Case study application of prevention through design to enhance workplace safety and health in Manitoba heavy construction projects

This research aimed to develop a method to facilitate the implementation of prevention through design and apply it to a pump station case study in Manitoba, Canada. The method used, in part, failure mode and effects analysis and involved tasking experts with analyzing the project’s design documents to identify potential occupational health and safety failures that could occur throughout construction. It also entailed analyzing the project’s construction documents to determine actual, design-related, occupational health and safety failures observed throughout construction. The application of the method to that project identified 42 potential failure modes in the design, 38% of which were deemed high-risk. A total of 18 failures were detected throughout construction. Of these, 89% were predicted using failure mode and effects analysis and thus deemed preventable by design, indicating the potential effectiveness of the method. Future research should reapply it to other projects to validate these findings.