Breakout Session Summary Construction November 1-2, 2007
Overall Construction Trends Construction accounted for 1226 fatal work injuries, the most of any industry Construction had 4th highest industry fatality rate (10.8 per 100,000) Total (2006) represented a 3 percent increase over 2005 total Falls account for the greatest percentage of fatalities Fatality rates for contracted employees not under supervision of organization significantly higher than employees
Organizational Consistency With Trends Industry group findings not consistent with 2nd leading cause of fatalities – Transportation Industry group data not consistent with overall industry fatality rate (10.8) – variation between construction of building, heavy & civil, and specialty trade contractors (BLS data accuracy) Industry group downward recordable and lost time incident trends & no fatality trend changes consistent with BLS data
Most Significant Contributing Causes Language/cultural/educational barriers that results in workers not proficient with project requirements and associated rules Scheduling & work hours that conflict with safety requirements usually resulting in additional risks General & regulatory training that does not address project specific risks / hazards Inadequate fund allocation for safety resulting in management system deficiencies Monitoring for safety management system effectiveness (i.e. ANSI Z10) Litigation issues that prevent safety continuous improvement efforts – i.e. discoverable documents, terms & conditions
Most Significant Organizational Weaknesses Lack of senior management / owners understanding of safety and associated financial benefits (ROI) Unclear understanding of line management, safety & employee roles and responsibilities for safety (accountability) Employees do not have proper knowledge / skill-set, specifically assessing risks and implementing appropriate control measures
Solutions & Best Practices for Fatality Prevention Hazard Analysis Effectiveness for non-routine tasks Design in Safety during Engineering Pre-job/task Planning stages Contractor (including subcontractors) pre-qualification using predetermined scoring system and ongoing performance review Site-specific training for project risks Zero-tolerance for deviation to established safety requirements and continual owner-contractor assessments Incident investigation findings used for establishing causal factors and improvement in safety system Owner-led integration for safety during all construction stages
Areas of Future Research Design and development of effective and appropriate safety training & educational materials for diverse workforce Determine correlation between virtual reality simulators and construction safety performance