Risk-Based Safety Impact Assessment Methodology for Underground Construction Projects in Korea

Safety of construction projects may be affected by various factors such as types and scale of projects, construction methods, safety management procedure, climate, site conditions, etc. Among them is the quality of design in relation to safety. Presently, however, designers typically are not involved in construction safety. They are often uncertain of their responsibilities in relation to construction safety and fail to be responsible for avoiding or reducing safety-related risks. In this study, the concept of safety impact assessment to achieve “design-for-safety” in the design phase is introduced. For this purpose, a safety impact assessment model was devised, and a methodology using the risk-based safety impact assessment approach for open-cut type underground construction projects in Korea is suggested. The suggested methodology includes a safety information survey, classification of safety impact factors caused by design and construction, and quantitative estimation of magnitude and frequency of safety impact factors. A checklist which can be easily used for assessing the safety performance of design products is also proposed. A real-world case study on the safety impact assessment of a subway construction project in Korea is also provided in the paper.     

Impact of Green Building Design and Construction on Worker Safety and Health

Sustainable, or “green,” rating systems, such as the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), are leading to changes in the way owners, designers, and contractors approach the design, construction, and operation of buildings. The processes and features included in green design and construction may have positive and/or negative impacts on construction worker safety and health. This paper presents the findings of a research study of the impact of green building design and construction practices on construction worker safety and health. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recordable and lost time injury and illness data from green projects (as identified by LEED) and from nongreen projects was collected through a structured questionnaire survey. The data collected was analyzed to test for the presence of a difference in OSHA recordable incident rates (RIRs) and lost time case rates (LTCRs) between green and nongreen projects. It was found that there was suggestive, but inconclusive evidence of a statistically significant difference in the RIRs of the green and nongreen building projects included in the study. No statistically significant difference was found between the LTCRs for the green and nongreen projects included in the study. The study findings provide valuable information to the construction industry for the purposes of project safety planning and the assessment of safety and health on projects.     

Contractor as Trust Initiator in Construction Partnering—Prisoner’s Dilemma Perspective

Partnering has been advocated for use in construction as a project-delivery approach to curb dispute and enable a cooperative contracting environment. Successful construction partnering is perceived to derive benefits to both developers and contractors. In view of significant implications to successful project delivery, there has been a surge of research and studies on construction partnering. These studies typically focus on the partnering process as well as the identification of critical success factors. Among the various success factors that underpin partnering success, establishing trust among partners is considered the most important. Moreover, skeptics have been swift to point out that establishing trust in construction is daunting. A better understanding of the role of trust and its manifestation in partnering efforts is therefore of both academic and practical value. In this study, motivating trust in construction partnering is described within the classic framework of “the prisoner’s dilemma,” which suggests the trust cycle can be kick-started if construction partners put cooperation before competition and self-interest. This paper reports a study that is designed to suggest a suitable candidate for the trust initiator. As such, the critical trust factors for two groups of construction partners in Hong Kong—developers/consultants and contractors—are first identified. It is found that “performance” and “permeability” of partners are the two most critical trust factors. “Performance” describes the partner’s competence and problem-solving ability as perceived by their counterpart. “Permeability” reflects the partner’s openness in sharing information. The result of a multiple-regression analysis further suggests that the contractor is in a position to initiate trust through competent performance and maintaining effective communication with the client. In this manner, the trust cycle can expand with reciprocal trustworthiness from the client.     

Comparative Study on the Perception of Construction Safety Risks in China and Australia

Safety is a major concern in the construction industry because fatalities and injuries from construction work bring great losses to individuals, organizations, and societies as a whole. This paper aims to understand how construction personnel perceive safety risks in China as compared with those in Australia. Postal questionnaire surveys were used to collect data on safety risk perceptions from the two nations. The safety risk factors were assessed using a risk significance index based on the likelihood of occurrences and the impacts on safety performance. The survey results revealed that in China the main perception of safety risks came from human-and/or procedure-related issues, with “low/no safety education” paramount, followed by “inadequate fire prevention and electrical prevention procedures,” etc. In contrast, the major safety risks perceived in Australia were related to the environment and physical site conditions with “contamination of land, water and air” ranked first, followed by “unforeseen excavation of soil,” etc. To minimize construction safety risks in China, this paper suggests that the government should develop collective legislation and safety protection procedures, and enforce safety education and training to all site participants. Risks related to environmental and site conditions were generally realized by the Australia construction industry, which were not highly acknowledged in China. This may also bring imminent attention in this regard to the Chinese government.     

General Contractors' Management: How Subs Evaluate IT

A large set of criteria by which top quality subcontractors evaluate the managerial performance of general contractors under whose management they have worked during the construction process and by which they may differentiate their bids to different generals for the same future project are listed and described. These criteria can also be seen as the intrinsic managerial, cost‐and time‐sensitive factors by which general contractors or any manager of construction could improve performance, competitiveness and profitability. It also describes separate, “most important” and “super‐important” subsets of the foregoing criteria∕factors for office and site staff, etc., and the range of effects of the generals' good and bad managerial performance against these criteria∕factors on the costs and duration of the subcontractors' work. The cost and duration effects, etc., that each lump sum bidding general contractor and appointed construction management agent has on the subcontractors' work are compared, and the carefully formatted research process which produced these results is outlined.     

Whole Life Performance Assessment: Critical Success Factors

Whole life costing (WLC) has become the best practice in construction procurement and it is likely to be a major issue in predicting whole life costs of a construction project accurately. However, different expectations from different organizations throughout a project’s life and the lack of data, monitoring targets, and long-term interest for many key players are obstacles to be overcome if WLC is to be implemented. A questionnaire survey was undertaken to investigate a set of ten common factors and 188 individual factors. These were grouped into eight critical categories (project scope, time, cost, quality, contract/administration, human resource, risk, and health and safety) by project phase, as perceived by the clients, contractors and subcontractors in order to identify critical success factors for whole life performance assessment (WLPA). Using a relative importance index, the top ten critical factors for each category, from the perspective of project participants, were analyzed and ranked. Their agreement on those categories and factors were analyzed using Spearman’s rank correlation. All participants identify “Type of Project” as the most common critical factor in the eight categories for WLPA. Using the relative index ranking technique and weighted average methods, it was found that the most critical individual factors in each category were: “clarity of contract” (scope); “fixed construction period” (time); “precise project budget estimate” (cost); “material quality” (quality); “mutual/trusting relationships” (contract/administration); “leadership/team management” (human resource); and “management of work safety on site” (health and safety). There was relatively a high agreement on these categories among all participants. Obviously, with 80 critical factors of WLPA, there is a stronger positive relationship between client and contactor rather than contractor and subcontractor, client and subcontractor. Putting these critical factors into a criteria matrix can facilitate an initial framework of WLPA in order to aid decision making in the public sector in South Korea for evaluation/selection process of a construction project at the bid stage.     

Constructing Relationally Integrated Teams

Worldwide initiatives to improve construction industry performance converge on the common need for more effective teamworking. This is increasingly critical in the context of complex multiparticipant construction projects. Clashes of organizational, operational, national, and/or professional cultures point to the need for “relational integration” as a prerequisite for such synergistic teamworking. This paper draws on recent approaches to promoting trust and cooperation through (1) basic teambuilding techniques in general and (2) partnering and alliancing in construction projects. It then focuses on analyzing the views of Singapore-based contractors as derived from a survey to elicit the hypothesized 28 factors facilitating relationally integrated teambuilding, and 31 factors deterring such integration in construction project teams. On the whole: (1) 27 of the 28 factors facilitating integrated project team, and 26 of the 31 factors deterring integrated project team, are significant; (2) these two sets of factors could be represented by four and five “broad factors,” respectively; and (3) except in a few cases, respondents from large and medium companies, as well as with and without experience in RC, have similar perceptions of the importance levels of different factors. These two sets of critical factors, as identified in this paper, complement two other previously isolated sets of factors that facilitate or deter a “relational contracting” culture. Taken together, they feed into a consolidated strategy for releasing the latent energies and potential synergies that should yield the much higher construction project performance levels that have been called for worldwide.     

Explaining Cooperative Behavior in Building and Civil Engineering Projects’ Claims Process: Interactive Effects of Outcome Favorability and Procedural Fairness

Cooperation is fundamental to successful procurement and delivery of building and civil engineering projects. This study explores the role of perceived fairness as a motivator of cooperative behavior in the process for administering project claims. The objective is to investigate how a contractor’s perceptions about fairness of the procedure for administering project claims would interact with the outcome received from the claims to influence the contractor’s cooperative behavior in terms of conflict intensity and potential to dispute. The data collection instrument was a structured questionnaire. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 41 contractors’ personnel regarding their experience with claims on 41 completed projects in Singapore. The data were analyzed using the structural modeling approach. The results indicate that on projects where contractors did not receive a favorable outcome from claims, there was lower intensity of conflict and lower potential to dispute when contractors perceived that the procedure for administering the claims was fair than when the procedure was perceived to be unfair. The findings suggest that, in construction, cooperative behavior is a combined function of the outcome and procedure leading to that outcome. It also suggests that enhancing cooperative behavior goes beyond formal contract provisions but rather how the contract is administered in practice. It is recommended that employers’ project management team whose actions of rejecting invalid claims may be misinterpreted and disputed pay greater attention to how decisions on claims are reached. A fair procedure could cushion the effect of an unfavorable decision and thereby reduce a contractor’s uncooperative attitude.     

Factors That Influence Safety Performance of Specialty Contractors

In the construction industry specialty contractors perform most of the construction work. Given their impact on the industry, the safety performance of specialty contractors should be of concern to the construction industry. This paper describes a study conducted to identify factors that significantly influence the safety performance of specialty contractors. The study was composed of separate surveys of three different specialty contractor populations—a variety of trade contractors located primarily in southern Nevada, roofing contractors in the state of Florida, and the regional offices of a large, nationwide mechanical contractor. While there appeared to be contradictions between the surveys in some areas, the study concluded that specialty contractor safety performance was consistently influenced, in part, by a number of factors. The factors shown to positively affect safety performance include minimizing worker turnover, implementing employee drug testing with various factors initiating the testing, and training with the assistance of contractor associations. Safety incentive programs were not necessarily associated with better safety performance. Growth in company size was found to be associated with improved safety performance as well.     

Impact of Resources and Strategies on Construction Company Performance

Globalized competition and customer needs forced construction companies to measure their performance beyond the financial measures such as profitability, turnover, etc. As qualitative determinants were added to measurement systems, their investigation and evaluation became a major area of research. In this study, the impact of “resources and capabilities,” “strategic decisions,” “project management competencies,” and “strength of relationships with other parties” on “company performance” was investigated. A questionnaire survey was administered to 73 Turkish contractors and the results of the survey were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that, as expected, resources and capabilities and strategic decisions have an important and direct impact on company performance, whereas project management competencies and strength of relationships with other parties impact company performance only indirectly, through their impact on companies’ resources and capabilities and strategic decisions.     

Contractor Selection Criteria: Investigation of Opinions of Singapore Construction Practitioners

The construction industry has witnessed the failure of many contractors due to varying reasons such as financial problems, poor performance, or accidents arising from the lack of adequate safety consideration at worksites. All these incidents have led to the impression that the current system of awarding the contracts is inefficient in selecting the contractor capable of meeting the demands and challenges of present times and hence needs to be reviewed accordingly. Therefore, in an attempt to investigate the current situation of the Singapore construction industry a questionnaire survey was conducted for accruing the data required to identify the important contractor selection criteria (CSC) and to draw upon construction practitioners’ opinions regarding the importance of those CSC in assessing the capabilities of the candidate contractors during the selection process. The research reported upon forms part of a larger study that aims to develop a computer-interactive multicriteria decision system for contractor selection involving identification of CSC for inclusion in the system, investigation of CSC preferences of construction practitioners, and establishment of weights for those CSC from their perceived importance determined through the questionnaire survey of Singapore construction practitioners. The study highlights that there are statistically significant differences in opinions regarding the degree of importance assigned to some CSC among public clients, private clients, and contractors. Findings from the study may act as an aid in improving the Singapore construction industry by helping construction clients identify multiple CSC apart from cost which should always be considered when assessing the capability of candidate contractors during the selection process, by assisting contractors in improving their attributes in line with clients’ preferences and by facilitating Singapore construction clients and researchers to develop a contractor selection system capable of assessing multiple attributes of the candidate contractors so that the risk of the project failure due to the selection of an inappropriate contractor is minimized.     

Conceptual Planning Process for Electrical Construction

The competitive nature of the construction industry has motivated many specialty contractors to search for ways to improve efficiency by increasing their quality and decreasing their costs in order to strengthen their market share. As a result, contractors are turning to “better planning” as a method for improving their efficiency and, consequently, increasing their profitability. In fact, a consensus exists in the construction industry that more formalized preconstruction planning is necessary to remain successful in an increasingly competitive industry. This paper presents a model electrical preconstruction planning process that was crafted from outstanding processes used on several successful electrical projects. Furthermore, a method to evaluate the effectiveness of planning, by comparing actual planning to the model process, is briefly introduced. From this assessment, “effective planning” was correlated to project outcome, and evidence is provided that better planning is, indeed, related to successful performance.     

Risks in Chinese Construction Market—Contractors’ Perspective

With China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Chinese construction market will be increasingly open and finally become part of the international market. Because of different social and economic systems, as well as different historical and cultural backgrounds, contractors are likely to encounter different risks in different markets. Based on questionnaires and case studies, this paper adopts an importance evaluation index and makes an importance evaluation of various risks encountered by Chinese contractors when contracting for projects in Chinese markets. This paper also makes comparisons between and analyses of the research findings and related available investigation results. The Cox–Stuart trend increase test method is applied in the current research, the results indicating that the variance corresponding to the importance index value tends to increase as the risk event importance decreases. This tendency shows that those investigated tend towards unanimity in terms of higher importance risk events. This paper also examines the reliability of the questionnaires by means of Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient. The research shows that the main risk currently encountered by Chinese contractors in domestic markets includes owner’s irregular behavior and government departments’ interference in construction markets. China’s accession to the WTO has provided greater opportunities for international contractors to enter the Chinese construction market. Therefore the research results described in this paper can provide valuable data enabling international contractors to gain a better understanding of the potential risks in the environment of the Chinese construction market.     

Downgrading Construction Incidents

The financial losses resulting from various incidents on typical building construction sites are reported. Field data was collected on three sites over a period of nine months. Incidents were recorded by three observers on a daily basis including data on the cause of the event, the direct losses incurred and the contractors involved. The 658 incidents reported were analyzed to determine the general characteristics of incidents, the level of field control possible and the incident costs. Overall losses on the individual sites are compared while combined results for all three projects are examined. Particular attention is paid to safety‐related incidents. Limitations of the monitoring program are discussed. The results indicate that downgrading incidents are responsible for a substantial loss on construction projects, however, the observations show that most losses could be eliminated through up‐graded on‐site management. Recommendations are made for reducing the losses by improving such management functions as planning, scheduling, follow‐up, equipment maintenance and problem documentation.     

Owner’s Role in Construction Safety: Guidance Model

The practices implemented by owners that were associated with better project safety performances were described in a companion paper. This paper will expand on those research findings and present a model that evaluates the impact of different owner practices on project safety performance. Four indices were established which quantitatively describe the project characteristics, the selection of safe contractors, the contractual safety requirements, and the owner’s participation in safety management. Analysis of variance and linear regression were conducted to evaluate the combined effects of different owner practices on project safety performance as measured by the total recordable injury rate (TRIR). Results show that project safety performances were closely associated with all the indices except the index to describe the selection of safe contractors. The linear regression model explained 42.6% of the total variance of the TRIR. A scorecard to evaluate the owner’s involvement in construction safety was developed to serve as a practical means of conducting an assessment and predicting project safety performance. The owner’s involvement can favorably influence project safety performance by setting safety objectives, selecting safe contractors, and participating in safety management during construction.     

Measurement and Risk Scales of Crane-Related Safety Factors on Construction Sites

This paper addresses quantitative measurement and risk scales of safety hazards on construction sites due to the work of tower cranes. Hazard measurement and risk scales are essential components of an integrated model aimed at quantitatively determining the safety level of individual construction sites, on a comparative basis. The paper focuses on two factors identified in earlier studies as considerably affecting safety on sites with tower cranes, “overlapping cranes” and “operator proficiency.” These two factors are inherently different from each other in their characteristics and therefore also in the methods used to measure both the factors and the risk resulting from them. A probability-based method was prescribed for the measurement of overlapping cranes, while the analytical hierarchy process method and knowledge elicitation from experts were applied to develop metrics for operator proficiency. In both cases, an intimate understanding of the crane work environment is necessary. The uniform format and specific methodologies presented here can be used in the development of measurement techniques and risk scales for other safety factors concerning crane operation on construction sites.     

Safety Climate in Construction Industry: A Case Study in Hong Kong

Because of the characteristics of decentralization and mobility in the construction industry, safety culture is crucially important. A comprehensive safety climate questionnaire survey was conducted with all sites and employees of a leading construction company and its subcontractors in Hong Kong. In total, 4,719 records were returned from 54 sites. By means of factor analysis, a 15-factor structure that defines the dimensions of the safety climate has been extracted. Compared with previous research studies, the roles and influences of fellow workers, and safety resources on the safety climate are emphasized. The results also confirm the feasibility of exploring common factors of the safety climate in the construction industry. Through further analysis, logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between the safety climate and personal characteristics. Statistically significant relationships were found between safety climate and personal characteristics, including gender, marital status, education level, number of family members to support, safety knowledge, drinking habits, direct employer, and individual safety behavior. This research is a case study and the results are derived from the data of one company, but the methodology of this research may be useful as a model for further research, and the findings may provide useful information for construction managers and safety practitioners in the construction industry to improve their safety culture.     

Risk Assessment Model of Tendering for Chinese Building Projects

This paper presents a risk assessment model for tendering of Chinese building projects on the basis of identification and evaluation of the major risk events in the Chinese construction market, investigations and interviews from which the factors inducing the risk events were determined, questionnaires on building projects within China’s borders, and the logistic regression method. The findings show that, to a certain extent, the risk of tendering for projects and the risk of a contracted project can be assessed through analysis of factors such as owner type, source of project financing, existence or lack of past cooperation between contractors and owners, the intensity of competition for tendering, the reasonableness of the bid price, and the degree of support from the contracting company to its projects. The model can serve as a supplementary tool for Chinese contractors in making decisions for project tendering within Chinese borders. At the same time, it is of reference significance for international contractors, enabling them to further understand the risks in the contract market for Chinese building projects.     

Empirical Study of the Risks and Difficulties in Implementing Guaranteed Maximum Price and Target Cost Contracts in Construction

Over the past few decades, both the guaranteed maximum price (GMP) and target cost contracting (TCC) arrangements have been regarded as alternative integrated procurement strategies for clients to mitigate risks, minimize claims, integrate the diverse interests of a complex construction project, and offer incentives to provide value-added services. However, the adoption of GMP/TCC contracts may also generate significant risks and difficulties that merit considerable attention. This paper aims to provide a concise review of the potential pitfalls of the GMP/TCC scheme in general and identifies the key risk factors and potential difficulties associated with GMP/TCC in comparison with other procurement strategies in construction in particular via an empirical survey of clients, contractors, and consultants in Hong Kong. The survey data gleaned from 45 valid replies were analyzed using the mean score ranking technique, Kendall’s concordance test, and Spearman’s rank correlation test. The survey results indicated that “involvement of inexperienced or claim-conscious contractors in a project procured by a GMP/TCC contract” was considered to be the most significant risk factor; while “design development must keep pace with main contractor’s program for tendering the domestic subcontractors’ works packages” as the major difficulty in implementing GMP/TCC projects. The research findings derived from this study are particularly essential in assisting the contracting parties to mitigate the detriments brought about by potential risks or difficulties when embarking on GMP/TCC contracts. It has also generated valuable insights into developing effective recommendations for alleviating the barriers to GMP/TCC success for future construction projects.     

Safety Management in Construction: Best Practices in Hong Kong

Safety issues have gained vital importance throughout the construction industry. Many construction companies around the world are implementing safety, health, and environmental management systems to reduce injuries, eliminate illness, and to provide a safe work environment in their construction sites. This paper describes an exploratory study of site safety management in construction sites’ environments. It explains a successful, modern safety, health and environmental management system for a leading construction company based in Hong Kong. A typical site-specific safety plan was utilized to provide safety guidance throughout the construction project. A safety management survey was conducted to determine the status of safety in the construction sites. All employees of the company and its subcontractors participated in the survey from 20 construction projects. In total, 1,022 valid records were obtained from the construction sites. The analysis provided useful information on eight aspects of construction safety, including safety policy and standards, safety organization, safety training, inspecting hazardous conditions, personal protection program, plant and equipment, safety promotion, and management behavior. The findings of the survey provide practical knowledge to construction project managers and construction safety practitioners in order to make their sites safer. Insights and discussions are given in this paper.