M. Tech. / Relative to other industries in South Africa and construction industries worldwide, the South African construction process generates a disproportionate number of fatalities, injuries and disease, the direct and indirect cost of which contribute to the cost of construction. Serious accidents and injuries resulting in personal injury and wrongful death occur with alarming frequency at construction sites in the U.K. The majority of accidents are not caused by careless workers but rather by failure to control. According to the Health and Safety Executive report published in 1988 out of the 90% of all construction accidents leading to death 70% could have been prevented by positive management actions and interventiion. Clients influence construction health and safety performance. Architects and design engineers often disavow responsibility for health and safety issues associated with the construction of their work. Arguably, this denial will only change if clients insist that construction health and safety is addressed on their projects. Health and safety begins with the attitude that accidents are preventable and that requirements for healthy and safe work practices must be followed. Health and safety should not be left solely under the control of the workers if injuries are to be curtailed or diminished, because the health and safety environment consists of many factors over which workers have little or no control. An underlying belief is that the majority of accidents are not caused by careless workers but by failure in controls. Although the best site management of health and safety cannot prevent all accidents, entities other than those actually performing the work do have an important role to play in enforcing proper safety standard measures : It is possible to prevent accidents from occurring. Success in health and safety has a great deal to do with people, especially those who will be responsible for ensuring that the project will be delivered safely. There is some evidence that the importance of health and safety is being realised by clients. Costs associated with worker injuries and fatalities are borne ultimately by the client and insisting that health and safety be included in design and construction considerations will prevent the occurrence of injuries and ultimately reduce the construction costs. Clients mostly set health and safety culture during the construction phase. Health and safety prequalification criteria to design approval post the design phase that shows that clients would prefer their involvement to be in specific phases. Clients do not realise that they can make significant contributions to improve health and safety performance during the early stages of a project. Clients who have to pay for construction work do not make specific cost provision for construction safety. Clients need to afford health and safety the same status as other project parameters. It is widely accepted that contractors should bear the responsibility for health and safety during the construction phase. The study found that clients regarded the construction and maintenance phases as the most important to address health and safety. Again clients do not realise the significance of placing health and safety importance in the initial phases of a project.

Purpose: As of today, the knowledge of lean production, and its development into the construction industry, lean construction, has been well described in most of the necessary aspects. In what way lean could affect the work environment in a construction project, be it good or bad, has to date not been thoroughly documented. In Sweden, lean has been mildly tested in the construction industry but the results concerning the effect it has on the work environment is yet to be found in the literature. Lean itself is a strategy for manufacturing processes. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge of lean itself and how it, theoretically, could affect the work environment at construction site. Method: To achieve the purpose, documents from the participating company concerning work environment has been analysed in order to visualize what routines the company currently follows. In addition to this, seven interviews were conducted with employees of the company. The persons participating in the interviews were asked about how well they think the work is organized on the construction site right now and furthermore about their thoughts of lean-concept that had been produced, based on the theoretical framework. Findings: Based on the theoretical framework and findings in the empirical data that has been collected, a lean-concept was developed and refined. The concept includes what routines and what documents that are vital when implicating lean in an effective way, and also what needs to be considered in order not to impede the work environment at the construction site. Implications: Implicating a well-structured lean-concept in the construction process of a project would, theoretically, most definitely improve effectiveness within the project. It could also improve the work environment of the project, considering the risk awareness and the easier waste-control that the concept could provide. However, it could also make it worse through the elimination of variance and monotonous work tasks that are needed to improve the effectiveness. Limitations: The most important limitations that the study has had is the fact of it only being a theoretical implication of a lean concept, not a practical case study of the sort. This is due to the defined and limited time that project has had. In addition, the study has also had to limit its’ research to the frame supplement phase of the construction project. This is because of the fact that the work with the theoretical framework and the empirical study would have been too overwhelming, had the study considered the entire production phase of a construction project.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka faktorer som påverkar adoptionen av drönare för säkerhetsskäl på byggarbetsplatser, och att fastställa hur dessa faktorer påverkar adopteringen. Detta bidrar till att teknologiskt modernisera byggbranschen samt fylla en lucka i befintlig litteratur om adoptionen av drönare för säkerhetsskäl. För att undersöka detta genomfördes elva semistrukturerade intervjuer med personer som representerade åtta olika företag av varierande storlek, alla aktiva i byggindustrin. Resultaten indikerar att de primära faktorer som påverkar adopteringen är 1) Kännedom, 2) Organisation, 3) Arbetarna, 4) Genomförbarhet och 5) Extern miljö. Alla dessa faktorer kan påverka adoptionen såväl positivt som negativt. Hur dessa faktorer påverkar adoptionen av drönare har också modellerats i det framtagna ramverket Drone Adoption Model (DAM). Adoptionsprocessen inleds med att Intresset sprids inom företaget. När intresset är etablerat görs en Genomförbarhetsbedömning. Beroende på resultatet från genomförbarhetsbedömning pilottestas tekniken, vilket sedan lägger grunden för Diffusionen. De olika faktorerna påverkar adoptionen i olika faser. Kännedom påverkar primärt adoptionen i Intressefasen. Faktorerna genomförbarhet och organisation påverkar adoptionen primärt i genomförbarhetsbedömningen. Slutligen påverkar faktorerna Arbetarna och Extern miljö genom hela processen. / The aim of this study is to explore, understand and elucidate the factors that influence the adoption of drones for safety purposes on outdoor construction sites, as well as to determine how these factors influence adoption. This contributes to the role of modern technologies in the construction industry as well as fill a gap in existing literature of drone adoption for safety purposes. In order to investigate this, eleven semi-structured interviews were conducted with people representing eight different companies of varying size, all active in the construction industry. The results indicate that the major factors influencing adoption are: 1) Awareness, 2) Organization, 3) Workers, 4) Feasibility and 5) External environment. All these factors could influence the adoption both positively and negatively. How the factors influence the adoption has been modelled in the proposed framework Drone Adoption Model (DAM). The adoption process starts with Interest being spread throughout the firm. Once an interest is established, a Feasibility assessment is conducted. Depending on the result from the feasibility assessment, the technology is Pilot tested, which then lays the foundation for the Diffusion. The different factors influence adoption in different phases. Awareness primarily influence adoption in the Interest phase, whereas the factors Feasibility and Organization influence adoption mainly in the Feasibility assessment. Lastly, the two factors external environment and workers influence the adoption throughout the whole process.

This thesis deals with the construction process of the apartment house Ponavia Park located in Brno. The thesis solves the individual realization phases of the main building phase. Building site equipment is designed for the projected construction process in three different variations. A technical report is also included in the building site. Critical points within the transport of materials and machines are also verified. A financial plan for the whole building is made as an summarizing time schedule for the apartment building. The sources for the financial plan are the figures taken from the Czech building objects classifications (JKSO). The summarizing time schedule is made in MS Projekt software and it’s designed as a Gantt diagram. A design of the main building machines and mechanisms was also made for the projected construction process. All of the machines were assessed for their respective required function on the building site. Also included in this thesis is a construction method for the reinforced concrete structures. The construction method deals with the realization process of waterproof concrete, reinforcement binding, formwork of the vertical and horizontal structures and also the process of concrete curing. The construction method is followed up by quality control and test plans for reinforced concrete structures, and a construction site safety plan that is made in the form of predicted main safety risks at the building site. For the noise load on the surrounding buildings a noise study is made. The study examines the intensity of noise in the protected outdoor space. This study was made in the Hluk+ software. The thesis also includes an item budget for the apartment house that was made in Build Power S software.