Critical Success Factors for Safety Program Implementation among Construction Companies in Saudi Arabia

Safety management implementation drivers for construction projects: a structural equation modelling approach

The construction industry is one of the hazardous fields due to its exceptional environment. Therefore, this work aimed to assess the essential drivers needed for employing safety management in the Palestinian construction industry. The drivers for safety management were recognized from earlier literature, where the questionnaires were dispersed to professionals from construction projects. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) technique was then performed to contextually adjust the identified drivers. The results showed that safety management drivers could be categorized into three constructs: management, awareness and policy. In addition, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was performed to generate the safety management driver's model. The results indicated that management drivers were vital drivers for adopting safety management. The study's findings would act as a reference for construction stakeholders to decrease danger and enhance the construction project's success via implementing safety management drivers.

Contributions of safety critical success factors and safety program elements to overall project success

Implementing a safety program is an essential step toward improving safety performance. This research aims to develop an overall project success (OPS) model for building projects through investigating the direct and indirect impact of safety critical success factors (CSFs) on OPS mediated by safety program elements. First, interviews were carried out with experts in the Iraqi construction industry, and then a questionnaire survey was utilized to obtain feedback from construction professionals. The results revealed that 20 elements are needed to confirm and improve effectiveness. These elements were categorized into four constructs: management commitment and employee involvement, worksite analysis, hazard and prevention control, and health and safety training. The analysis confirms that the relationship between safety CSFs and OPS are mediated by safety program elements. These findings offer a glimmer of hope for implementing safety programs in the Iraqi construction sector, and can also be used to enhance safety performance.

OSH Performance within TQM Application in Construction Companies: A Qualitative Study in Saudi Arabia

OSH plays a significant role in construction project success. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the influence of total quality management (TQM) application in improving occupational safety and health (OSH) within the context of Saudi construction companies. Factors were identified from structured literature reviews of previous relevant empirical studies. Then, these factors were theoretically framed into the concept of a triple bottom line (TBL), which includes three main dimensions: social, environmental, and economic. Thus, a semistructured interview survey was used to investigate these factors to address the performance of OSH in construction companies that implement TQM. A grounded theory was used to analyze and determine these factors. Accordingly, fourteen effective factors are identified. The survey findings indicate that the most influenced factors are the control of occupational accidents/injuries, the enhancement of workforce safety, the improvement of management pledges toward OSH, and the development of work culture toward OSH. These findings are vital in exploring the influence of TQM application in Saudi construction companies for the management of improving the performance of OSH, thereby helping to reduce the level of work injuries in the construction field and boosting the safety and health of workers for construction projects.

Empirical Research on the Critical Success Factors of Construction Program

Scientific identification of the factors that underpin the success of construction program can effectively promote the success of construction program. Based on literature statistics, this paper developed the measurement items of key success factors of construction program in Chinese context. Based on exploratory factor analysis, seven key success factors of construction program were extracted. Then, the excellence model of construction program was constructed by referring to the ideas, concepts, and theoretical mechanisms of EFQM model. The research conclusions of this paper provide a systematic and holistic guidance for the successful implementation of the program by the construction program organization and promote the success of the program.

Critical Success Factors for Safety Program Implementation of Regeneration of Abandoned Industrial Building Projects in China: A Fuzzy DEMATEL Approach

The regeneration of abandoned industrial buildings (RAIBs) has received extensive attention in urban renewal efforts to achieve urban sustainable development goals. Meanwhile, the construction safety performance of RAIBs is a major challenge with increasing RAIB projects in China. Safety programs have been considered as one of the proactive methods to effectively reduce accidents and injuries in the construction industry. Various studies have conducted critical success factors (CSFs) that influence the effective implementation of safety programs in new buildings. However, the CSFs affecting the construction safety program implementation of RAIBs were ignored. The aim of this study is to determine CSFs that affect the safety program implementation of RAIB projects. First, sixteen factors were identified combining characteristics of RAIBs with literature reviews and experts’ opinion. Second, the fuzzy set theory and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) approach are proposed to identify the influencing degree of the factors and categorize these factors into cause-and-effect groups. Then, according to the causal diagram, management support (C1), allocation of authority and responsibility (C3), control of subcontractor (C5), personal attitude (C9), and safety inspections and hazard assessment (C14) are identified as the CSFs for the safety program implementation of RAIBs’ construction. This study guides the managers and stakeholders to especially concentrate on these CSFs in order to improve the efficiency of the safety program implementation of RAIB projects with limited resources. This study also will contribute to the improvement of safety performance and to the sustainable development goal of RAIB projects.

Physiological impacts on construction workers under extremely hot and humid weather

PURPOSE

Construction worker health and safety is a primary concern for construction companies and researchers. Arabian Gulf region, like Saudi Arabia, has been experiencing extremely hot and humid (EHH) weather, which directly affects construction workers' health and safety. This study aims to address the problem of EHH weather conditions and their impacts on construction workers' physiological status.

METHODS

This study assesses the impacts of EHH weather on construction workers' physiological status through the measurement of workers' physical body parameters (age, height, and weight); type of activities; and assigned tasks. Thirty-five multinational workers participated in the measurements, which were conducted in real construction site conditions A quantitative analysis was then applied to quantify the physiological impacts of the weather conditions. Several hypotheses were tested to identify the significant impacts of individual and working aspects on the workers' physiological responses.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The results provide empirical evidence that the recorded Heart Rate (HR) exceeded the acceptable physiological zones for construction workers exposed to extremely hot and humid weather conditions. Physical body parameters, work activities, and worker status significantly influence construction workers' physiological responses. This study recommends adopting a continuous monitoring approach as an early warning system under extremely hot and humid weather conditions.

Quantifying Critical Success Factors (CSFs) in Management of Investment-Construction Projects: Insights from Bayesian Model Averaging

The problem with evaluating investment projects is that there are many factors that determine the degree of their successful conclusion. Consequently, there has been an active debate for years as to which critical success factors (CSFs) contribute most to the performance of construction projects. This is because the practice of empirical research is based on two steps: first, researchers choose a particular model from the space of all possible models, and second, they act as if the chosen model is the only one that fits the data and describes the phenomenon under study. Hence, there are many CSF lists that can be found in the literature, owing to the uncertainty at the model selection stage, which is usually ignored. Alternatively, model averaging accounts for this model uncertainty. In this study, the Bayesian model averaging and data from a survey of Polish construction managers were used to investigate the potential of 28 factors describing a diverse set of characteristics in explaining the performance of construction projects in Poland. Determinants of successful completion of investment projects are categorized by their level of evidential strength, which is derived from posterior inclusion probabilities (PIPs), i.e., providing strong, medium and weak evidence.

Critical Success Factors of Safety Program Implementation in Construction Projects in Iraq

The construction sector is recognized as one of the most dangerous industries in the world. The situation is worsening in Iraq, as a result of a lack of attention to safety in the building industry and the poor implementation of safety programs. This research aims to identify the critical safety factors (CSFs) of safety program implementation in the Iraqi construction industry. The CSFs were first identified from a review of literature before being verified by construction practitioners, using semi-structured interviews. A questionnaire, based on the verified CSFs, was distributed to construction practitioners in Iraq. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to analyze the quantitative data, and the results show that the CSFs can be categorized into four constructs: worker involvement, safety prevention and control system, safety arrangement, and management commitment. Following that, partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was executed to establish the connection between safety program implementation and overall project success. The result confirms that safety program implementation has a significant, positive impact on project success. This article contributes to knowledge and practice by identifying the CSFs for implementing safety programs in the Iraqi construction industry. The successful implementation of a safety program not only improves safety performance, but also helps to meet other project goals.

Model for Improvement of Occupational Health and Safety in Micro and Small Construction Enterprises

This paper presents research on qualitative parameters conducted in order to develop a model for the improvement of occupational health and safety (OHS) in micro and small construction enterprises (MSEs). Identification of factors and defining their significance enables improvements of OHS in the observed enterprises. The aim of the model is to assist construction MSEs in evaluating their qualities, pinpointing their deficiencies and ways to maximize the improvement to OHS performances. A panel of 20 experts defined the factors through an iterative process of the Delphi method. The research resulted in a model consisting of 42 OHS factors grouped into 10 categories. Model validation was carried out in the Republic of Serbia. The validation confirmed the applicability of the model as well as the relevance of factors which were determined by the panel of experts.

Epidemiology of occupational injuries among insured workers in Saudi Arabia between 2004 and 2016

This is a retrospective analysis of annual reports on occupational injuries issued by the national social insurance agency of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) for the years 2004 through 2016. For each criterion we calculated an index based on the equation N_Y/N_ref x100, where N_Y is the number of occupational injuries by a specific criterion in a specific year Y, and N_ref is the number of injuries in the corresponding criterion in the reference year, i.e. 2004. We also calculated the number of injuries to number of workers ratio (N_i/N_w) for different occupations and economic sectors to get a clearer idea of the injury trends per worker. In terms of occupational injury rates (with respect to 2004), we observed increases in construction, financing & real estate (economic sectors), among engineers and technicians (occupations), in infections and secondary contusions (injury type), for upper and lower limbs (affected body parts), over falls and “other” causes. Most injuries occurred on Fridays, which is a weekend day in Saudi Arabia. We also observed increased recovery without disability (injury status). However, if we look at the number of occupational injuries per worker, we can see a decreasing trend over time for all occupations and economic sectors, most likely thanks to improved labour law and safety at work practices for insured workers. Our findings are similar to reports from other Persian Gulf countries and reflect current labour health and safety issues in the area.

Critical Success Factors for Safety Training in the Construction Industry

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.

Developing Key Safety Management Factors for Construction Projects in China: A Resilience Perspective

It is acknowledged that construction safety is pivotal to the project management objectives. Meanwhile, the concept of resilience provides an effective and pragmatic countermeasure to improve the safety management level of construction projects. However, the “resilience” has not gained considerable attention in the construction safety management system. In this context, the paper aims to develop the key safety management factors for construction projects from the resilience perspective. Firstly, the theoretical framework and key safety management factors of construction safety management system based on the resilience theory are proposed. The importance of each factor is then obtained by using the method of structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that information management, material and technology management, organization management and personnel management would improve the safety and resilience of the project. Specifically, improving the resilience of information flow to strengthen the interaction among elements of the system can enhance the safety management level. These findings can be used as references for construction safety managers to improve the abilities of preventing safety accidents and recovering after safety accidents.

Construction Safety Success Factors: A Taiwanese Case Study

The international construction industry has long experienced high rates of occupational incidents resulting in serious injury and death. The high rate of fatal construction accidents has clearly highlighted the importance and urgency of safety management improvement for building and construction sites. This paper analyzed 33 nominated success factors of the site safety management (SSM) of building construction projects using Principle Components Analysis (PCA) to extract the success factors (SFs) of SSM in Taiwan. The internal relationships among these SFs were further explored using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to examine the underlying relationships. The results of this study indicate that there are moderate correlations present between the selected SFs for SSM. Management behaviors, a safe work environment and safety resources, the safety behaviors of workers, and prevention and remedial actions were found to be the major influencers for SSM performance. Furthermore, the study shows that SSM in Taiwan is still overly focused on safe working conditions, to the detriment of workers’ safety perception and training. Further work is required to ensure that safety programs are agile enough to understand and adapt to the factors which influence SSM outcomes.

Integration of hazard rectification efficiency in safety assessment for proactive management

OBJECTIVE

Safety assessment is crucial for the development of continuous improvement strategies. However, most studies assess construction safety with cross-sectional information and thus management tends to be passive. This study proposes an evidence-based methodology incorporating hazard rectification efficiency for project safety assessment.

METHOD

First, we theoretically introduced hazard rectification efficiency as a proxy for hazard exposure. Later, based on set-pair analysis, we proposed a safety assessment model that incorporates hazard occurrence and rectification efficiency. Subsequently, we collected site investigation records from seven building projects in Qingdao, Shandong. The data were used to develop a safety performance index (SPI) with the proposed model and a default model. The results were compared and discussed according to industrial practices for validation purposes.

RESULTS

The proposed model provides conservative indications of project safety performance; more importantly, the index calculated with the model provides advance warning when necessary. In the proposed method, in terms of the SPI, hazard and rectification indicators provide actionable information to address failures and improve safety conditions.

IMPLICATIONS

This research describes a new perspective (rectification efficiency) for safety assessment, which supplements the current body of knowledge on safety assessment. The proposed index, SPI, promotes the adoption of proactive hazard identification, monitoring, and control in construction.

Forewarned is forearmed

Purpose

Internet of Things (IoT) interconnects many heterogeneous devices to each other, collecting and processing large volumes of data for decision making without human intervention. However, the information security concern it brings has attracted quite a lot of attention, and, at this stage, the smart step would be to analyze the security issues of IoT platform and get to the state of readiness before embarking upon this attractive technology. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

IoT risk assessment through the application of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), a favorite multi-criteria decision making technique, is proposed. The IoT risks are prioritized and ranked at different layers, before which a well-defined IoT risk taxonomy is defined comprising of 25 risks across six layers of the IoT model for developing control and mitigation plans for information security of IoT.

Findings

People and processes layer, network layer and applications layer are the top three critical layers with risks like the lack of awareness, malware injection, malicious code injection, denial of service and inefficient policies for IoT practice get the highest priority and rank. Pareto analysis of the overall risk factors revealed that the top ten factors contribute to 80 percent of the risks perceived by information security experts.

Research limitations/implications

The study focuses only on certain predefined constructs or layers of the IoT model traced from legacy studies. It is essential to re-look these constructs on a timely basis to prolong the results’ validity. The study’s empirical scope is confined only to the risk perception of select IoT experts and does not encompass a broader segment of the IoT ecosystem. Therefore, the risks assessment may not be sweeping to a bigger audience.

Practical implications

The study implications are two-fold: one it consolidates the earlier siloed works to intensify the need for risk assessment in the IoT domain, and second the study brings yet another contextual avenue of extending the application AHP and Pareto principle combination. The paper also draws specific critical organizational interventions about IoT risks. A comprehensive approach to prioritizing and ranking IoT risks are present in this research paper.

Originality/value

The contribution of this study to the benchmarking of IoT risk assessment is two-fold. One, a comprehensive risk assessment taxonomy is proposed, and two, the risks are prioritized and ranked to give a convincing reference for the organizations while making information security plans for IoT technology.

Using leading and lagging indicators to select safe contractors at the prequalification stage of construction projects

The contractor-selection decision at the prequalification stage is critical to the project success. An insufficient prediction of contractors' safety capacities using only lagging indicators may hinder the continuous improvement of safety performance in the construction industry. This research enhanced construction management and practices by proposing a comprehensive safe contractor selection model which integrated both leading and lagging indicators. First, a set of leading and lagging safety indicators were identified based on literature review and expert opinions. Then, the grey correlation analysis (GCA) was utilized to assign weights to individual indicators. We found that management commitment, safety training and education, safety risk management, and safety rules and procedures were four most influential factors to the safety performance of contractors. In addition, the fuzzy technique of ordering preference by similarity to ideal solution (Fuzzy TOPSIS) was used to condense individual indicators and create a composite safety performance indicator (c-SPI). Finally, the feasibility of the decision support tool for safe contractor selection was verified using a real-case railway construction project.

Identifying behaviour patterns of construction safety using system archetypes

Construction safety management involves complex issues (e.g., different trades, multi-organizational project structure, constantly changing work environment, and transient workforce). Systems thinking is widely considered as an effective approach to understanding and managing the complexity. This paper aims to better understand dynamic complexity of construction safety management by exploring archetypes of construction safety. To achieve this, this paper adopted the ground theory method (GTM) and 22 interviews were conducted with participants in various positions (government safety inspector, client, health and safety manager, safety consultant, safety auditor, and safety researcher). Eight archetypes were emerged from the collected data: (1) safety regulations, (2) incentive programs, (3) procurement and safety, (4) safety management in small businesses (5) production and safety, (6) workers' conflicting goals, (7) blame on workers, and (8) reactive and proactive learning. These archetypes capture the interactions between a wide range of factors within various hierarchical levels and subsystems. As a free-standing tool, they advance the understanding of dynamic complexity of construction safety management and provide systemic insights into dealing with the complexity. They also can facilitate system dynamics modelling of construction safety process.