Use of safety management practices for improving project performance

A Maturity Model for Resilient Safety Culture Development in Construction Companies

A resilient safety culture is characterized by the capability of addressing the changing and unforeseen safety risks associated with the increasingly complex nature of sociotechnical systems, and creating an ultrasafe organization. An assessment of the maturation of resilient safety culture helps organizations to evaluate their capabilities of managing safety risks and achieving a consistently high safety performance. This study aims to present a maturity model developed to measure and improve resilient safety culture in the construction environment. The research was conducted in two stages. The first stage consisted of a review of the literature on the concepts of a resilient safety culture and the capability maturity model for the development of a maturity model. In the second stage, the developed model was evaluated using the Delphi technique. The model defines five maturity levels that can be used to measure resilient safety culture of a construction organization. It presents a set of descriptions of 19 aspects of resilient safety culture at each maturity level. The assessment procedure and the way of using the model are further discussed. Theoretically, this study provides insights into the maturity characteristics of a resilient safety culture. In practical terms, it offers guidance for benchmarking and encouraging the enhancement of organizations’ capabilities to manage safety risks.

How Effectively Safety Incentives Work? A Randomized Experimental Investigation

Background

Incentive and penalty (I/P) programs are commonly used to increase employees' safety outcomes, but its influence on employees' safety outcomes is under-investigated. Moreover, under developed economies lack safety culture and there is dearth of literature focusing on empirical studies over there [1]. Based on these gaps, this study attempts to see the impact of I/P programs on safety outcomes in a developing country.

Methods

The study was carried out in three stages, where Stage I revealed that selected 45 organizations were deficit of safety culture and practices, while only three firms were found good at safety practices. At Stage II, these three firms were divided in two clusters (groups), and were probed further at Stage III. At this stage group, one was manipulated by providing incentives (experimental group) and employees' responses in terms of safety motivation and performance were noticed.

Results

It was observed that the experimental group's safety motivation and performance had improved (both for immediate and 1-month later performance). The results were further probed at Phase 3 (after 3 months), where it was found that the benefits of I/P programs were not long lasting and started replenishing.

Conclusion

Findings of the study helped researchers conclude that safety incentives have only short-term influence on safety outcomes, while a long-term and permanent solution should be found.

Modeling the effects of production pressure on safety performance in construction projects using system dynamics

INTRODUCTION

Construction incidents occur due to system failures, not due to a single factor such as unsafe behavior or condition. Therefore, construction safety should be investigated using a systematic view capable of illustrating the complex nature of incidents. Construction projects are also often behind their planned schedule and suffer from various pressures caused by contractual deadlines or clients. Previous studies demonstrated that such pressures negatively affect safety performance; however, the process of how production pressure influences safety performance is not fully investigated.

METHOD

The present research aimed to understand the feedback mechanism of how production pressure interactively affects safety performance and safety-related managerial components in a construction project. Ground theory method (GTM) is used to create a conceptual causal loop diagram that shows the relationship between incident rate and other variables such as labor hour, actual and planned progress, safety climate, rework, and safety training. Moreover, a power plant construction project was used as a case study to practically investigate the conceptual model; a case study is employed to build a System Dynamics (SD) model. The simulation model was then validated using behavior reproduction and sensitivity analysis.

RESULTS

The results of the inequality statistics show that the simulation model can be used to forecast trends in the incident rate.

Developing safety archetypes of construction industry at project level using system dynamics

INTRODUCTION

Safe behavior and work conditions are a major concern in construction projects. However, accidents occur due to system failures, not a single factor such as unsafe behavior or condition. Construction safety should be investigated by a systematic view capable of illustrating the complex nature of accidents.

METHOD

The present research aims to detect and categorize behavior patterns recurring in construction safety management continuously. Content analysis and ground theory method (GTM) were adopted to achieve the study objectives. In total, 90 articles were reviewed to explore the factors influencing safety in construction projects all over the world. Furthermore, 20 interviews were conducted on participants with rich experience in construction health and safety. Four archetypes were identified from data collection process, including delay in design, number of subcontractors, cost and safety of project, and supervisors and safety. Each archetype is completely discussed at different steps of dynamic complexity, behavior over time, and the leverage point to show how to deal with the archetype.