Query: safety policies construction site

title: Assessing Workers Safety Management Knowledge on Construction Site
abstract: Safety management is associated with the policies, objectives, procedures, methods, roles and functions that aim at controlling hazard and risk in socio technical systems. Companies that have implemented effective OSH Management system have reported benefit from increase operational efficiency, reduction in insurance cost and improve in workers retention and satisfaction. Many accidents that occur at construction site are due inadequate adherence of workers to work procedures. The awareness and perception of workers toward safety, health and their working environment are important aspect to enhance the building construction to the better condition to the workers. Workers play an important role in accomplishment of the building construction. All these supporting evidence reflects on the needs to study building construction workers knowledge of safety management system. The study is a criteria based study, in which 24 construction companies were selected for the study The respondent samples used in the study were drawn from the total population of permanent construction workers in the 24 construction companies selected. The total numbers of permanent construction workers in the 24 construction companies are 750 while 254 were selected for the study. The research questionnaires were administered on 254 permanent construction workers within the 24 construction companies in Abuja. The analysis of the questionnaires survey data was undertaken using the statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 20. A reliability test was conducted on the data in order to control error within the data. The Cronbach's Alpha of the two variable data are .853 and .863 respectively and make the data reliable. Correlation analysis was conducted in order to determine the relationship between worker's general knowledge and worker's safety management knowledge and the result was found to be significant (P less then 0.005) This relationship was modelled using simple linear regression and from the model the result shows that improvement on the worker's safety management system knowledge practice on sites will improves general knowledge among construction workers. Therefore, workers' knowledge of safety management systems significantly influences the overall benefits of safety management system on the construction sites. As such there is need for potential improvement on the knowledge or awareness of the workers to safety management system as perceived from the analysis in order to bring about the expected high performance standard on construction sites.

title: Construction safety planning: Site specific temporal and spatial information integration
abstract: The Occupational Safety and Health Act was established in 1970. Since then, various injury prevention strategies have been developed and resulted in measurable improvements in construction safety management. However, the last decade has seen a deceleration in construction safety improvements, which may be due to the dynamic nature of construction jobsites. Traditional safety planning approaches rely primarily on static information, tacit knowledge, regulations, company safety policies, and 2 dimensional (2D) drawings. As a result, site specific dynamic information, temporal (e.g. when and who will be exposed to potential hazards) and spatial (e.g. location of dangerous zones) information are currently not specifically addressed. This paper presents a formalized 4 dimensional (4D) construction safety planning process that addresses site specific temporal and spatial safety information integration. The authors integrated safety data, which includes general safety knowledge, site specific temporal and spatial information, from a project schedule and a 3 dimensional (3D) model. The authors conducted a case study to test and verify the proposed safety planning process. Findings show that risky activities, days, and zones can be prioritized when project schedule contains activity information regarding number of workers including occupation types and zoning plan. In addition, activity safety risk can be visualized when a 3D model is integrated. The proposed safety planning approach is expected to provide safety personnel with a proactive and site specific safety planning tool that can be used to better manage jobsite safety. In addition, visual safety materials can enhance safety communication among project participants.

title: CONSTRUCTION SAFETY PRACTICES FOR COVID 19
abstract: According to reports, OSHA is verifying physical distancing, housekeeping and sanitation of break areas (Parfitt, 2020) Scheduling Modifying work schedules by staggering shifts or offering alternate workdays or dedicated shifts can reduce the number of workers on a site at any given time All workers and visitors to the site should be temperature screened using technology such as no contact thermometers or thermal imaging cameras In addition to posting and communicating COVID 19 policies for employees, contractors and trades, supervisors and safety personnel should discuss COVID 19 protocols such as how to maintain proper distancing, how to report if they exhibit symptoms or suspect a fellow worker might be ill, steps for disinfecting (providing SDS for disinfectants) and when workers who have exhibited symptoms can return to a work site

title: Agent based simulation of workers' behaviors, productivity, and safety around construction obstacles
abstract: Construction sites involve many hazardous areas and fixed/movable objects around which the workers interact. Unguided site policies or workers' behaviors can lead to productivity loss and/or accide.

title: Comparison of Site Safety Policies of Construction Industry Trade Groups
abstract: This paper compares the new ASCE policy on construction site safety with the policies held by the American Institute of Architects and the Associated General Contractors of America, and also with the standards and policies issued by the federal government with regard to the site safety roles ascribed to owners, architect/engineers, general contractors, and subcontractors. It is found that ASCE is unique in that it issues a separate policy on site safety policies and explicitly assigns some safety responsibilities to owners and to design professionals. It is also found that the safety policy documents issued by all three trade organizations assign primary responsibility for safety on the site to the general contractor, whereas the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards assign primary responsibility to the employers of the employees exposed to hazards.

title: CONTRACTORS' COMPLIANCE ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH (OSH) POLICIES IN MALAYSIA'S CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
abstract: The statistic of accidents at construction sites give us a picture that Malaysian construction industry is one of the critical sectors that need a huge and fast overhaul. In order to improve the overall safety performance, a policy of occupational safety and health (OSH) was enforced by the government as a guideline and rules that should be followed in dealing with OSH activities at the construction site. Therefore, a study has been conducted to identify the types of accidents that occurred at construction sites based on OSH guidelines of the public and workers and to evaluate the implementation of the variables in the OSH guidelines that give impact to contractors' grade. This study was started out by identifying the 12 variables of the OSH guidelines. Then reported accidents cases from 2010 to 2013 kept by the Department of Occupational Safety and Health Malaysia (DOSH) were examined and classified according to the variables to identify the types of accidents. The observations by using checklist were carried out at 12 construction sites around the district of Melaka Tengah involving contractors of G6 and G7. Structural interviews were also be made to support the observations that have been carried out. The finding of this study reveals that all variables directly involved in contributing to the accident at the construction site. Accidents due to superstructure activities topped the list in the past four years. Apart, the observations found that the level of compliance with OSH by both grades of contractors at the construction sites were unsatisfactory since OSH policy was not fully practiced. Non compliance of hoarding set up became the critical variable. This mismatch is further examined by correlation analyses which link both objectives and demonstrated a weak relationship. Thus, the research concluded that non compliance of contractors on OSH policy was not the main contributing factor for most accidents at the construction site.

title: Contracting Firms Compliance to Health and Safety Measures on Construction Sites in Nigeria
abstract: Every year, millions of people around the world die due to construction works related accidents. For this reason, this study evaluates adherence of construction organisations to health and safety practices while executing construction projects on site with a view to improving compliance with existing policies. The study was done by distributing well structured questionnaires to external and in house construction professionals who have been involved in ongoing construction projects at the Federal University of Technology, Akure. Percentile and mean item score were used to analyse the retrieved data. Results indicates that the usage of health and safety tools is very low by the construction firms because 12 out of 20 identified health and safety tools have mean scores below average. The study concluded that construction professionals are highly aware of health and safety regulations in the study area. The study recommended that a regulatory body to oversee enforcement of adherence to health and safety policies should be commissioned and empowered by the government.

title: Challenging standardisation by embracing ambiguities of site safety
abstract: Streamlining and standardising safety practices in the construction industry has always been the goal of many policymakers and large construction firms. This would understandably ensure that all practices on a wide range of projects adopt and implement similar procedures and regulations. In addition, this idea could possibly reduce the uncertainties and variations associated with interpretations of policies and regulations amongst project teams. Unfortunately, safety issues on construction projects and sites are widely acknowledged to differ from project to project and even activity to activity. For this reason, the implementation of a broad brush approach has always proven difficult in the industry. Micro firms in the industry operate under the notion that projects and site conditions are always fluid and adapt their safety practices accordingly. The aim of this research is to the experiences and nuances in practices of workers of micro firms as they challenge standardisation by embracing ambiguities in project risks. Ethnographies were carried out on six construction sites in the South East and the East Midlands regions of the UK. Data collection tools adopted included observations, semi structured interviews and conversations with tradesmen of selected micro firms. Findings from the ethnographic studies indicate that workers from small and micro firms from both regions acknowledge that the risks and hazards associated with various stages of projects change constantly. These changes are attributed to various reasons including site conditions, project changes, workers' state of mind and overall site culture. Furthermore, the workers believe that standardising approaches for all projects will be ineffective especially if the teams should encounter extenuating circumstances that they have not planned for. The workers thus embrace the uncertainties in safety and adopt an approach the considers the ambiguities associated with construction practices thereby being able to use a dynamic approach to avoid accidents and injuries that could prove costly or fatal.

title: Current Trends in Construction Site Layout Planning
abstract: Site personnel or construction workers will spend most of the construction time within construction sites. If construction workers be able to easily and quickly move within the site, it helps to save time and increase productivity as well as safety. Optimizing the cost, safety, and productivity of a project often relies on the optimal planning of the construction site layout. However, site layout planning, unique for each construction project, depends on many variables such as work areas and facility locations. To optimize work place usage and minimize construction conflicts, participants on a project must consider the constraints that each construction project entails. Currently, the concept of an optimized construction site layout has no clear definition, so practitioners do not have specified guidelines or policies that govern the construction site layout. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to assess current practices for site layout planning and highlight the need for a rule based approach to evaluating construction site layouts. The results presented in this paper can provide construction firms with a better understanding of why a rule based system is important in site layout planning.

title: Managing Occupational Health And Safety In A Ghanaian Building Industry (A Case Study Of Some Construction Sites Of Eris Property Group In Accra)
abstract: Achieving occupational health and minimisation to a large extent possible hazard to health and safety in the construction industry is the responsibility of all employees. The onus is on management to achieve high standards in such matters as required by the constitution of Ghana (1992) and the Labour Act 2003 (Act 651) in relation to health and safety at the work place. It is high time construction practitioners pay much attention to health and safety issues on sites and implement policies or framework in this regard. The main objective of this study is to find out if contractors and developers in the building industry have health and safety policies and whether these policies are implemented and functional. Through questionnaires, interviews and literature, it was revealed that majority sites have employees' orientation on health and safety before starting work. More so, management and employees have regular interactions to continuously re orient the mind on importance of site safety. It also came to light that local contractors are guiltier when it comes to site health and safety practices. Based on the findings from this research, it was recommended that a regulatory body should be formed for the building industry. This body should develop an institutional health and safety framework in line with the constitution and the Labour Act of Ghana that would be stringently implemented in Ghanaian construction sites. Furthermore, international construction sites normally have dedicated department which are well resourced to ensure health and safety measures which local contractors could emulate.