance of evaluating the construction firm's safety plan. The evaluation in which every component of the safety plan is compared to safety codes and guidelines guarantees the firm's compliance with the safety codes required by the government.

Any construction safety plan in general consists of several components, which should be evaluated separately. According to OSHA and HSE, the safety plan should consist of the following main components, hazard identification, safety training, safety enforcing, and leadership/management involvement in safety with each component having subparts that should be evaluated separately. Furthermore, each subpart also contains additional subparts or branches similar to a tree. To reach the main branch "safety plan" evaluation, one should start with the smallest branches, move to the larger ones until the main branch is reached.

The evaluation of the tree is carried out in the form of answers and questions, where each branch is assigned a weight corresponding to its significance to the safety plan. The user is asked to provide/select the available level of each branch. Each branch is multiplied by its weight and added up to the other smaller branches to determine the main branch performance. The same process is performed to evaluate the other three main branches. Further, the four main branches, which also has been assigned weight factors, will be multiplied by their corresponding weight and added up to reach the main branch "safety plan" performance.

While this process seems easy and straight forward, it is more complex than simple addition and multiplication. What is really meant by the available level of each branch? And how will the weight factor be manipulated if it is not a number, but an interval? Here, fuzzy logic is introduced and integrated into the evaluation process of the safety plan. Each branch, according to the user input has a degree/level of availability chosen from eleven possible different levels, ranging from completely unavailable to totally available. To evaluate the performance of one main branch the fuzzy average function, where each level of availability is multiplied by the corresponding weight, is applied to reach an interval of performance for that particular branch. The main branch safety plan performance is reached using the fuzzy average function on the four main branches of safety. In this step the four main branches are also assigned a weight factor from the experts, which are multiplied by the performance interval obtained in the earlier step and summed together to find the safety plan performance.

The final performance level of the firm's safety plan corresponds to the ranking index of the safety plan performance. The software furnishes recommendations to every construction firm, suggesting areas of improvement and requirements that should be closely considered. This approach, combined with the computer program supporting it, should be a very valuable tool for every construction firm. It facilitates the process of evaluating the safety of the firm and the process of compliance with safety codes and practices.

1

L.M. Sidney,"Project Management in Construction", Third Edition, 2002.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £95 +P&P)