Accidents in construction industry have the major negative impacts in many countries. The objectives of this paper are: (1) examine the current safety practices in Indian construction industry (2) identify the causes of accidents (3) recommend solutions to improve safety performance at Indian construction workplace. Interviews were conducted with experienced professionals in Indian construction industry. Results indicated that accidents were caused by the combination of organizational and individual factors. Based on these findings, it was suggested that adoption of information technologies in various ways would help to reduce accidents by addressing the following issues (1) safety planning, (2) safety education and (3) safety monitoring.
Purpose Construction workers’ health and safety (CWHS) research in India has not gained much attention among researchers. This study aims to review articles related to CWHS research in India using a science mapping approach. Design/methodology/approach A total number of 64 journal articles published between 2004 and 2019 were extracted from the Scopus database using keywords including “construction safety,” “occupational health,” “ergonomics in construction,” etc. VOSviewer software was used to examine the influential keywords, documents, sources and authors in the field of CWHS. Findings The study found that most of the current work focuses on safety management, safety climate, safety performance, musculoskeletal disorders and behavior-based safety. The result indicates no theoretical basis for the theories and learning methods for the existing studies. Practical implications The findings open up a research gap that researchers explore to enhance workers’ health and safety within the Indian construction environment. Originality/value The paper is the first article to provide a better understanding of current research in the field of CWHS in India by analyzing its growth through the science mapping approach.
Purpose Science mapping is an essential application of visualization technology widely used in safety, construction management and environmental science. The purpose of this study was to explore thermal comfort in residential buildings (TCinRB) research in India, identify research trends using a science mapping approach and provide a perspective for recommending future research in TCinRB. Design/methodology/approach This study used the VOSviewer tool to conduct a systematic analysis of the development trend in TCinRB studies in India based on Scopus Index articles published between 2001 and 2020. The annual numbers of articles, geographical locations of studies, major research organizations and authors, and the sources of journals on TCinRB were presented based on the analysis. Then, using co-authorship analysis, the collaborations among the major research groups were reported. Furthermore, research trends on TCinRB studies were visually explored using keyword co-occurrence analysis. The emerging research topics in the TCinRB research community were discovered by analyzing the authors’ keywords. Findings The findings revealed that studies had been discovered to pay more attention to north-east India, vernacular architecture, Hyderabad apartments and temperature performance in the past two decades. Thermal adaptation, composite climate, evaporative cooling and clothing insulation are emerging research areas in the TCinRB domain. The findings summarized mainstream research areas based on Indian climatic zones, addressed current TCinRB research gaps and suggested future research directions. Originality/value This review is particularly significant because it could help researchers understand the body of knowledge in TCinRB and opens the way for future research to fill an important research gap.
In the construction industry, safety has always been a persistent issue. The importance of safety knowledge for construction was highlighted by literature and practices. This study aimed to understand safety knowledge management (KM) commitments, strategies, and tools being used in Indian construction organisations. A survey was conducted among safety managers/heads in eight leading Indian construction contractors operating in a global construction market. The results indicated that out of eight companies, safety KM systems were available in seven companies and one was looking to implement it. All the organisations consider safety KM as the strategic assets for their companies and were aware of safety KM’s benefits. Email, Internet, small-group meetings and brainstorming were considered the most important tools to transfer safety knowledge among these organisations. Out of eight, six contracting organisations were aware that costly errors occurred at their companies when safety knowledge was not available when and where it was needed. Hence, safety knowledge sharing culture should be cultivated to enhance the safety performance of contracting companies. The findings may be used to establish standards to facilitate safety KM as an initial point for the government. This study would serve as a foundation for companies to enhance safety performance by improving their safety KM systems.
Digital technologies (DTs) have been recognized and adopted for safety training in construction to enhance the safety performance of organizations. This study aimed to understand the state-of-art review of the DTs adopted for safety training and their application areas in construction since 2000. Fifty-nine articles were found after conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) review method. The research trend was identified and described using bibliometric analysis in terms of the number of publications per year, sources of documents, influential authors and regions, highly cited articles, and research areas. The findings indicated that immersive virtual reality (VR) technology was used widely to train and educate individuals in construction research. In terms of research areas, most of the DTs were focused on enhancing individuals’ hazard recognition (HR) skills. The findings summarized the mainstream research areas, discussed existing research gaps, and suggested future directions in DTs application for safety training in construction. The recommended future directions could improve safety training performance in the construction industry.
The construction industry recorded high rates of fatalities and injuries due to falls at the workplace. Among other activities, concrete formwork tends to have more fatal falls. This study aims to understand the fall-related safety issues in the formwork lifecycle of construction projects. To achieve this, the process of formwork activities was mapped, and the safety risks associated with each activity were classified. Method development and risk identification focused on interviews with construction professionals involved in the construction of formwork and site observations of the formwork activities. The overall finding was that pouring, stripping, and erection activities have more issues related to falls. Future research is being carried out to assess the risks of falls from the construction experts’ views to prevent fall accidents in the future.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.