Irrespective of all the efforts made by the Department of Labour (DoL) and other relevant stakeholders to improve the performance of Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) in construction. In the Construction Industry, there is still a very high level of accidents and fatalities in South Africa. Injuries and accidents to workers do not help a community in any nation. The construction industry in South Africa is generally known to be one of the most hazardous and has one of the most dismal OH&S records among all industrial segments with an unacceptably high level of injuries and fatalities resulting in considerable human suffering. A doctoral study was recently conducted with the aim of investigating the effectiveness and performance of the DoL OH&S Inspectorate in South Africa. The empirical study was conducted among a range of stakeholders: civil engineering and building contractors; OH&S consultants; project managers; DoL inspectors; and designers by means of a questionnaire survey. The methodology adopted in this study included the exploratory and descriptive methods, which entails the technique of observation including the use of questionnaires and data analysis. The salient findings of the study are presented and elucidate that the DoL OH&S Inspectorate is not effective in terms of OH&S relative to the construction industry in South Africa. Conclusions and recommendations included expound that the DoL OH&S Inspectorate is not effectively conducting their duties reinforcing the need for a reviewed OH&S Inspectorate model framework. The proposed structured normative model consists of fundamental elements which would improve the effectiveness of the DoL OH&S Inspectorate. The findings of the study with recommendations are included.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xvii, 247 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-195).

Risks are present in every aspect of business. As one of the biggest industries worldwide, the construction industry is plagued with risks. Being such a large industry, there are hundreds of contracts signed every day. These contracts range from new construction, refurbishment to maintenance. Some projects are simple and worth few thousands of dollars where others are complex and may cost hundreds of millions. Irrespective of how simple or complex the project is, all projects are exposed to risk and can go wrong (Edwards and Bowen, 2005). Construction is governed by complicated contracts and involves complex relationships in several tiers (Abdou, 1996). According to Sawczuk (1996) as soon as the employer and the contractor have signed a contract they have taken on board risks. Their awareness of the risk and the steps to be taken to manage their share of the risk, will determine the likelihood of problems occurring. Construction projects have an abundance of risk, contractors cope with it and owners pay for it. The construction industry is subject to more risk than any other industries. Taking a project from initial investment appraisal to completion and into use is a complex and time-consuming design and construction process. It requires a multitude of people with different skills and a great deal of effort to co-ordinate a wide ranges of disparate, yet interrelated, activities. Inevitably, this complex process is compounded by many unexpected events that may cause loss to the client and other involved parties (Shen, 1999; Flanagan and Norman, 1993). According to Carter et al. (1997) the construction industry is facing a more challenging environment than any time in the past. Client expectations have grown higher and they call for better quality and service. Smith (1998) highlighted that for years the South African building industry had a very poor reputation in managing construction risks. These risks could be prevented or reduced if management takes action at early stages ofthe project life cycle. In order to overcome these limitations and improve the image of the South African construction industry, this research aims to develop an innovative framework to enable construction contractors to identify, quantify and classify the risks associated with the Joint Building Contracts Committee (JBCC) Principal Building Agreement (PBA). This will help making decisions on informed bases. In addition, it will enable contractors develop particular course of actions to mitigate the effects ofthese risks. The research methodology designed to achieve this aim consisted of literature review, questionnaire and interview. Firstly, the literature review was used to review risk management in construction, construction contracts, Risks are present in every aspect of business. As one of the biggest industries worldwide, the construction industry is plagued with risks. Being such a large industry, there are hundreds of contracts signed every day. These contracts range from new construction, refurbishment to maintenance. Some projects are simple and worth few thousands of dollars where others are complex and may cost hundreds of millions. Irrespective of how simple or complex the project is, all projects are exposed to risk and can go wrong (Edwards and Bowen, 2005). Construction is governed by complicated contracts and involves complex relationships in several tiers (Abdou, 1996). According to Sawczuk (1996) as soon as the employer and the contractor have signed a contract they have taken on board risks. Their awareness of the risk and the steps to be taken to manage their share of the risk, will determine the likelihood of problems occurring. Construction projects have an abundance of risk, contractors cope with it and owners pay for it. The construction industry is subject to more risk than any other industries. Taking a project from initial investment appraisal to completion and into use is a complex and time-consuming design and construction process. It requires a multitude of people with different skills and a great deal of effort to co-ordinate a wide ranges of disparate, yet interrelated, activities. Inevitably, this complex process is compounded by many unexpected events that may cause loss to the client and other involved parties (Shen, 1999; Flanagan and Norman, 1993). According to Carter et al. (1997) the construction industry is facing a more challenging environment than any time in the past. Client expectations have grown higher and they call for better quality and service. Smith (1998) highlighted that for years the South African building industry had a very poor reputation in managing construction risks. These risks could be prevented or reduced if management takes action at early stages ofthe project life cycle. In order to overcome these limitations and improve the image of the South African construction industry, this research aims to develop an innovative framework to enable construction contractors to identify, quantify and classify the risks associated with the Joint Building Contracts Committee (JBCC) Principal Building Agreement (PBA). This will help making decisions on informed bases. In addition, it will enable contractors develop particular course of actions to mitigate the effects ofthese risks. The research methodology designed to achieve this aim consisted of literature review, questionnaire and interview. Firstly, the literature review was used to review risk management in construction, construction contracts, / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008.

Construction remains the most hazardous industry in the United States in terms of the aggregate number of fatalities. Twenty percent of all occupational related fatalities occur in construction; approximately three construction workers die per calendar day. Moreover, this trend has been prevalent for too long. One method to reduce this trend is to involve architects and design engineers in considering construction safety during the design process. The concept of designing for construction safety is a viable intervention to improve worker safety. However, in the United States many barriers (legal, contractual, regulatory) exist that prevent this intervention from becoming part of a standard practice within the construction industry. Four-hundred and fifty construction accidents from two databases were analyzed and a link to the design for construction safety concept was determined. An objective investigation model was developed to make these determinations. A significant link between the concept of designing for construction safety and construction fatalities and disabling injuries was established. Specific construction project parameters linked to the concept of designing for construction safety include the minimization of risk due to falls through and from roofs, skylights and structural steel construction; and the minimization of risk due of contact with electric and other utilities. It is recommended that the concept of designing for construction safety be considered by regulatory agencies, insurance companies, and the United States' construction industry as one intervention of a comprehensive safety agenda to reduce the disproportionate number of fatalities and disabling injuries. / Graduation date: 2005

The construction industry remains a pillar in the South African economy, generating employment and wealth. Nonetheless, the industry is reportedly bedevilled by a high rate of accidents and serious injuries that often lead to permanent deformation and fatalities among workers and the general public. These accidents and injuries manifest due to poor construction health and safety (H&S) performance that is often related to poor H&S leadership of the key project leaders involved in the construction business. Shortcomings pertain to client leadership in terms of involvement and commitment to H&S and project H&S related decisions of professionals (designers, project managers, quantity surveyors and engineers). They also pertain to contractor related aspects such as H&S management systems and leadership at all levels of management. In addition, contractors’ inadequacies of H&S management relative to workplace planning and materials related issues have continued to marginalise H&S performance in construction. The H&S leadership of key project leaders is very important in creating a culture of H&S in the workplace. This study examined the H&S management practices and leadership of the key project leaders that contribute to at-risk work practices or unsafe behaviour of workers. Presently, there is limited or no research in South African construction on how the H&S leadership of the key project leaders contributes to at-risk work practices or unsafe behaviour of workers. The methodology employed in the study included an extensive review of relevant literature, which enabled the field work to proceed unhindered. The quantitative survey and qualitative inquiry was conducted with the key construction participants in South African construction. Focus group discussions and interviews were used in a complementary manner. Accordingly, the sampling technique for the study comprised simple random and purposive sampling. The study revealed apparent poor leadership and lack of involvement and commitment to workers’ H&S by the key project leaders. Notably, there is statistical evidence of poor H&S management practices among contractors in terms of top management commitment to and involvement in project H&S. This statistical evidence includes poor H&S education and training of workers and lack of workers’ involvement and participation in H&S matters, which is the tenet of behaviour-based H&S anagement. The model of leadership influence on worker H&S behaviour developed in this research constitutes an innovative contribution to construction H&S performance improvement through a leadership-focused approach. The study has established a basic level of awareness and understanding among key project leaders in that their upstream decisions during the project planning and construction phases have significant influence on workers’ safe or unsafe behaviour or at-risk work practices. The study strongly advocates transparent leadership, ethical behaviour among clients in public and private sectors, designers’ critical H&S decisions, project managers’ and quantity surveyors’ commitment towards project H&S and contractors’ adoption and implementation of behaviour-based H&S management systems. The developed leadership influence model of worker H&S behaviour in the study provides a useful guide for the key project leaders to realise the desired H&S performance improvement in the South African construction industry.

D.Phil. (Engineering Management) / The construction industry has been recognised internationally as one of the most dangerous industries in which to work, with the statistics often explained in terms of the industry’s inherently hazardous nature. In Botswana a total of 281 fatalities were reported to government agencies, mainly recorded in the high-risk sectors over the period of 2000-2004. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role played by key stakeholders in the health and safety (H&S) performance of the Botswana construction industry and to evaluate their level of H&S commitment and implementation. The aim was to determine how clients, designers and contractors can successfully contribute to H&S performance. Five objectives were identified in this research study. The first was to examine the role of key stakeholders in minimising H&S accidents and incidents in the overall H&S performance of the construction industry of Botswana. The second was to establish whether relevant health and safety planning measures contribute to health and safety performance of the construction industry in Botswana. Thirdly, it was to investigate the extent to which the existing legislative framework is relevant to health and safety performance in the construction industry. The fourth was to determine health and safety commitment levels of clients, designers and contractors’ top management in the construction industry of Botswana. The final objective was to design a multi-stakeholder consultative framework that would address H&S from inception to implementation of the construction project. These objectives were achieved through a research design which included a literature review, methods used and procedures developed to administer the questionnaires, data-collection and analysis through various statistical methods. These included descriptive statistics and nonparametric inferential statistics. The results are then presented in statistical format, tables and graphs. While the literature review revealed that construction industry H&S in developed nations is driven by legislation and regulations, the analysis indicated that there is neither statutory obligation nor the desire on the part of designers and the clients to consider H&S...

This thesis sets out research carried out to investigate the usefulness of a descriptive database of construction methods for safety assessment. In addition, it investigates the possibility of utilising construction images as sources of safety related information. / The construction industry has been recognized as a hazardous work environment with a high accident rate for years, hence, site safety is a problem. Nowadays, the use of construction images in the form of photographs is commonplace and they are used as sources of information. The literature review reveals that they have never been used as sources of information concerning construction safety practice. / A preliminary investigation is conducted to study the possibility of utilizing construction images as sources of safety related information. The findings revealed that it is possible to use construction images as sources of information for construction safety assessment however, there were problems related to image interpretation and dissimilar safety judgment. It was assumed that those problems were arising from lack of safety knowledge and experiences, also no safety assessment method existed that could be used when using images as sources of information. / To overcome problem related to the existence of safety assessment method, the research developed a method to assess safety by using information observed from images. As a similar safety judgment would be obtained from a same guideline therefore, a safety guideline was established, including safety checklist and safety scores. To give meaning of sets of safety score, two methods of conditional probability approach from Artificial Intelligence that quantitatively deal with uncertainty, the Bayes’ Theorem and the Fuzzy Logic Theory, were employed. The Bayes’ Theorem formula was adopted for calculating a likelihood of a hypothesis being true based on evidence or P(H/E). The hypothesis used in this research that a safe construction practice being used. The evidence used to test this hypothesis is information collected from construction images. This method allows construction practices shown in the images to be defined as having a high level of safety or low level of safety. / The construction practices with low level of safety do not need to analysed further. Fuzzy logic theory can then be used for further classifying those images identified as having a high level of safety into one of three classifications: “most likely safe”, “fairly safe” or “most likely unsafe”. / To overcome problem related to lack of safety knowledge and safety experience, one method of reasoning based on reuse past experience was employed, called the Case- Based Reasoning (CBR). The CBR method will allow safety information stored in database to be reused for reasoning process to give safety scores. As CBR works based on stored information from database therefore an image database has to be developed. / Following works (or researches) have been done to overcome problems revealed from preliminary investigation therefore those works have to organize in a structured and systematic system. The research was developed a safety assessment system called SAFE AS. / The safety assessment system worked in two processes, manual calculation and information storage into database. Manual calculation worked as follows: First, a construction practice judgment is given based on image data, safety checklist and using safety scores provided. Secondly, a construction practice is defined into one of two definitions provided: a high-level and a low-level of safety based on Bayes’ Theorem formula and given safety scores. Third, a high-level of safety of construction practice is classified into one of three classifications: most likely safe, fairly safe and most likely unsafe, which are developed, based on fuzzy sets formula. Following manual calculation process, the result from the process then become an input for the second process: information storage. All information of images and their safety practices are stored in an image database. These two processes are done separately and manually. / Problem is arising from manual safety assessment system, that the processes are time-consuming. To overcome this problem, even to make a safety assessment system practically more benefit, the system is developed in a Web-based system, which allows safety assessment process and information storage process done comprehensively and automatically. All users can share their safety knowledge and experiences, and reuse stored experience as a basis of reasoning process from anywhere. / As a result, the research has developed a Web-based safety assessment system to show how to utilize construction images to assess safe construction practice, store information from assessment process, and reuse this information for safety knowledge enhancement. Two experiments using 69 images and a set of detailed images have confirmed the application of a Web-based safety assessment system and verified its reliability. / Another benefit from the safety assessment system is the safety likelihood scores obtained, which can be used to detect safety trends that are developing in construction project over time. These trends were used to predict the likely safety of the construction practices in use on the project in future so it can be used as indicators to monitor and control safety in construction projects. With this process construction images can be used as sources of safety related information and the safety assessment system can be used in future for predicting, monitoring and controlling of on-site safety. / Areas needing future research are suggested, including providing advance search features in the assessment system to retrieve closer relevant cases for case-based reasoning and automated hazard recognition and identification feature to avoid accident occurrence as the result of human carelessness.

Thesis (MTech (Construction Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2010 / The construction industry adopts various methods to bring about the required structure. Typically, in every construction project, health and safety of workers will remain a major concern on site due to accidents, fatalities and illnesses which occur regularly. Despite these incidents raising a concern, construction site activities still involve workers in manual handling of heavy material and repetitive body movements which constitute ergonomic problems; The purpose ofthis study is to investigate the potential impacts of prefabrication and pre-assembly on the health and safety of construction workers. The objectives of this study were (l) to examine the health and safety hazards associated with traditional construction methods in South Africa; (2) to investigate the merits of prefabrication and pre-assembly in terms of their impact on overall health and safety improvements when compared with traditional construction methods; and (3) to investigate how construction clients perceive the use of prefabrication and pre-assembly as alternative construction methods that positively impact the overall health and safety of construction workers on site. Literature pertaining to the content of this research was extensively reviewed. An exploratory study was undertaken to examine the merits of prefabrication and pre-assembly in reducing ergonomic challenges associated with traditional construction methods, where construction workers were observed and interviewed. A self-administered questionnaire survey was used for construction clients, designers and contractors. The study revealed that 80% of clients in the sample reported that they preferred traditional construction methods instead of prefabrication. It was also found that clients selected prefabrication and preassembly for other reasons which were not associated with particular improvements ofhealth and safety in construction project. The study found that labour intensive methods also commonly known as traditional construction methods exposed workers to physically demanding activities that posed risks to their health and safety. Reportedly, 76% of workers experienced pain in their waist areas, 70% had pain in their shonlder and 66% had back problems while they were involved in traditional construction. Workers sometimes had to handle heavy material manually, worked at heights and experienced noise caused by heavy construction equipment. However, a case study focused on bricklaying activities and prefabrication insulation wall fixing revealed that prefabrication reduced the exposures of workers to both ergonomic challenges and ergonomic problems. The findings also suggest that traditional construction methods were more hazardous than ones involving prefabrication. Further research is needed to determine whether the use of other forms of prefabricated and preassembled components would reduce ergonomic and health and safety hazards associated with traditional construction methods.

D.Phil. / Health and safety (H&S) is still a problem in the construction industry. Both locally in Southern Africa and internationally, the construction industry continues to lag behind other industries in terms of H&S performance. As a result, there has been a considerable amount of research and interest on H&S performance improvement. However, there seems to be little research of note focusing on the role and contribution of construction clients to H&S performance improvement. This research project investigated and modelled H&S performance on the role and contribution of clients to H&S. The primary aim of the research was to model how improved H&S performance could be achieved if clients and/or owners were involved. Literature was reviewed on the status of H&S performance in the construction industry, the significance of the industry and on the current trends in H&S performance improvement. Empirical data was collected through a Delphi study and through a field questionnaire survey. Analysis of results from the Delphi study was done with Microsoft Excel to output descriptive statistics. These descriptive statistics informed on whether the experts had reached consensus. Analysis of results from the field questionnaire was done with EQS version 6.1 and MPlus version 6.0. Both of these are structural equation modelling software. A conceptual client centred H&S performance improvement model was based on the theory developed from literature review findings and the Delphi study. The questionnaire survey was conducted for the purpose of validating the conceptual model. The questionnaire survey was conducted in Gaborone, Botswana and Johannesburg, South Africa. Respondents were asked to report on current construction projects that they were part of as a professional. Respondents were asked to indicate their assessment of client H&S culture, contractor, designer and project H&S performance. Results from the investigation pertained to three broad areas. The first results related to theory on H&S performance and performance improvement. Findings were that H&S performance improvement was unlikely if H&S culture was not improved. Further findings were that clients could provide the needed impetus to improve H&S performance.

Mankind, and the development of people, exists due to risk-taking behaviour. It is not that humans should not take risks, but rather the ability to identify the magnitude of risk exposure in order that mankind‟s actions would be so selected as to mitigate exposed risk factors, that no harm should befall them. The approach to health and safety (H&S) has always been to manage H&S environmental factors that could have a negative impact on people, capital, and organisational systems. However, the critical component of human risk-taking behaviour that would have a far greater impact has rarely been acknowledged as part of the drivers that increase risk exposure. Human behaviour is a major contributing factor in accident causation. Although human error cannot be completely eliminated, it should be identified and correctly managed according to each individual‟s risk-taking profile. The reason people decide to take certain risks under certain conditions and the effect it has on H&S management systems is a key component to managing organisational risk exposure. To quantify the value of individual risk-taking behaviour could provide management with better opportunities of lowering the organisational risk exposure. Human risk-taking behaviour is influenced by each individual‟s perception of risk. Such perception of risk will influence decisions on risk-taking behaviour, which in turn is influenced by the individual‟s psychological profile and environmental factors, including character and the impact of a cultural environment. The electrical construction and maintenance industry differs from other similar industries in that the physical entity of electricity requires not only sensory perception for the identification and evaluation of risk factors, but also requires specialised knowledge and testing equipment to evaluate the parameters of electrical installation, plant or equipment. Without such competence, direct exposure to most electrical installations could be fatal. The optimum human resource (HR) solution for managing the risk potential of high risk-taking behaviour is the rating and allocation of specific job tasks that can match and limit the individual potential for risk-taking behaviour and the impact on organisational incident statistics. Maintaining and optimising employee job performance enables organisations to better achieve pre-set goals and missions. Such improvements being a catalyst for better job performance by setting limitations on high risk-taking behaviour, that will improve H&S performance by lowering incident rates.