Construction is a hazardous industry. The project-based nature and fragmentation in the industry lead to change and uncertainty requiring special expertise. To handle those, construction firms must develop strategies and action plans along with the experience gained from lessons learned. Among the risks, safety risks are of critical importance leading to accidents. Hence, firms need to strengthen their safety programs, review their strategies for safety management, and develop effective safety training sessions to protect their workers. This study focuses on the success factors promoting safety performance. In this respect, a questionnaire was designed and administered to the Engineering News-Record (ENR) 2020 Top 400 Contractors. The questionnaire data was utilized in conducting a factor analysis to group and name the factors considering the total variance. The analysis of the factors resulted in six-factor groups; namely, project and firm-related factors, demographic factors, practical factors, motivational factors, organizational factors, and human-related factors. Project and firm-related factors were found to be the most essential factor group in terms of promoting the effectiveness of safety training. The results of this study are expected to guide industry practitioners in terms of reviewing and revising their safety training programs.
The construction industry is one of the leading industries in the economy of any country. However, the industry is vulnerable to changes and uncertainties, either external or internal, due to its fragmented and dynamic nature. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which first emerged in Wuhan, China in 2019, is considered a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). COVID-19 has quickly spread all over the world resulting in significant social and economic consequences. The main objective of the study is to determine the challenges and opportunities due to pandemic in the construction industry and to categorize them. Through a review of the existing literature and interviews with construction experts, the challenges and opportunities arising from the COVID-19 pandemic were listed. A questionnaire survey was designed to evaluate them. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was utilized to group the identified challenges and opportunities. PCA was conducted with SPSS Version 25.0 software. The most critical challenges of the pandemic were determined as 'the requirement of COVID-19 protocols', 'restriction on movement and travel', 'additional safety equipment use', where the most important opportunities were found as 'hygiene programs', 'use of technological tools effectively', and 'BIM-enabled construction'. The research contributes to the body of knowledge in terms of making construction practitioners beware of the main challenges and opportunities along with leading them to act towards change and uncertainty. This study further provides general guidelines and implications for practitioners and policymakers in case of similar outbreaks.
PurposeConstruction safety is heavily affected by using new technologies in this growing trend of technology adoption. Especially, safety performance is enhanced through the utilization of some effective technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, BIM and wearable devices. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of emerging technologies on construction safety performance and quantify the relationship between those. The proposed components of emerging technologies are BIM, GIS, VR, RFID, AI, ML, eye tracking and serious games and wearable devices, whereas the dimensions of construction safety performance are safety planning, safety training, safety inspection and monitoring, safety audits and reviews and safety leadership.Design/methodology/approachA structural model was composed consisting of emerging technologies and safety performance indicators. Then, a questionnaire was designed and administered to construction professionals, and data from 167 projects were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data were analyzed by using software, called SPSS AMOS.FindingsThe analysis of the structural model proves that there is a positive and significant relationship between emerging technologies and construction safety performance. Moreover, the factor loadings for each factor were found to be high indicating a good representation of the construct by the components developed. Among the technologies, BIM, robotics and automation, AI and wearable devices were detected to be the most significant technologies in terms of impacting safety performance.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the body of knowledge in that it develops a conceptual framework consisting of specific technologies in terms of emerging technologies, reveals the impact of such technologies on safety performance and proposes several tools and strategies for enabling effective safety management along the project lifecycle. Industry practitioners may benefit from the framework developed by adopting such technologies to enhance their safety performance on construction projects.
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