Opportunities and Challenges for Construction Health and Safety Technologies under the COVID-19 Pandemic in Chinese Construction Projects

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in significant delays and cost overrun in construction projects. The implementation of health and safety (H&S) technologies is one of the most important strategies to alleviate the adverse impacts of COVID-19 on the construction industry and help the industry adapt to the new normal. This study aims to evaluate the adoption of H&S technologies for pandemic management in the construction sector under the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews with eighteen practitioners engaged from construction companies and technology firms were conducted to collect their views on the driving forces and issues of the adoption of H&S technologies for pandemic management in Chinese construction projects. The results reveal that the major H&S technologies used included the health quick response (QR) code system, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered fever monitoring, and site access control system. These technologies were reported to be effective in preventing the spread of the pandemic in workplaces. The findings of the study amplify that the pandemic may serve as an acceleration of the adoption of H&S technologies in the construction sector. Other technologies, such as building information modeling, drones, AI-based safety monitoring, and robotics, however, were seldom used in the studied projects. The interviewees addressed several problems regarding the implementation of these technologies. High costs of technologies, a lack of client support, and disruptions to the normal work process were the main hurdles of the adoption of these technologies. The results indicated that the external influence factor—the COVID-19 pandemic—could considerably drive the use of H&S technologies, whereas the internal influence factors—cost and compatibility of technology—might be the major barriers to technology adoption. To encourage the wider use of H&S technologies in construction, the government is recommended to support the technology transformation by granting financial subsidies for costs involved in innovation adoption. Project owners may consider investing substantially in H&S technologies that can strengthen their resilient and innovative ability to adapt to the post-COVID-19 landscape. The present results will be useful to industry stakeholders and researchers interested in developing H&S technologies for combating the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises.

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on construction safety in China and the U.S.: A comparative study

“…In addition, a better understanding of COVID-19 among the people may have enhanced the efficacy of government policies ( Fang et al 2021 ). From another perspective, this also implies that construction safety management before the pandemic in China was relatively poor, and the pandemic might have fostered greater emphasis on construction safety management in China ( Wang et al, 2022 , Yang et al, 2021 ). This is supported by the decrease in number of fatalities.…”

“…Since the pandemic's early days, the Chinese government has issued several policy documents to control the outbreak. These documents can be found on the official Chinese government websites and in related literature ( Wang et al, 2021a , Yang et al, 2021 ). Similarly, U.S. response policy can be found in systems such as the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center ( Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center 2020 ).…”

A Comprehensive Approach to Capturing the Impact and Identifying Countermeasures of the COVID-19 Pandemic at Construction Sites in the Republic of Korea

“…Consequently, in the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) updated the rules for preparing building sites for COVID-19. OSHA also attempted to introduce new technology by persuading clients based on the US situation [15,43].…”

Method to Allocate Covid-19 Preventive Means of Construction Works Based on Expert Prioritization

“…In addition, capacity restrictions and personal protection measures vary according to the type of work to be performed, the conditions, and the context in which the work is carried out . Moreover, the effectiveness of measures such as the modification of processes, incorporation of technologies, changes in construction methods or industrialization (Brissi & Debs, 2019;Leontie et al, 2022) depends on the type of work item in which these measures are implemented, the conditions of the worksite, and current risks according to the foreseeable tendency of the contagion rate (Gan & Koh, 2021;Yang et al, 2021).…”

“…It is a complex endeavor to prioritize how to secure productivity and schedule viability while lowering the expected risks of contagion or other impacts on the project and its team (Yang et al, 2021). Furthermore, since conditions vary rapidly and often, current protocols and implemented actions can rapidly cease to suit the project's best interest or cause unexpected side effects (Chih et al, 2022;Gan & Koh, 2021).…”