thelastmile:safetymanagementimplementationin...

Research ArticleThe Last Mile Safety Management Implementation inConstruction Sites

Tingshen Zhao Seyed Ebrahim Kazemi Wen Liu and Miao Zhang

School of Civil Engineering amp Mechanics Huazhong University of Science and Technology Wuhan China

Correspondence should be addressed to Miao Zhang 1224501618qqcom

Received 21 December 2017 Revised 17 February 2018 Accepted 21 March 2018 Published 18 April 2018

Academic Editor Yingbin Feng

Copyright copy 2018 Tingshen Zhao et alis is an open access article distributed under the Creative CommonsAttribution Licensewhich permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited

To deepen the understanding of the construction safety accidents rules as well as identify and cure the crux of construction safetymanagement failures in China we analyzed the status quo of safety management and identified the ldquolast milerdquo problem that is thefailure of implementation of the extensive legal and regulatory systems on the construction site e safety factors were thenextracted based on a questionnaire consisting of 34 items rough factor analysis and ranking correlation five human factorswere found to be the greatest challenge and leverage point of safety management at construction sites Accordingly a novel safetymanagement framework was proposed and tested as part of the Wuhan-Shenzhen highway project Expert auditing confirmedthat the proposed framework could substantially improve the construction safety performance and thus bridge the ldquolast milerdquo ofsafety management implementation

1 Introduction

As has been shown in different countries around the worldconstruction is among the most unsafe industries because ofits unique nature [1 2] Nowadays projects are carried out atan increasing rate and complexity and accidents are leadingto greater repercussions [3 4] Regrettably the boomingconstruction industry has always been accompanied bymany accidents and deaths which is especially true indeveloping countries like China e mortality rate in theChinese construction industry has long sustained unac-ceptably high numbers contributing to tremendous mon-etary losses as well [5]

Many countries have implemented laws and regulationsto strengthen safety management in their construction in-dustry most importantly to prevent accidents and reducedeaths [6 7] In China the Production Safety Law [8] waspromulgated in 2002 specifying how safety should be guar-anteed how employees should meet their obligations andexercise their rights how safety should be supervised andadministered and how accidents should be handled In 2004the Administrative Regulations on the Work Safety of Con-struction Projects [9] took effect which further defined and

divided the liabilities among various entities in charge ofconstruction survey design and supervision e nationalstandard GBT 28001-2011 on the ldquooccupational health andsafety management systemrdquo [10] was issued in 2012 Over thepast decades China has gradually built a systematic safetymanagement standard and introduced appropriate laws InChina the accident level is divided into minimal moderatehigh and disastrous listing based on economic losses andnumber of deaths and serious injuries reported e projectmanager is required to contact and report to the local safetysupervision department within 1 hour of the accident Basedon the severity of the accident the local or higher governmentwill then setup a professional team to investigate the cause ofthe accident Concealment and omission of the accident arebecoming more and more difficult and costly because of thesound and rigorous legal and media supervision e bureauof statistics has reported that the annual construction acci-dents from all projects throughout China have declined from1193 in 2005 to 554 in 2015 which gratifyingly shows a de-creasing trend (Figure 1)

ough the number of construction accidents is de-creasing statistics also show that the average death peraccident has stayed largely consistent at 124 over the past

HindawiAdvances in Civil EngineeringVolume 2018 Article ID 4901707 15 pageshttpsdoiorg10115520184901707

decades (Figure 1)is unveils some persisting issues despitethe encouraging decline in the number of accidents We seethis as a typical ldquolast milerdquo problem and ascribe it to the gapbetween the actual safety practice on site and the existing lawsregulations standards and systems of safety managementSpecically safety management and supervision systems havebeen well devised at all levels from the government toconstruction companies and further down to project groupsHowever without a mechanism for self-adjustment in eachproject the constantly changing situations on site as well ashuman error can prevent the externally designed safetymanagement systems from working Accidents result fromoperations violating safety rules that are carried out to dealwith an unexpected and temporary concern Here we nd theldquolast milerdquo problemmdashthe failure to implement extensive legaland regulatory systems on construction sites

To overcome this problem and improve the constructionsafety management performance we intend to nd the le-verage points of safety management implementation de-ned as ldquoplaces within a complex system (a corporation aneconomy a living body a city and an ecosystem) where a smallshift in one thing can produce big changes in everythingrdquo [11]Further the corresponding prevention and control measuresare designed to work on these leverage points thus bridging thelast milee remainder of the paper is organized as follows inSection 2 we provide an extensive literature review on con-struction safety measures in several countries and we introducea theoretical framework with possible inuencing factorsSection 3 presents our methodology including the design andresponse of our questionnaire Section 4 analyzes the safetymanagement at construction sites identies the main chal-lenges and discusses the leverage points Section 5 presentsa case study that adopted the recommendations derived fromthe leverage points and the subsequent improvement in projectsafety Conclusions are drawn in Section 6

2 Literature Review

Factors that inuence safety management at constructionsites have been previously categorized into macromeso-and microlevels corresponding to sectorcountry factorsorganizational factors and human factors respectively [12]A similar classication [13] was applied to aggregate vari-ables in the system of Occupational Safety and Health(OSH) In this work we adopt an eventual division of factorsinto macromeso- and microlevels

21 Macrolevel Factors In any developed country safety isa crucial issue in the construction industry Safety legislationand policies have been developed around the globe over thepast decades (Table 1 for selected examples) having a greatimpact on the construction site safety ese legislationsregulate and control health and safety on the macrolevel [14]

Furthermore national safety management systems havebeen devised and adopted in many countries on the basis ofappropriate standard practices Depending on the specicrequirements these systems dier among countries withregard to the factors considered For example Wokutch andVanSandt extracted 8 key factors as the main frameworksof OHS management in the United States [15] Fang et aldiscussed empirical research done on workplace safety man-agement performance on construction sites in China Elevenfactors that correlate closely with onsite safety managementperformance were identied to establish national safety man-agement systems [16] Teo and Ling discussed the safetymanagement system (SMS) which had been applied to theconstruction industry for about 10 years in Singapore thoughthe improvement in safety standard is not signicant Inresponse to the need to improve the eectiveness of the SMSand SMS audit they divided 14 main safety management el-ements in SMS [17] Ismail et al compared the safety man-agement system (SMS) adopted by various countries aroundthe world and then identied the factors inuencing theimplementation of a safety management system for con-struction sites in Malaysia [7] By reviewing and summarizingthe research results of dierent scholars on the composition oftheir own SMS system Table 2 provides a summary of themacrolevel safety factors included in the safety managementsystems [14ndash20]

22Mesolevel Factors Construction companies have diversesafety cultures safety climates working conditions andhabits [21] ese company factors reside on the mesolevele Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Acci-dent by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA 1986)for the rst time established the term ldquosafety culturerdquo in-cluding it in INSAGrsquos Summary Report Safety culture involvesthe values beliefs and attitudes shared within a group [22]Choudhry et al [23] reviewed safety culture examined itsdenition empirical evidence and theoretical developmentand proposed how to systematically analyze safety culturee analysis recognized elements in the organizational sit-uational technical and human aspects as well as interactionsbetween these elements Chinda [24] delved deeper into the

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Number of deathsNumber of accidents

Years 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015Deaths 1193 1041 1012 989 802 772 738 624 670 648 554Accidents 1015 882 859 814 684 627 589 487 524 522 442

0

Figure 1 e number of accidents and deaths in the constructionindustry in China (2005ndash2015)

2 Advances in Civil Engineering

interactions between the key elements of construction safetyculture enablers and goals and within the enablers them-selves Molenaar et al [25] characterized five latent variablesto describe safety culture in a company Gilkey et al [26]evaluated the risk perception safety culture and safety climatein a residential construction project at Denver Colorado

e term ldquosafety climaterdquo was coined by Zohar [27] instudying safety attitudes in Israeli manufacturing In con-trast to safety culture it refers to how the employees col-lectively perceive the organizationrsquos practices proceduresand policies as well as how they value safety in the orga-nization [28ndash31] It is often regarded as a key indicator ofimproving workplace safety [32] Statistically significantcorrelations were found between safety climate and personalcharacteristics such as education level marital statusgender direct employer and drinking habits [33] Lin et al[34] found three key factors for successful safety climatessafety awareness safety competence and safety communi-cation Choudhry et al [35] identified ten dimensions ofa successful safety climate such as competence risk-takingbehavior safety resources and improper safety procedureStoilkovska et al [36] incorporated three facets into theirmeasure of safety climates (1) management commitment(2) workersrsquo commitment and (3) safety inspections andperceived accident rate e model of Liao et al [37]comprised seven dimensions such as supportive environ-ment supervisory environment work pressure and per-sonal appreciation of risk

e safety climate and safety culture are related inde-pendent concepts despite of their similarity in definition tosome extent [38] Safety climate can be considered a ldquosnap-shotrdquo of safety culture [39] In other words the safety cultureacts behind safety climate [40] and the latter is the mani-festation of the former [41] Nevertheless both of them are

closely related to the safety management of the constructionenterprises and should be given high priority

23 Microlevel Factors e human factor in constructionaccidents has been explored extensively It is commonlyacknowledged that unsafe behavior underlies workplaceaccidents [42] and worker behavior must be proactivelymanaged Choudhry and Fang [6] conducted a series ofinterviews within the Hong Kong construction industry todetermine reasons for unsafe behaviors eir findings in-cluded disinterest in safety failure to obey procedures andlack of safety knowledge Specifically disinterest in safetywas characterized by failure to identify unsafe conditionslack of skill or training unsafe work conditions and notwearing personal protective equipment (PPE) Using theBayesian network theory Zhou et al [43] quantified the linksamong five safety climate factors and four personal experi-ence factors ey then used the survey data from GammonConstruction Limited and assessed using their methodologywhether candidate strategies can improve safety behaviorSaurin and de Macedo Guimaraes [44] examined theworkersrsquo perceptions on scaffolding safety and determinedthat poor and stressful working conditions resulted from thecombination of uncomfortable work posture failures insafety planning and control inappropriate inspections andinadequate PPE use Zheng et al [45] suggested that incentral China nonfatal construction injuries are highthroughout the year and the major risk factors for whichwere found to include the lack of injury prevention andsafety education serious cigarette smoking andor alcoholconsumption and depressive symptoms Jitwasinkul andHadikusumo [46] identified seven important factors thataffect safe behaviors in the construction industry ofailandLeung et al [47] and Hung et al [48] argued that con-struction workersrsquo ill-formed safety attitudes can give rise tosafety issues and risky behaviors

Chi et al [49] emphasized supervision PPE and safetydevices safety training and proper site inspections Mattilaand Hyttinen [50] and Teo et al [51] contended that theproject manager should vigilantly monitor personnel be-havior and rectify problems ey noted a few importantprocess variables and also noted several personnel variables

24e LastMile On each level factors have been analyzedby many researchers and solutions have been proposed esafety production-related laws and regulations of con-struction industries in China and the system framework forconstruction enterprise safety management have graduallyimproved over the past few decades ese laws and regu-lations are to some extent mandatory Nevertheless there arealways a few workers intentionally or unintentionally vio-lating the laws and regulations because of their subjectiveinitiatives responding to volatile environment In otherwords the proposals on the macro- and mesolevels cannotbe effectively implemented on the construction site becauseof human factors erefore how to translate these goodproposals into emotional recognition and conscious actionof every worker on the construction site is the key to

Table 1 Laws and regulations of various countries on safeproduction

Country Effective since Title

UKJanuary 1974 e Health and Safety at Work

April 2015 Construction (Design andManagement) Regulations 2015

USA September 1970 Occupational Safety and HealthAct

February 1926 Part 1926 of the OSHA standards

Singapore

January 1948 e Factories Act (Chapter 104)

September 1999Singapore Code of Practice on

Construction SafetyManagement System

1994 Building Operations and Worksof Engineering Construction

China

November 2002 Production Safety Law of thePeoplersquos Republic of China

February 2004Administrative Regulations onthe Work Safety of Construction

Project

Hong KongJune 1997 Factories and Industrial

Undertaking Ordinances

June 1997 Occupational Safety and HealthOrdinances

Advances in Civil Engineering 3

bridging the ldquolast milerdquo In this work instead of focusing ona single entity we try to collect the views and opinions ofevery entity on construction sites and propose a newframework to tackle the ldquolast milerdquo problem through anintegrated analysis

3 Methodology and Results

e researchmethodology is shown in Figure 2e first stepwas to review the safety factors on each individual level andidentify the ldquolast milerdquo problem

In step 2 relevant attributes were selected and collatedbased on the literature review exploratory interviews (step 3)and the pilot study (step 4) A questionnaire was then designedto survey practitionersrsquo perceptions of the importance of thecollated attributes (step 5)

Data collected from the questionnaire was analyzed(step 6) to give five factors that are significantly related tothe construction safety (step 7) and the weights of thesefactors (step 8) It was found that the items related toworkers are the key leverage points (step 9) and a newframework for safety management was proposed accord-ingly (step 10)

A ratingmethodwas then developed (step 11) and verifiedby ten industry experts ereafter the new framework forsafety management was tested through two site audits efeedback shows that the safety management on constructionsites improved considerably e results confirmed that thenew framework could solve the ldquolast milerdquo problem (step 12)

31 Questionnaire Design Data on the views of variousentities in construction projects were collected througha questionnaire to enable an objective and cost-effective in-vestigation First a comprehensive list of safety factors wasscreened in a pilot study to ensure that all items in thequestionnaire were valid reliable and significant en itemanalysis was administered to see if an item itself could separatea participant from the rest e results indicated that all itemsgave plt 005 and were thus significant Zero was excludedfrom the 95 confidence interval of the difference

Based on exploratory interviews and the above pilotstudy we composed a questionnaire and solicited responsesfrom several ongoing construction projects throughoutChina e questionnaire contained two sections e firstsection collected the general information of the respondents

Table 2 Safety factors included in safety management systems adopted by some countries

Safety factor Australia China Finland Jordan Malaysia Netherland Singapore Spain ailand USASafety meeting Safety inspection Safety regulation enforcement Safety training Safety communication Safety cooperation Management worker relationship Safety resources Personal competency Personal motivation Equipment management Program evaluation Management commitment Authority and responsibility Prevention planning Emergency planning Safety controlling Benchmarking Incentive and punishment andrecognition

Safety policy and statutory requirement Management difficulty andsubcontractors

Safety attitude Safety analysis Safety organization ematic approach Clear goals Availability Construction cost optimization Labor turnover rate Work involvement Management support Safety review


and the second section consisted of 34 factors (listed inTable 3) that could potentially aect the safety managementat construction sites All items adopted a Likert-type scale forthe answers ranging from a value of 1 (not important) to 5(extremely important)

32 Questionnaire Respondents Responses were solicitedfrom various entities at eight construction sites in three

typically large projects under construction in central andeastern China including proprietors consultants designerscontractors and supervisors Five of the eight constructionsites are located in Wuhan section of the Wuhan-Shenzhenhighway project two of them are located in the GuanduYellow River Bridge project and the last one is located in theWufeng Mountain Yangtze River Bridge project e ques-tionnaire survey was carried out in a voluntary and anony-mous manner with the strong support and coordination of

Macro level factors Meso level factors Micro level factors

2 Important streamline factors

6 Analyze survey results

3 Exploratory interviews(data collected through

5 experts)

5 Distribute questionnaire

4 Pilot study(data collected through 5 experts)

7 Five most important factors 8 Weights of factors (attributes)

Determine the greatestchallenge the human factor

through factor analysis

Determine the weight through 5-pointLikert scale

9 e items related to workers are the key leverage points

10 New framework for safety management

11 Case study the Wuhan-Shenzhen highway project

Rating method of each attribute

12 Validate new framework and solve ldquothe last milerdquo problem

1 Literature review

Figure 2 Research methodology


the project owners In total 513 questionnaires were dis-tributed and 447 valid questionnaires were retrieved thusgiving an effective recovery rate of 8713e 1287 invalidquestionnaires were either incompletely answered or declinedby the respondent to participate Figure 3 shows the break-down of the respondents of the 447 valid questionnaires interms of age years of work experience in construction ed-ucation level and job duties

e construction industry has advanced rapidly in ChinaAs a result the role of the project manager has been in-creasingly assumed by fresh graduates where constructionworkers mostly come from rural areas and where education ispoor Inadequate experience is common among the personnelat project sites Statistics in Figure 3 show that 39 of therespondents were 20ndash30 years old 396 had 1ndash5 years ofworking experience in the construction industry and 71finished their education at or below the high school levelA further breakdown on the hierarchy of job duties shows thatamong the 447 respondents senior managers accounted for45 middle managers for 243 front-line managers for382 and workers for 330

33 Statistical Analysis Collected data were analyzed withthe Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 180) usingthe following techniques (1) factor analysis (2) estimation ofmean value (3) rank cases (4) one-way analysis of variance(ANOVA) and (5) Spearman rank correlation

Factor analysis relies on a set of common underlyingdimensions known as factors to unveil the correlationsamong a large number of variables [16 52ndash54] e currentanalysis identified the major challenges in implementing themacro- and mesolevel management and supervision systemduring the day-to-day practices Different participants as-sign different weights to the safety factors and inspecting thediscrepancy in their ranking can help to determine the le-verage points in dealing with the challenges in safetymanagement at construction sites thus closing the ldquolastmilerdquo e current results have a high level of significance atplt 001 compared with the more commonly seen signifi-cance level of 005

34 Five Significant Related Factors Data were first checkedwith the KMO and Bartlettrsquos tests in SPSS Table 4 shows thatthe KMO test gives a result of 0795 which has passed thecutoff of 05 and confirms that the items in the questionnairehave enough factors in common to allow for factor analysise approximate chi-square distribution is 1600223 andarrives at the significance level ple 0001 when the degree of

Table 3 Questionnaire items

Item Key items1 Safety attitude of workers2 Safety behavior of workers3 Safety training received by workers4 e health and safety file5 Safety meeting6 Experience and skills of workers7 Education level of workers8 Personal protective equipment9 Safety management commitment

10 Safety experience and skills of contractors andsupervisors

11 Safety attitude of contractors and supervisors

12 Safety education and knowledge of contractors andsupervisors

13 Proper installation and dismantling of plant andequipment

14 Maintenance regime for all equipment and plants15 e reasonable choice of work equipment16 Proper handling of all equipment and plants17 Safety regulation and plan enforcement18 Safety incentive and punishment19 Safety risk identification and analysis20 First aid and emergency preparedness21 Safety inspection and guidance22 Complexity of geology and hydrology23 Frequency of adverse weather24 Schedule and cost pressures25 Allocation of safety responsibility26 Effective communication and cooperation27 Organizational capability of contractors28 Evaluation selection and control of subcontractors29 e complexity type and technique of construction30 Quantity of workers on the construction site31 Mobility of workers on the construction site32 Complexity of surrounding environment33 Welfare facilities34 e numbers of modifying existing designs

41ndash50gt51

lt2020ndash3031ndash40

34

Age

202 5

39

Working experience

197

244396

163

lt11ndash5

5ndash10gt10

Education

1 5

19

28

47

PrimaryMiddleHigh

CollegeMaster

Position

3345

243

382

SeniormanagersMiddlemanagers

First-linemanagers

Averageworkers

Figure 3 Segmentation in various dimensions of the 477 validrespondents


freedom is 561 e overall correlation matrix is thus not anidentity matrix and the factor analysis is valid

e load factor refers to the correlation between vari-ables in a factor A factor can be synthesized by a number ofvariables in that after varimax rotation principal componentanalysis gives a relatively high load factor between thederived variables Variables are consolidated into com-mon factors when possible which then clarifies what thesefactors represent Table 5 shows the resulting key safetyfactor dimensions based on outlining the five challengesthat are significantly related to construction safety as follows

341 Challenge 1 Human Factor is principal factoraccounts for 32986 of the total variance and exists in thefollowing items

(1) Safety attitude of workers(2) Safety behavior of workers(3) Safety training received by workers(6) Experience and skills of workers(7) Education level of workers(10) Safety experience and skills of contractors and

supervisors(11) Safety attitude of contractors and supervisors(12) Safety education and knowledge of contractors and

supervisors(26) Effective communication and cooperation(30) Quantity of workers on construction sites(31) Mobility of workers on construction sites

Among the abovementioned items 1 2 3 6 7 26 30and 31 can be attributed to the workers and items 10 11 and12 to the managers at the project sites us Challenge 1 canbe defined as the human factor in safety management

Based on the factor analysis theory [55] the abovefindings imply that human involvement in managementroutine has the greatest impact on safety at construction sitesin China and is thus a key target for improvement

342 Challenge 2 Equipment Factor Factor 2 accountsfor 14324 of the total variance and is distilled from thefollowing items

(8) Personal protective equipment(13) Proper installation and dismantling of plant and

equipment(14) Maintenance regime for all equipment and plants(15) e reasonable choice of work equipment

Among the abovementioned items 13ndash15 are concernedwith mechanical equipment at the site and item 8 is con-cerned with the personal protection of workers such as gloveshelmets and goggles us Challenge 2 can be defined as theequipment factor in safety management

According to the statistics of the accident survey pub-lished by the National Bureau of Statistics mechanical in-juries are one of the five major types of accidents (Table 6)can incur substantial loss to both the construction companyand the workers and in extreme cases may even put workersin life-threatening situations erefore mechanical equip-ment must be properly selected and used in accordance withstandard operation procedures To ensure safety towercranes and other machinery must be regularly and rigor-ously inspected and workers must also receive and usenecessary PPE

343 Challenge 3 Environment Factor Factor 3 accountsfor 11208 of the total variance and mainly covers thefollowing items

(22) Complexity of geology and hydrology(23) Frequency of adverse weather(24) Schedule and cost pressures(32) Complexity of surrounding environment

ese items reflect the influence of environment fac-tors on safety management Construction projects oftenhave to deal with the adverse natural environment and asthe projects proceed the project participants may createan artificial environment in which further challengesarise

344 Challenge 4 Management Factor Factor 4 entails thefollowing items

(4) e health and safety file(5) Safety meeting(9) Safety management commitment(17) Safety regulation and plan enforcement(18) Safety incentive and punishment(21) Safety inspection and guidance(25) Allocation of safety responsibility

All of the abovementioned come down to the man-agement factors A successful project requires good plan-ning organization and coordination and the influence ofmanagement on the workers and thus on project safetycannot be overlooked

345 Challenge 5 Technical Factor Factor 5 accounts for7684 of the total variance and involves the following items

(19) Safety risk identification and analysis(20) First aid and emergency preparedness(29) e complexity type and technique of construction

Table 4 KMO and Bartlett testsKaiserndashMeyerndashOlkin metric for sampling sufficientdegree 0795

Bartlett test of sphericityApproximate chi square 1600223

df 561p 0000


e abovementioned items may be considered as tech-nical factors e technical staffs are in charge of selectingthe most suitable technique and training the workers Poorchoice of the technique may undermine safety In fact twoadditional factors have also been extracted the first fromitems 16 (proper handling of all equipment and plants)and 33 (welfare facilities) the second from items 27(organizational capability of contractors) 28 (evaluationselection and control of subcontractors) and 34 (thenumbers of modifying existing designs) Although theyare statistically significant they are not interpreted further

because we do not see an explanation that corresponds toreality For example it is difficult to argue what kind ofunique factor is in common within the items ldquoproperhandling of all equipment and plantsrdquo and ldquowelfarefacilitiesrdquo

e Cronbachrsquos alpha coefficient refers to the degree ofconsistency among different items within a certain di-mension It is a commonly used reliability index In order toensure the appropriateness of grouping the five extractedcommon factors the consistency of each common factor wastested using the Cronbachrsquos alpha coefficient e results are

Table 6 Breakdown of construction accidents in China (2008ndash2015)

Accident types 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 MeanFalling injuries () 5190 4737 5331 5277 4615 5457 5317 5132Collapses () 1374 1483 1460 1376 1923 1175 1336 1447Object strikes () 1228 1675 1205 1211 1385 1253 1493 1350Crane machine accidents () 643 702 832 1027 1077 836 724 834Electric shocks () 409 463 509 205 315 441 407 393Others () 1156 940 663 904 685 838 723 844

Table 5 Rotated component matrix

ItemComponent

Variance () Extracted common factors1 2 3 4 5 6 7

2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor

3 0805 0044 minus0055 0348 0109 minus0054 00831 0746 0045 0208 0186 0058 minus0266 021111 0724 034 minus0012 0176 0122 0258 minus02201 0692 0138 minus0018 004 minus0105 minus0158 045226 0676 0514 minus0104 0082 0225 0029 minus00286 0654 0128 018 014 0247 minus0056 02130 0619 012 0056 0127 0398 0222 minus003412 0613 038 001 0522 0056 minus0022 minus00587 05 0364 0336 0224 0251 minus0049 minus020010 0449 0339 minus0222 0351 0309 0164 018 0177 0706 minus0014 0182 0203 0102 0236

14324 Equipment factor13 0201 0696 0016 0079 0059 0179 030915 0148 0634 0165 0335 0001 minus0069 027114 0207 0628 0336 0191 0115 minus0043 000932 minus0133 0116 0752 0116 0221 minus0033 0047

11208 Environment factor23 018 0244 0721 0072 minus0233 0108 021622 0068 minus0155 0681 0287 0092 0141 002224 0236 0009 0544 0089 0283 minus0538 minus004325 0048 017 0437 028 0342 minus0371 032821 009 0146 0288 0664 0104 0176 0115

9624 Management factor18 0259 0154 0184 0648 0203 minus0040 003617 027 0259 0154 0569 minus0032 0182 00879 0485 0081 0041 0513 minus0050 0333 01595 0059 0305 0009 0498 0423 minus0357 00254 0333 0238 minus0038 0078 0688 minus0030 0083

7684 Technical factor20 0224 minus0057 0167 0281 0652 0373 minus004329 minus0029 0037 0357 minus0011 0609 minus0103 028519 0396 0322 0155 0046 0538 minus0215 019716 minus0058 0078 0088 0291 0004 0735 0137 4493 33 0168 029 0524 minus0082 0178 0557 minus008327 0082 0207 0113 0156 018 0133 0735

2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562


shown in Table 7 e alpha coefficient of each commonfactor is greater than the minimum expected value of 070within the interval of (0716 0872) indicating that eachdimension has good internal consistency [56 57]

35Weightof Importance forFactors andRankingConsistencybetween Participants Estimation of the mean value showsthat the top five most important items are the following

(2) Safety behavior of workers(1) Safety attitude of workers(5) Safety meeting(3) Safety training received by workers(32) Complexity of surrounding environment

One-way ANOVA is detailed in Table 8 to show if thereare significant differences among the influence of proprietorconsultant designer contractor and supervisor on safetyfactors

In Table 9 the Spearman rank correlation shows re-markable inconsistency between the proprietor and thedesignere contractor and the designer have a consistencyat the level of 001 e supervisor has a consistency level of001 with all other entities mainly because the supervisorcoordinates them and resolves their conflicts

36KeyLeveragePoints In Figure 4 we propose a model onconstruction safety according to our data According to thecontribution of 5 extracted common factors to the totalvariance in factor analysis (Table 5) the human factorpresents the greatest challenge and is shown as the bluepillar in the middle Note that the managers and theworkers contribute differently to the human factor issection looks for possible leverage points to fortify this bluepillar We seek to identify elements within the humanfactor that could be reconditioned to foster safety man-agement at construction sites and consequently bridge theldquolast milerdquo

e results of ANOVA show that there are some dis-agreements among the different entities on the maininfluencing factors of construction safety At a significancethreshold of 0001 in ANOVA the following five items wererated very differently by different respondents

(7) Education level of workers(17) Safety regulation and plan enforcement(18) Safety incentive and punishment(21) Safety inspection and guidance(29) e complexity type and technique of construction

Designers gave low rating to item 7 mainly becausedesign and engineering are relatively independent stages inconstruction projects and designers often assume by defaulttheir plan can be carried out by the workers without thinkingabout the background and capability of said workers Item18 received the highest rating from the proprietors Mostcontractors claimed that for an accident having no morethan three deaths the punishment is acceptable Somecontractors are even more willing to pay the fine than investin safety whereas the proprietors think that raising the finecan incentivize the contractors to improve safety Item 21received a low rating by all respondents except proprietorsOur interviews showed that although proprietors fullyauthorize supervisors regarding safety issues on the site inreality the supervisors have a low status ey are notreadily welcomed by others and do not receive good co-operation impairing their control over the projects Bothconsultants and proprietors gave high ratings to item 17and item 29 because they lack technical experience and aremore concerned with the impact of engineering techniqueon safety

e Spearman rank correlation analysis shows thatproprietors and designers seriously disagree as to what arethe top safety factors ey are both concerned with theworkersrsquo safety training and consider item 3 as the secondmost important safety factor while the other four in theirlists of top five were completely different Designers areconcerned with the following items

(32) Complexity of surrounding environment(22) Complexity of geology and hydrology(23) Frequency of adverse weather(2) Safety behavior of workers

For the proprietors among these items only item 2was ranked 9th while the others were considered muchless important Items 22 23 and 32 focus on the com-plexity of the environment which may heavily impact therealization of the design e designers must test their planunder a variety of extremely adverse conditions to ensuresafety and are thus highly concerned with the environmentalfactor

Despite the differences of opinion on the above-mentioned items all respondents considered the itemsrelated to workers to be very important for safety e safetybehavior of workers (item 2) safety attitude of workers(item 1) safety training received by workers (item 3) ex-perience and skills of workers (item 6) and education levelof workers (item 7) were ranked the first second fourthsixth and tenth in the combined ranking from all 447 validquestionnaires erefore considering the results of theFactor analysis and the Mean and ANOVA analysis syn-thetically within the human factor which itself is thenumber one challenge the items related to workers are thekey leverage points in safety management including thesafety behavior of workers (item 2) safety attitude of workers(item 1) safety training received by workers (item 3)experience and skills of workers (item 6) and educationlevel of workers (item 7) e performance of the five

Table 7 Results of Cronbachrsquos alpha reliability test

Extracted common factors Cronbachrsquos alpha coefficientHuman factor 0774Equipment factor 0872Environment factor 0716Management factor 0762Technical factor 0814


items is closely related to the performance of constructionsafety management and is the key to solving the ldquolast milerdquoproblem Since construction workers usually work ingroups and teams we propose a novel managementframework in the next chapter to motivate the workers tosafely react to spontaneous problems thus bridging theldquolast milerdquo

4 New Framework for Safety Management

e construction site is a complex system in which workersare the only entity that can adjust on its own To lever the fiveleverage points identified above and amend the ldquolast milerdquoproblem in safety management we propose a new organi-zational framework that can transform the top-down safety

Table 8 Mean and ANOVA analysis

ItemOverall Proprietor Consultant Designer Contractor Supervisor

Mean Rank Mean Rank Mean Rank Mean Rank Mean Rank Mean Rank2 42054lowast 1 386 9 384 95 404 45 421 1 423 11 41027lowast 25 335 19 418 2 269 33 407 2 405 355 41027lowast 25 376 10 420 1 386 8 393 75 412 23 40622lowastlowast 4 417 2 396 7 422 2 405 3 401 6532 40351lowastlowast 5 334 205 318 25 424 1 379 95 403 56 38876 65 328 245 356 195 357 175 396 45 405 358 37976 65 296 28 369 145 375 115 393 75 388 9518 37865lowastlowast 85 420 1 416 35 359 16 369 14 377 12529 36865lowastlowast 85 407 45 374 11 364 145 366 155 328 1557 36595lowastlowast 10 370 11 316 26 357 175 396 45 401 659 36459lowast 115 416 3 416 35 321 265 379 95 286 18511 36459lowast 115 345 165 384 95 375 115 269 32 388 9526 35819lowastlowast 13 328 245 376 10 344 20 366 155 389 812 35749 14 369 125 371 125 327 225 377 11 359 1419 35703 15 395 75 356 195 378 95 375 125 299 1710 35568 16 395 75 356 195 366 13 375 125 286 18517 35027lowastlowast 17 396 6 323 235 299 30 348 19 379 1125 34892 18 334 205 407 55 338 21 344 21 286 18527 34849 19 343 18 309 275 348 19 365 175 278 2331 33811lowastlowast 20 291 29 309 275 364 145 328 235 377 12524 33676 21 332 22 369 145 388 65 395 6 277 24520 33270 22 290 305 369 145 388 65 345 20 269 2621 32459lowastlowast 23 407 45 297 295 322 25 332 22 286 18513 32323 24 280 325 276 34 326 24 365 175 328 15528 31514 25 253 34 407 55 321 265 319 255 277 24534 30378 26 369 125 369 145 378 95 289 29 267 27515 29943lowast 27 280 325 278 33 321 265 328 235 287 224 29938 28 357 14 323 235 327 225 286 305 244 2916 29697 29 345 165 359 18 276 32 319 255 242 3230 29662 30 330 23 280 32 321 265 286 305 243 30522 29595lowastlowast 31 290 305 371 125 413 3 329 255 267 27514 29054 32 322 27 297 295 277 31 329 255 226 3423 27973 33 353 15 356 195 404 45 268 33 243 30533 2527 34 323 26 389 8 244 34 247 34 228 33lowastSignificant at the 005 level (two-tailed) lowastlowastsignificant at the 001 level (two-tailed)

Table 9 Spearman rank correlation coefficients

Proprietor Consultant Designer Contractor Supervisor

Proprietor 1000 mdash mdash mdash mdashmdash mdash mdash mdash mdash

Consultant 0352lowast 1000 mdash mdash mdash0026 mdash mdash mdash mdash

Designer 0232 0352lowast 1000 mdash mdash0150 0026 mdash mdash mdash

Contractor 0395lowast 0402lowast 0479lowastlowast 1000 mdash0012 0010 0002 mdash mdash

Supervisor 0450lowast 0604lowastlowast 0682lowastlowast 0711lowastlowast 10000004 0000 0000 0000 mdash

lowastSignificant at the 005 level (two-tailed) lowastlowastsignificant at the 001 level (two-tailed)


management into bottom-up safety behaviore core of theframework is to strengthen the guidance and supervision ofthe leaders above workers and the mutual guidance andsupervision of the workers on construction sites greatlyimproving the performance of the workers on the ve le-verage points

41Making LeadersUbiquitous At construction sites safetyissues can arise in any moment at any place so external ever-present supervision and guidance is crucial for improvingthe safety behavior (item 1) and safety attitude (item 2) ofworkers In other words the leaders must be ubiquitous andalways be prepared to solve problems quickly and eordfcientlyey must have the necessary technical skills managementability and a strong sense of responsibility

As the organizational chart in Figure 5 shows the fewnumber of people in senior management positions make itimpossible to serve the engineering and operation teams ona constant basis e absence of leaders causes frequentaccidents To ensure safety management leaders must be intheir post at all times such that no worker would go to a dutywithout having the leader standing by on call

42 Appointing Leaders As mentioned above a goodleadership team is crucial for safety management on theconstruction site Leaders should be appointed mainly basedon technical skills following the priority outlined below

(1) e full-time safety management personnel in theproject department is the leader of all working facesand public spaces

(2) In the absence of (1) the registered or assigned ad-ministrative team leader or group leader for a par-ticular working face or public space takes charge of allsafety issues

(3) In the absence of (2) the project manager shouldautomatically become the leader when enteringa particular working face or public space

(4) When only workers are present whoever entered thetask area rst should be the leader for that area

(5) Among the workers who entered the task area at thesame time the most senior worker should be theleader

In this way the task area is always covered by a safetyleader helping eliminate accidents and minimize risks

43 Pairing and Banding As shown in Figure 3 workerrsquosage education and work experience dier widely Relativelyspeaking workers with more experience and skills andhigher education level have shown better performance insafety [55] which is consistent with the statistical analysisresults in this paper at is safety training received byworkers (item 3) experience and skills of workers (item 6)and education level of workers (item 7) are the key leveragepoints in safety management erefore the mutual guid-ance and supervision of the dierent workers is also crucialfor improving construction safety performance Safety is nota one-man task and all workers need to be covered bya teammate in situations where the personrsquos own sight orability may fall short We thus propose that each day beforework workers should reaordfrm who are their safety partnersfor the day and know for whom they must be keeping watchover e pairing and banding scheme is described below inTable 10

5 Case Study

To test how eective the proposed framework is in en-hancing safety we invited two safety experts both of whomparticipated in the design of the questionnaire and indrafting the new framework for safety management toconduct a case study and audit the safety management ofa project before and after introducing the new framework

Project manager

Chie

f

Prod

uctio

n

Busin

ess

Logi

stic

s

Surv

ey d

ivisi

on

Test

divi

sion

Tech

nica

l

Engi

neer

ing

Mat

eria

l

Equi

pmen

t

Con

trac

t

Exec

utiv

e

Fina

nce

Engineering team I (I = 1 2 3M)

Operation team J (J = 1 2 3N)

Figure 5 Typical organization structure for civil engineeringprojects in China

Improve the production safety management and supervision system

Envi

ronm

ent f

acto

r

Equi

pmen

t fac

tor

Hum

an fa

ctor

Man

agem

ent f

acto

r

Tech

nica

l fac

tor

The implementation of safety management

Figure 4 Safety factors and new framework for safetymanagement


51 Studied Object e case study was carried out at theWuhan section of the Wuhan-Shenzhen highway project(Figure 6) is highway is designed to have six lanes intwo ways with a roadbed width of 345m and a speed limitof 120 kmh Grand bridges are designed to be robustagainst three-hundred years of flooding and all otherbridges robust against one-hundred years of flooding econnecting lines follow the Class II road standard and havea speed limit of 60 kmh and a roadbed width of 12m eentire section is designed to withstand Level I vehicleloading It spans about 33 km and is subcontracted intofive project sites e engineering tasks mainly involvedworks on the roadbed bridge and protective devices efive project sites were similar in both natural environmentand engineering works and thus they were suitable for thecase study

52 Rating the Construction Site for EachAttribute e idealrating method should allow the safety auditors to evaluatethe attributes in an objective and straightforward mannerwhile minimizing the disparity between their evaluations ofthe same site at the same time [17] Based on two expertinterviews four possible rating options were designed

(i) Binary all attributes receive a mark of either zero orone

(ii) Continuous all attributes receive an arbitrary valuebetween zero and one

(iii) Binary with NA all attributes receive a mark ofzero or one or be marked as not applicable

(iv) Continuous with NA all attributes receive an ar-bitrary value between zero and one or be marked asnot applicable

(1) Binary

In this rating scheme ldquo0rdquo indicates negative and ldquo1rdquoindicates ldquopositiverdquo is is objective and straightforwardand thus is the most commonly used rating scheme

(2) Continuous

is rating scheme is normally applied to an attributethat is assessed based on a set of samples e score isobtained through dividing the number of samples that meeta certain criteria by the total number of samples evaluated

(3) NA

An attribute is marked NA only when it is irrelevant inthe context of the given construction project

After the attributes were marked scores were calculatedas follows

Score S1( 1113857 weight w1( 1113857 times rate r1( 1113857 (1)

where S1 is the score for Attribute 1 w1 is the relativenormalized weight of Attribute 1 and r1 is the auditorrsquosassessment of Attribute 1 for a specific construction site eattribute is the factor in the questionnaire

e final audited safety management score was thensummed as follows

CSIi 1113944n

j1wjrij (2)

where CSI is the total construction safety index of site i wj isthe weight of the jth attribute j 1 2 n and rij is therating of the jth attribute at the site i

Table 10 e Pairing and Banding scheme

Pairing Banding(1) All members of a working groupmust have a safety partnereassignment must be clearly understood and documented either inwriting or on a chart

(1) Set up bands across pairs and workgroups with sharedresponsibility on safety during work Two or more workers mustcoordinate during their task and ensure the safety of each other

(2) Before starting work the group leader should reaffirm or adjustthe pairing assignment based on the attendance of the day andother personnel changes In every task the workers must make surethe pairing scheme takes effect and fulfill their responsibility

(2) Partners should constantly alert each other during work(i) Remind the partner of unsafe behaviors and situations toprevent accidents from happening Maintain correspondencethrough calling and answering(ii) Mutual caring allocate tasks reasonably and help each otherduring work(iii) Mutual supervision make sure the partner strictly followsstandards on wearing protective equipments and adheres to safetyprocedures and regulations

(3) Partners should be paired in a complementary manner forexample the junior with the senior the old with the young themale with the female the strong with the less powerful the hastywith the calm and the bold with the diffident

(3)Whenever necessary remind workers other than the designatedpartner of unsafe behaviors and situations to prevent accidentsfrom happening Maintain correspondence through calling andanswering

Figure 6 e Wuhan-Shenzhen highway project


53 Measurements To determine how eective the proposedframework is in improving safety management the ve projectsites were divided into two intervention groups and threecontrol groups and observed for 48 weeks Workers in theintervention groups were given coaching sessions by themembers of the research team and the two experts audited thesafety management of all project sites every week For groups 1and 3 the baseline evaluations of their safety performance wereestablished over the initial 12 weeks Intervention lasted 26weeks for group 1 but only 23 weeks for group 3 because bythen the construction had nished Follow-up lasted 10 weeksSpecically the proposed management framework in thispaper was introduced in detail to the top managers of twointervention groups rstly and received their strong supportFurther the framework was delivered and implemented to allsta on the construction site by ways of supervision meetingand preconstruction clarication In accordance with theframework each manager and worker was given a clear re-sponsibility for safety management and when the safetymanager leaves the construction site for some reason a rela-tively more experienced temporary safety manager must beappointed to ensure that leadership is always ubiquitousMeanwhile within every construction team considering thegender age experience and skills of each worker and otherfactors each two workers were paired and bound according tothe complementary principle During the intervention theywere required to help and supervise each other in their worksand be accountable for each otherrsquos safety If one of them isrewarded or punished the other one receives the same rewardor punishment In contrast the control group maintains theoriginal safety management framework e two experts madesurprise visits to the sites every week without a predictableschedulee rst expert was responsible for auditing groups 1and 2 and the second expert for groups 3 4 and 5

54 Safety Outcomes from Trial Audits Figure 7 shows theratings of the ve projects sites before and after the

intervention In the three control groups (groups 2 4 and 5)there were no signicant changes and their CSI scoresremained fairly constant over the entire 48 weeks at anaverage of 058 061 and 062 For the intervention group 1the CSI scores went from a baseline of 058 to 084 during theintervention and to 081 at follow-up For intervention group3 the CSI scores in the three stages were 062 088 and 079respectively For the two intervention groups CSI scoresincreased signicantly during follow-upmdashboth individually(391 and 284 increase) and when combined (338)erefore the proposed framework proved to evidentlystrengthen safety management at construction sites andsolve the ldquolast milerdquo problem

6 Conclusions and Future Work

In this work we reviewed and discussed the main factorsaecting construction safety from the macromeso- andmicrolevels We then dened the ldquolast milerdquo problemSubsequently the human factor was identied to be theleverage point of construction safety management based ona questionnaire survey and statistical analysis which helps todeepen the understanding of the accident rules on con-struction sites in China Further we proposed a newframework that requires ubiquitous presence of leaders at alltimes and puts workers into pairs and bands to strengthensafetye proposed framework was tested in ve sections ofthe Wuhan-Shenzhen highway project and was found ef-fective in enhancing safety management and thus solving theldquolast milerdquo problem

Due to time and cost constraints the questionnairesurvey could not be conducted at a still larger scale Massivedata were obtained through one single survey to whichnumerous workers provided their responses during theirspare time working is workload made data collectionlaborious and expensive although it was indeed essential tosecure a reliable input dataset for the sound modeling andanalysis of safety performance In the future we plan to

04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48

Baseline Intervention Follow-up

(Weeks)

Group 1Group 2Group 3

Group 4Group 5

Figure 7 Safety evaluation records of two intervention and three control project sites


adopt automatic data acquisition based on the on-line GroupDecision System (GDS) to collect related data from in-ternational subjects and then analyze the difference in safetycultures and practices across countries and among con-struction enterprises around the globe

Conflicts of Interest

e authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest

Acknowledgments

e project was financed by the National Key RampD Programof China (2017YFC0805500) e authors thank the workersforemen and safety coordinators of the main contractors fortheir participation e authors also wish to thank EngineerPeilun Tu for assistance in gathering field data

References

[1] O A Jannadi and M S Bu-Khamsin ldquoSafety factors con-sidered by industrial contractors in Saudi Arabiardquo Buildingand Environment vol 37 no 5 pp 539ndash547 2002

[2] D Fang and H Wu ldquoDevelopment of a Safety Culture In-teraction (SCI) model for construction projectsrdquo Safety Sci-ence vol 57 pp 138ndash149 2013

[3] H Lee K-P Lee M Park Y Baek and S H Lee ldquoRFID-based real-time locating system for construction safetymanagementrdquo Journal of Computing in Civil Engineeringvol 26 no 3 pp 366ndash377 2012

[4] W Liu T Zhao W Zhou and J Tang ldquoSafety risk factors ofmetro tunnel construction in China an integrated study withEFA and SEMrdquo Safety Science vol 105 pp 98ndash113 2018

[5] L Ding L Zhang X Wu M J Skibniewski and Y QunzhouldquoSafety management in tunnel construction case study ofWuhan metro construction in Chinardquo Safety Science vol 62no 2 pp 8ndash15 2014

[6] R M Choudhry and D Fang ldquoWhy operatives engage inunsafe work behavior investigating factors on constructionsitesrdquo Safety Science vol 46 no 4 pp 566ndash584 2008

[7] Z Ismail S Doostdar and Z Harun ldquoFactors influencing theimplementation of a safety management system for con-struction sitesrdquo Safety Science vol 50 no 3 pp 418ndash423 2012

[8] Law of the Peoplersquos Republic of China on production safetyrdquoin Proceedings of the Standing Committee of the Ninth PeoplersquosCongress of the Peoplersquos Republic of China Beijing China June2002

[9] State Council of the Peoplersquos Republic of China e Ad-ministrative Regulations on the Work Safety of ConstructionProjects State Council of the Peoplersquos Republic of ChinaBeijing China 2004

[10] GBT 28001-2011 Occupational Health and Safety Manage-ment Systems-Requirements SAOT Beijing China 2012

[11] D Meadows ldquoPlaces to intervene in a systemrdquo Whole Earthvol 91 pp 78ndash84 1997

[12] L Wang B Nie and J Zhang ldquoStudy on coal mine macromeso and micro safety management systemrdquo Perspectives inScience vol 7 pp 266ndash271 2016

[13] T Niskanen K Louhelainen and M L Hirvonen ldquoA systemsthinking approach of occupational safety and health appliedin the micro- meso- and macro-levels a Finnish surveyrdquoSafety Science vol 82 pp 212ndash227 2016

[14] S Rowlinson Hong Kong ConstructionmdashSite Safety Man-agement Sweet amp Maxwell London UK 1997

[15] M Laberge and E Ledoux ldquoOccupational health and safetyissues affecting young workers a literature reviewrdquo Workvol 39 no 3 pp 215ndash232 2011

[16] D P Fang F Xie X Y Huang and H Li ldquoFactor analysis-based studies on construction workplace safety managementin Chinardquo International Journal of Project Managementvol 22 no 1 pp 43ndash49 2004

[17] E A L Teo and F Y Y Ling ldquoDeveloping amodel tomeasure theeffectiveness of safety management systems of construction sitesrdquoBuilding and Environment vol 41 no 11 pp 1584ndash1592 2006

[18] C M Tam and I W H Fung ldquoEffectiveness of safety man-agement strategies on safety performance in Hong KongrdquoConstruction Management and Economics vol 16 no 1pp 49ndash55 1998

[19] N A Kartam I Flood and P Koushki ldquoConstruction safetyin Kuwait issues procedures problems and recommenda-tionsrdquo Safety Science vol 36 no 3 pp 163ndash184 2000

[20] L Koskela An Exploration Towards a Production eory andits Application to Construction Vtt Publications EspooFinland 2000

[21] K C Terwel and S J T Jansen ldquoCritical factors for structuralsafety in the design and construction phaserdquo Journal of Per-formance of Constructed Facilities vol 29 no 3 p 0401406832015

[22] S Yule Senior Management Influence on Safety in the UK andUS Energy Sectors PhD thesis University of AberdeenAberdeen UK 2003

[23] R A Choudhry D Fang and S Mohamed ldquoe nature ofsafety culture a survey of the state-of-the-artrdquo Safety Sciencevol 45 no 10 pp 993ndash1012 2007

[24] T Chinda ldquoStructural equation modelling of result factors ofconstruction safety culturerdquo in Proceedings of the InternationalConference on Construction and Real Estate ManagementBrisbane Australia December 2010

[25] K R Molenaar J Park and S Washington ldquoFramework formeasuring corporate safety culture and its impact on con-struction safety performancerdquo Journal of Construction Engi-neering and Management vol 135 no 6 pp 488ndash496 2009

[26] D P Gilkey C L D Puerto T Keefe et al ldquoComparativeanalysis of safety culture perceptions among homesafemanagers and workers in residential constructionrdquo Journal ofConstruction Engineering and Management vol 138 no 9pp 1044ndash1052 2012

[27] D Zohar ldquoSafety climate in industrial organizations theo-retical and applied implicationsrdquo Journal of Applied Psy-chology vol 65 no 1 pp 96ndash102 1980

[28] M A Griffin and A Neal ldquoPerceptions of safety at worka framework for linking safety climate to safety performanceknowledge and motivationrdquo Journal of Occupational HealthPsychology vol 5 no 3 pp 347ndash358 2000

[29] S Mohamed ldquoSafety climate in construction site environ-mentsrdquo Journal of Construction Engineering and Manage-ment vol 128 no 5 pp 375ndash384 2002

[30] M D Cooper and R A Phillips ldquoExploratory analysis of thesafety climate and safety behavior relationshiprdquo Journal ofSafety Research vol 35 no 5 pp 497ndash512 2004

[31] D Zohar ldquoirty years of safety climate research reflectionsand future directionsrdquo Accident Analysis and Preventionvol 42 no 5 pp 1517ndash1522 2010

[32] P Kinesa J Lappalainen K L Mikkelsen et al ldquoNordic safetyclimate questionnaire (NOSACQ-50) a new tool for diagnosing


occupational safety climaterdquo International Journal of IndustrialErgonomics vol 41 no 6 pp 634ndash646 2011

[33] D P Fang Y Chen and L Wong ldquoSafety climate in con-struction industry a case study in Hong Kongrdquo Journal ofConstruction Engineering and Management vol 132 no 6pp 573ndash584 2006

[34] S Lin W-J Tang J-Y Miao Z-M Wang and P-X WangldquoSafety climate measurement at workplace in China a validityand reliability assessmentrdquo Safety Science vol 46 no 7pp 1037ndash1046 2008

[35] R M Choudhry D Fang and H Lingard ldquoMeasuring safetyclimate of a construction companyrdquo Journal of ConstructionEngineering and Management vol 135 no 9 pp 890ndash8992009

[36] B B Stoilkovska V Z Pancovska and G Mijoski ldquoRe-lationship of safety climate perceptions and job satisfactionamong employees in the construction industry the moder-ating role of agerdquo International Journal of Occupational Safetyand Ergonomics vol 21 no 4 pp 440ndash447 2015

[37] P C Liao G Lei J W Xue et al ldquoInfluence of person-organizational fit on construction safety climaterdquo Journal ofManagement in Engineering vol 31 no 4 p 04014049 2013

[38] X Wu Q Liu L Zhang M J Skibniewski and Y WangldquoProspective safety performance evaluation on constructionsitesrdquo Accident Analysis amp Prevention vol 78 pp 58ndash722015

[39] D A Wiegmann H Zhang T von aden G Sharma andA Mitchell ldquoA synthesis of safety culture and safety climateresearchrdquo Tech Rep ARL-02ndash03FAA-02-2 University ofIllinois at UrbanandashChampaign Champaign IL USA 2002

[40] M Martinez-Corcoles F Gracia I Tomas and J M PeiroldquoLeadership and employeesrsquo perceived safety behaviors ina nuclear power plant a structural equation modelrdquo SafetyScience vol 49 no 8-9 pp 1118ndash1129 2011

[41] R Flin K Mearns P Orsquoconnor and R Bryden ldquoMeasuringsafety climate identifying the common featuresrdquo SafetyScience vol 34 no 1ndash3 pp 177ndash192 2000

[42] S Mohamed T H Ali and W Y V Tam ldquoNational cultureand safe work behaviour of construction workers in PakistanrdquoSafety Science vol 47 no 1 pp 29ndash35 2009

[43] Q Zhou D Fang and X Wang ldquoA method to identifystrategies for the improvement of human safety behavior byconsidering safety climate and personal experiencerdquo SafetyScience vol 46 no 10 pp 1406ndash1419 2008

[44] T A Saurin and L B de Macedo Guimaraes ldquoErgonomicassessment of suspended scaffoldsrdquo International Journal ofIndustrial ergonomics vol 38 no 2 pp 238ndash246 2008

[45] L Zheng H Xiang X Song and Z Wang ldquoNonfatal un-intentional injuries and related factors among male con-struction workers in central Chinardquo American Journal ofIndustrial Medicine vol 53 no 6 pp 588ndash595 2010

[46] B Jitwasinkul and B H W Hadikusumo ldquoIdentification ofimportant organisational factors influencing safety workbehaviours in construction projectsrdquo Journal of Civil Engi-neering and Management vol 17 no 4 pp 520ndash528 2011

[47] M Leung Y Chan and K Yuen ldquoImpacts of stressors andstress on the injury incidents of construction workers in HongKongrdquo Journal of Construction Engineering and Managementvol 136 no 10 pp 1093ndash1103 2010

[48] Y H Hung T S Jackson and W Winchester ldquoUse of at-titude congruence to identify safety interventions for smallresidential buildersrdquo Construction Management and Eco-nomics vol 29 no 2 pp 113ndash130 2011

[49] S Chi S Han and D Y Kim ldquoRelationship between unsafeworking conditions and workersrsquo behavior and impact ofworking conditions on injury severity in US constructionindustryrdquo Journal of Construction Engineering and Manage-ment vol 139 no 7 pp 826ndash838 2013

[50] B M Mattila and M Hyttinen ldquoEffective supervisory be-havior and safety at the building siterdquo International Journal ofIndustrial Ergonomics vol 13 no 2 pp 85ndash93 2010

[51] E Teo F Ling and A Chong ldquoFramework for projectmanagers tomanage construction safetyrdquo International Journalof Project Management vol 23 no 4 pp 329ndash341 2005

[52] C Lu and K Shang ldquoAn empirical investigation of safetyclimate in container terminal operatorsrdquo Journal of SafetyResearch vol 36 no 3 pp 297ndash308 2005

[53] J Wang and H Yuan ldquoFactors affecting contractorsrsquo riskattitudes in construction projects case study from ChinardquoInternational Journal of Project Management vol 29 no 2pp 209ndash219 2011

[54] J F Hair Multivariate Data Analysis with Readings Mac-millan New York NY USA 1987

[55] J O Kim and C W Mueller Factor Analysis StatisticalMethods and Practical Issues Sage Pub Inc ousand OaksCA USA 1978

[56] E Jorgensen R K Sokas L Nickels W Gao andJ L Gittleman ldquoAn EnglishSpanish safety climate scale forconstruction workersrdquo American Journal of Industrial Med-icine vol 50 no 6 pp 438ndash442 2007

[57] M N Vinodkumar and M Bhasi ldquoSafety climate factors andits relationship with accidents and personal attributes in thechemical industryrdquo Safety Science vol 47 no 5 pp 659ndash6672009


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decades (Figure 1)is unveils some persisting issues despitethe encouraging decline in the number of accidents We seethis as a typical ldquolast milerdquo problem and ascribe it to the gapbetween the actual safety practice on site and the existing lawsregulations standards and systems of safety managementSpecically safety management and supervision systems havebeen well devised at all levels from the government toconstruction companies and further down to project groupsHowever without a mechanism for self-adjustment in eachproject the constantly changing situations on site as well ashuman error can prevent the externally designed safetymanagement systems from working Accidents result fromoperations violating safety rules that are carried out to dealwith an unexpected and temporary concern Here we nd theldquolast milerdquo problemmdashthe failure to implement extensive legaland regulatory systems on construction sites

To overcome this problem and improve the constructionsafety management performance we intend to nd the le-verage points of safety management implementation de-ned as ldquoplaces within a complex system (a corporation aneconomy a living body a city and an ecosystem) where a smallshift in one thing can produce big changes in everythingrdquo [11]Further the corresponding prevention and control measuresare designed to work on these leverage points thus bridging thelast milee remainder of the paper is organized as follows inSection 2 we provide an extensive literature review on con-struction safety measures in several countries and we introducea theoretical framework with possible inuencing factorsSection 3 presents our methodology including the design andresponse of our questionnaire Section 4 analyzes the safetymanagement at construction sites identies the main chal-lenges and discusses the leverage points Section 5 presentsa case study that adopted the recommendations derived fromthe leverage points and the subsequent improvement in projectsafety Conclusions are drawn in Section 6

2 Literature Review

Factors that inuence safety management at constructionsites have been previously categorized into macromeso-and microlevels corresponding to sectorcountry factorsorganizational factors and human factors respectively [12]A similar classication [13] was applied to aggregate vari-ables in the system of Occupational Safety and Health(OSH) In this work we adopt an eventual division of factorsinto macromeso- and microlevels

21 Macrolevel Factors In any developed country safety isa crucial issue in the construction industry Safety legislationand policies have been developed around the globe over thepast decades (Table 1 for selected examples) having a greatimpact on the construction site safety ese legislationsregulate and control health and safety on the macrolevel [14]

Furthermore national safety management systems havebeen devised and adopted in many countries on the basis ofappropriate standard practices Depending on the specicrequirements these systems dier among countries withregard to the factors considered For example Wokutch andVanSandt extracted 8 key factors as the main frameworksof OHS management in the United States [15] Fang et aldiscussed empirical research done on workplace safety man-agement performance on construction sites in China Elevenfactors that correlate closely with onsite safety managementperformance were identied to establish national safety man-agement systems [16] Teo and Ling discussed the safetymanagement system (SMS) which had been applied to theconstruction industry for about 10 years in Singapore thoughthe improvement in safety standard is not signicant Inresponse to the need to improve the eectiveness of the SMSand SMS audit they divided 14 main safety management el-ements in SMS [17] Ismail et al compared the safety man-agement system (SMS) adopted by various countries aroundthe world and then identied the factors inuencing theimplementation of a safety management system for con-struction sites in Malaysia [7] By reviewing and summarizingthe research results of dierent scholars on the composition oftheir own SMS system Table 2 provides a summary of themacrolevel safety factors included in the safety managementsystems [14ndash20]

22Mesolevel Factors Construction companies have diversesafety cultures safety climates working conditions andhabits [21] ese company factors reside on the mesolevele Post-Accident Review Meeting on the Chernobyl Acci-dent by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA 1986)for the rst time established the term ldquosafety culturerdquo in-cluding it in INSAGrsquos Summary Report Safety culture involvesthe values beliefs and attitudes shared within a group [22]Choudhry et al [23] reviewed safety culture examined itsdenition empirical evidence and theoretical developmentand proposed how to systematically analyze safety culturee analysis recognized elements in the organizational sit-uational technical and human aspects as well as interactionsbetween these elements Chinda [24] delved deeper into the

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Number of deathsNumber of accidents

Years 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015Deaths 1193 1041 1012 989 802 772 738 624 670 648 554Accidents 1015 882 859 814 684 627 589 487 524 522 442

0

Figure 1 e number of accidents and deaths in the constructionindustry in China (2005ndash2015)















Singapore





China



Project

























5 experts)












1 Literature review















41ndash50gt51


34

Age

202 5

39

Working experience

197

244396

163

lt11ndash5

5ndash10gt10

Education

1 5

19

28

47

PrimaryMiddleHigh

CollegeMaster

Position

3345

243

382


First-linemanagers

Averageworkers


























df 561p 0000








ItemComponent


2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor






2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562












































5 Case Study


Project manager

Chie

f

Prod

uctio

n

Busin

ess

Logi

stic

s

Surv

ey d

ivisi

on

Test

divi

sion

Tech

nica

l

Engi

neer

ing

Mat

eria

l

Equi

pmen

t

Con

trac

t

Exec

utiv

e

Fina

nce





Envi

ronm

ent f

acto

r

Equi

pmen

t fac

tor

Hum

an fa

ctor

Man

agem

ent f

acto

r

Tech

nica

l fac

tor










(1) Binary


(2) Continuous


(3) NA






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04

06

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1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

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1 Literature review















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ItemComponent


2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor






2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562












































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04

06

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(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia






















5 experts)












1 Literature review















41ndash50gt51


34

Age

202 5

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244396

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Education

1 5

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df 561p 0000








ItemComponent


2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor






2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562












































5 Case Study


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04

06

08

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0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia














41ndash50gt51


34

Age

202 5

39

Working experience

197

244396

163

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Education

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df 561p 0000








ItemComponent


2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor






2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562












































5 Case Study


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04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia

























df 561p 0000








ItemComponent


2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor






2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562












































5 Case Study


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04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia








ItemComponent


2 081 0095 0098 minus0012 0071 0099 0254

32986 Human factor






2864 34 043 0259 0093 minus0049 0129 minus0103 063328 0227 038 004 0266 0075 0405 0562












































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04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia












































5 Case Study


Project manager

Chie

f

Prod

uctio

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04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia








(1) Binary


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CSIi 1113944n

j1wjrij (2)

















04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia








04

06

08

1

0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 39 42 45 48


(Weeks)


Group 4Group 5






Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia





Acknowledgments


References































































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia































RoboticsJournal of




VLSI Design



Shock and Vibration







Journal of



Volume 2018



Volume 2018


Journal of




SensorsJournal of



RotatingMachinery





Propagation






Hindawi


Advances in

Multimedia


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