scholarly journals Sensor-Based Safety Performance Assessment of Individual Construction Workers

Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 3897 ◽  
Author(s):  
JeeWoong Park ◽  
Yong K. Cho ◽  
Ali Khodabandelu

Over the last decade, researchers have explored various technologies and methodologies to enhance worker safety at construction sites. The use of advanced sensing technologies mainly has focused on detecting and warning about safety issues by directly relying on the detection capabilities of these technologies. Until now, very little research has explored methods to quantitatively assess individual workers’ safety performance. For this, this study uses a tracking system to collect and use individuals’ location data in the proposed safety framework. A computational and analytical procedure/model was developed to quantify the safety performance of individual workers beyond detection and warning. The framework defines parameters for zone-based safety risks and establishes a zone-based safety risk model to quantify potential risks to workers. To demonstrate the model of safety analysis, the study conducted field tests at different construction sites, using various interaction scenarios. Probabilistic evaluation showed a slight underestimation and overestimation in certain cases; however, the model represented the overall safety performance of a subject quite well. Test results showed clear evidence of the model’s ability to capture safety conditions of workers in pre-identified hazard zones. The developed approach presents a way to provide visualized and quantified information as a form of safety index, which has not been available in the industry. In addition, such an automated method may present a suitable safety monitoring method that can eliminate human deployment that is expensive, error-prone, and time-consuming.

Author(s):  
Nour Eldeen Abo Nassar

The construction industry is one of the most significant industries that contribute greatly to achieving economic development. However, it is also considered one of the industries that is always exposed to a high risk of hazards in addition to being full of risky activities. Accidents that occurred in construction industries have caused many defects in project progress, for example, delays in completing the project, increasing project cost, reducing productivity, and creating negative impressions about the company. The major reason for the accidents is poor worker safety performance, with a host of contributing causes. For improving safety performance, the root causes of incidents that occur in construction as well as the factors influencing them must be studied. Health and safety issues are the main problem and concerns in the building industry. Though much development has been made in construction safety, the industry still lacks a lag behind most other industries in terms of safety. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the factors that could affect the safety performance of a construction site to reduce the frequency of accidents.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-14
Author(s):  
Majed M Moosa ◽  
Leo P. Oriet ◽  
Abdulrahman M Khamaj

Introduction: Research indicate that construction site accidents are a global concern, and rates are rapidly increasing. In developing countries such as Saudi Arabia, safety issues are frequently ignored, and little is known about their causes. Objectives: This study aimed to shed light on factors causing accidents in Saudi Arabian construction companies. Methods: An online detailed survey, using Google Form, of accident features was distributed randomly to potential employees in 35 construction companies in Saudi Arabia, where one of the top administrators or safety officers were required to respond to the survey. It was conducted from 1st June to 31st August, 2013. The safety practices and perceptions of accident causes were assessed. Results: The response rate was 63%. Over half of the surveyed organizations encountered all of the selected accident types. While 19 (86%) of the construction companies maintained the equipment regularly, 15 (68%) had regular maintenance staff and 13 (59%) inspected the equipment before use. Although 18 (82%) of the workers were supplied with personal protective equipment (PPE), only 12 (55%) emphasized its use and offered site orientation for new employees.  In the last part of the survey, respondents were requested to rate 25 factors affecting safety performance at the construction sites on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most important. The three most important factors of poor safety performance were the firm's top leaders, a lack of training, and the reckless operation of equipment. Conclusion: Changing attitudes of surrounding safety culture have the potential to significantly improve safety outcomes in the Saudi Arabian construction industry. Two Saudi Arabian corporations, Saudi Aramco and Saudi Chevron Petrochemical provide a positive model for increasing construction safety in the country, but there is a paucity of industry-level data. Further scholarly attention is strongly indicated.


1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 309-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Sawacha ◽  
Shamil Naoum ◽  
Daniel Fong

1982 ◽  
Vol 114 (11) ◽  
pp. 1101-1103
Author(s):  
D. G. R. McLeod ◽  
T. Nagai ◽  
A. N. Starratt ◽  
C. Bonenfant ◽  
E. W. Rud ◽  
...  

The white cutworm, Euxoa scandens (Riley), is a sporadic pest of tobacco in Quebec (Mailloux and Desrosiers 1978), asparagus in Michigan (A. L. Wells, pers. comm.), and other vegetable crops grown in light sandy soils (Beirne 1971). The immature larvae overwinter and cause serious damage when they resume feeding in the spring (Hudson and Wood 1930). Moths emerge and oviposit from late June until late July (McLeod and Dupré 1981). An efficient monitoring method utilizing the female sex pheromone would be an important aid in estimating the size and distribution of the adult population and would help in planning insecticide control. We report here some results of electroantennogram screening of potential sex attractants and the results of field tests of the most active of these.


Author(s):  
Hermes Giberti ◽  
Andrea Zanoni ◽  
Marco Mauri ◽  
Massimo Gammino

This work focuses on the development of a methodology for the complete reconstruction of the 3D geometry of a concrete bridge. 3D scanning technology was selected as the most apt to the task as it provides very detailed geometrical informations. A dedicated carriage system for a compact and lightweight laser scanner has been designed and built as a first prototype to be used on laboratory as well as future on-field tests. A first assessment of the design constraints has been carried out, based on the general goal of implementing a system able to be used with existing inspection vehicles with minimal modifications. The specific electronic system for management and control of the carriage system and the management of the associated tracking system has been also designed and realized. Some preliminary tests have been performed at Politecnico di Milano University campus to assess the viability and analyze the performance of the early design choices.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (14) ◽  
pp. 4948
Author(s):  
Marcel Neuhausen ◽  
Patrick Herbers ◽  
Markus König

Vision-based tracking systems enable the optimization of the productivity and safety management on construction sites by monitoring the workers’ movements. However, training and evaluation of such a system requires a vast amount of data. Sufficient datasets rarely exist for this purpose. We investigate the use of synthetic data to overcome this issue. Using 3D computer graphics software, we model virtual construction site scenarios. These are rendered for the use as a synthetic dataset which augments a self-recorded real world dataset. Our approach is verified by means of a tracking system. For this, we train a YOLOv3 detector identifying pedestrian workers. Kalman filtering is applied to the detections to track them over consecutive video frames. First, the detector’s performance is examined when using synthetic data of various environmental conditions for training. Second, we compare the evaluation results of our tracking system on real world and synthetic scenarios. With an increase of about 7.5 percentage points in mean average precision, our findings show that a synthetic extension is beneficial for otherwise small datasets. The similarity of synthetic and real world results allow for the conclusion that 3D scenes are an alternative to evaluate vision-based tracking systems on hazardous scenes without exposing workers to risks.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 110-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan Alaa Nadhim ◽  
Carol K.H. Hon ◽  
Bo Xia ◽  
Ian Stewart ◽  
Dongping Fang

Retrofitting works has become increasingly important in the construction industry, as it plays an effective role in providing solutions to maintain, upgrade or change the functions to the existing or aged buildings. Very often, safety issues of retrofitting works are underestimated because there may be unreported accidents in small projects and there is no separate classification of accident statistics for the retrofitting works within the construction industry. As safety climate is widely regarded as a contributing factor to safety performance, the aim of this research was to examine the relationship between safety climate and safety performance in retrofitting works context. The safety climate questionnaire NOSACQ-50 has been employed to measure safety climate in retrofitting works. Field patrols were undertaken to distribute the safety questionnaires to the local worksites that undertake retrofits in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. 264 valid questionnaires were collected. SEM was employed to examine the existence and strength of the relationship between safety climate and safety performance. PLS-SEM was utilised to estimate the parameters of the structural model. The model has exposed a positive relationship between safety climate and safety performance in retrofitting context. This research was the first to examine the relationship between the second order latent variables. A positive relationship (0.60 with 36 percent of explained variance) was found between safety climate and safety performance.


2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 50-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Spillane ◽  
Lukumon O. Oyedele

Purpose: The overall aim of this research is to identify and catalogue the numerous managerial strategies for effective management of health and safety on a confined, urban, construction site. Design/Methodology/Approach: This is achieved by utilising individual interviews, focus groups discussion on selected case studies of confined construction sites, coupled with a questionnaire survey. Findings: The top five key strategies include (1) Employ safe system of work plans to mitigate personnel health and safety issues; (2) Inform personnel, before starting on-site, of the potential issues using site inductions; (3) Effective communication among site personnel; (4) Draft and implement an effective design site layout prior to starting on-site; and (5) Use of banksman (traffic co-ordinator) to segregate personnel from vehicular traffic. Practical Implication: The construction sector is one of the leading industries in accident causation and with the continued development and regeneration of our urban centres, confined site construction is quickly becoming the norm - an environment which only fuels accident creation within the construction sector. Originality/Value: This research aids on-site management that requires direction and assistance in the identification and implementation of key strategies for the management of health and safety, particularly in confined construction site environments.


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