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1 – 10 of 744Samin Mahdavian, Ming Lu and Estacio Pereira
Previous research regarding shaping factors and major causes behind accidents in the construction field is reviewed. In particular, a hypothetical model is established to…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research regarding shaping factors and major causes behind accidents in the construction field is reviewed. In particular, a hypothetical model is established to correlate activity time, cost and safety in the context of construction activity acceleration planning. Two demonstration cases are presented to illustrate the proposed theoretical model in the context of critical activity expedition planning. Further, a third case uses a 100-activity project to perform the global level total project time and cost analysis, identifying specific activity acceleration plans that would materialize the shortened total project time at the lowest total project cost.
Design/methodology/approach
This research proposes a safety-centric application framework to guide construction acceleration planning at both activity and project levels while taking sufficient preventive measures against safety hazards and accidents. As planning construction acceleration by factoring in safety constraints inevitably drives up cost, it is imperative to control increases in activity costs at the local level in connection with schedule acceleration planning while at the same time not compromising on safety. This research also addresses this critical question through performing global level total project time and cost analysis.
Findings
An application framework is proposed for guiding a planner through identifying accident shaping factors, obeying schedule acceleration rules and accounting for safety-related costs in attempts to mitigate hazardous situations on-site at both activity level (local) and project level (global), resulting in (1) minimizing the increase of total project cost in schedule acceleration while at the same time not compromising on safety at individual activities; (2) producing specific execution plans on each individual activity in terms of the amount of time to crash and the associated activity cost.
Originality/value
This study is original in developing theories and methods for evaluating the impact of safety constraints upon construction time and cost in activity acceleration planning and project time-cost analysis. The research fills a gap in knowledge in terms of how to factor in sufficient safety constraints while achieving project time and cost objectives on construction acceleration planning at both activity and project levels.
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Zehui Bu, Jicai Liu and Xiaoxue Zhang
Subway systems are highly susceptible to external disturbances from emergencies, triggering a series of consequences such as the paralysis of the internal network transportation…
Abstract
Purpose
Subway systems are highly susceptible to external disturbances from emergencies, triggering a series of consequences such as the paralysis of the internal network transportation functions, causing significant economic and safety losses to cities. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the factors affecting the resilience of the subway system to reduce the impact of disaster incidents.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the interval type-2 fuzzy linguistic term set and the K-medoids clustering algorithm, this paper improves the Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method to construct a subway resilience factor analysis model for emergencies. Through comparative analysis, this study confirms the superior performance of the proposed approach in enhancing the precision of the DEMATEL method.
Findings
The results indicate that the operation and management level of emergency command organizations is the key resilience factors of subway operations in China. Furthermore, based on real case analyses, the corresponding suggestions and measures are put forward to improve the overall operation resilience level of the subway.
Originality/value
This paper identifies four emergency scenarios and 15 resilience factors affecting subway operations through literature review and expert consultation. The improved fuzzy DEMATEL method is applied to explore the levels of influence and causal mechanisms among the resilience factors of the subway system under the four emergency scenarios.
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Kerim Koc, Ömer Ekmekcioğlu and Asli Pelin Gurgun
Central to the entire discipline of construction safety management is the concept of construction accidents. Although distinctive progress has been made in safety management…
Abstract
Purpose
Central to the entire discipline of construction safety management is the concept of construction accidents. Although distinctive progress has been made in safety management applications over the last decades, construction industry still accounts for a considerable percentage of all workplace fatalities across the world. This study aims to predict occupational accident outcomes based on national data using machine learning (ML) methods coupled with several resampling strategies.
Design/methodology/approach
Occupational accident dataset recorded in Turkey was collected. To deal with the class imbalance issue between the number of nonfatal and fatal accidents, the dataset was pre-processed with random under-sampling (RUS), random over-sampling (ROS) and synthetic minority over-sampling technique (SMOTE). In addition, random forest (RF), Naïve Bayes (NB), K-Nearest neighbor (KNN) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) were employed as ML methods to predict accident outcomes.
Findings
The results highlighted that the RF outperformed other methods when the dataset was preprocessed with RUS. The permutation importance results obtained through the RF exhibited that the number of past accidents in the company, worker's age, material used, number of workers in the company, accident year, and time of the accident were the most significant attributes.
Practical implications
The proposed framework can be used in construction sites on a monthly-basis to detect workers who have a high probability to experience fatal accidents, which can be a valuable decision-making input for safety professionals to reduce the number of fatal accidents.
Social implications
Practitioners and occupational health and safety (OHS) departments of construction firms can focus on the most important attributes identified by analysis results to enhance the workers' quality of life and well-being.
Originality/value
The literature on accident outcome predictions is limited in terms of dealing with imbalanced dataset through integrated resampling techniques and ML methods in the construction safety domain. A novel utilization plan was proposed and enhanced by the analysis results.
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Wenjing Wu, Caifeng Wen, Qi Yuan, Qiulan Chen and Yunzhong Cao
Learning from safety accidents and sharing safety knowledge has become an important part of accident prevention and improving construction safety management. Considering the…
Abstract
Purpose
Learning from safety accidents and sharing safety knowledge has become an important part of accident prevention and improving construction safety management. Considering the difficulty of reusing unstructured data in the construction industry, the knowledge in it is difficult to be used directly for safety analysis. The purpose of this paper is to explore the construction of construction safety knowledge representation model and safety accident graph through deep learning methods, extract construction safety knowledge entities through BERT-BiLSTM-CRF model and propose a data management model of data–knowledge–services.
Design/methodology/approach
The ontology model of knowledge representation of construction safety accidents is constructed by integrating entity relation and logic evolution. Then, the database of safety incidents in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry is established based on the collected construction safety incident reports and related dispute cases. The construction method of construction safety accident knowledge graph is studied, and the precision of BERT-BiLSTM-CRF algorithm in information extraction is verified through comparative experiments. Finally, a safety accident report is used as an example to construct the AEC domain construction safety accident knowledge graph (AEC-KG), which provides visual query knowledge service and verifies the operability of knowledge management.
Findings
The experimental results show that the combined BERT-BiLSTM-CRF algorithm has a precision of 84.52%, a recall of 92.35%, and an F1 value of 88.26% in named entity recognition from the AEC domain database. The construction safety knowledge representation model and safety incident knowledge graph realize knowledge visualization.
Originality/value
The proposed framework provides a new knowledge management approach to improve the safety management of practitioners and also enriches the application scenarios of knowledge graph. On the one hand, it innovatively proposes a data application method and knowledge management method of safety accident report that integrates entity relationship and matter evolution logic. On the other hand, the legal adjudication dimension is innovatively added to the knowledge graph in the construction safety field as the basis for the postincident disposal measures of safety accidents, which provides reference for safety managers' decision-making in all aspects.
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Yuebin Zhang, Xin Yi, Shuangshuang Li and Hui Qiu
This study aims to reduce the construction safety accidents of prefabricated building (PB) projects, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of safety supervision by government…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reduce the construction safety accidents of prefabricated building (PB) projects, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of safety supervision by government departments, and provide theoretical reference for improving the safety supervision system of PB construction.
Design/methodology/approach
Considering the information asymmetry between government supervision departments and construction contractors and the interactive relationship between the two parties under bounded rationality, we propose an evolutionary game model for the construction safety dynamic supervision of PBs and analyze the evolutionary strategy of the game. The system dynamics (SD) method is used to simulate and analyze the evolutionary game process under a dynamic supervision strategy and the adjustment of external variables.
Findings
The cost difference between the government's strong and weak supervision, the construction contractor's additional expenditure for strengthening safety management, and other factors affect system stability. The government can dynamically adjust the penalties based on the construction contractor's subjective willingness to ignore safety management and further adjust their rate of change based on the completion of the supervision goals to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of construction safety supervision.
Originality/value
This study makes contributions in two areas. Through a combination of SD and an evolutionary game, it provides new insights into the strategic choice of the main body related to PB construction safety. Additionally, considering the nonlinear characteristics of construction safety supervision, it provides useful universal suggestions for PB construction safety.
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Ling Jiang, Tingsheng Zhao, Chuxuan Feng and Wei Zhang
This research is aimed at predicting tower crane accident phases with incomplete data.
Abstract
Purpose
This research is aimed at predicting tower crane accident phases with incomplete data.
Design/methodology/approach
The tower crane accidents are collected for prediction model training. Random forest (RF) is used to conduct prediction. When there are missing values in the new inputs, they should be filled in advance. Nevertheless, it is difficult to collect complete data on construction site. Thus, the authors use multiple imputation (MI) method to improve RF. Finally the prediction model is applied to a case study.
Findings
The results show that multiple imputation RF (MIRF) can effectively predict tower crane accident when the data are incomplete. This research provides the importance rank of tower crane safety factors. The critical factors should be focused on site, because the missing data affect the prediction results seriously. Also the value of critical factors influences the safety of tower crane.
Practical implication
This research promotes the application of machine learning methods for accident prediction in actual projects. According to the onsite data, the authors can predict the accident phase of tower crane. The results can be used for tower crane accident prevention.
Originality/value
Previous studies have seldom predicted tower crane accidents, especially the phase of accident. This research uses tower crane data collected on site to predict the phase of the tower crane accident. The incomplete data collection is considered in this research according to the actual situation.
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Bianca Amici and Maria Luisa Farnese
Weick and Sutcliffe identified five principles that enable high-reliability organizations (HROs) to address environmental complexity and manage unexpected events. The current…
Abstract
Purpose
Weick and Sutcliffe identified five principles that enable high-reliability organizations (HROs) to address environmental complexity and manage unexpected events. The current study aims to adopt this sensemaking perspective to analyze accidents within a typical HRO sector, namely maritime transport.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a retrospective case study analysis, this study focused on seven oil tanker accidents, using them as illustrative examples.
Findings
Findings show how the five principles contributed to the accidents' occurrence, explaining how failures in sensemaking affected the crew's capability to both prevent errors and cope with their consequences, thus leading to disasters.
Research limitations/implications
Overall, the study offers an applicative contribution showing how this model may provide a reliable framework for analyzing the psychosocial factors affecting an accident. This approach deepens the understanding of how latent factors are enacted and how the prevention and error management phases interrelate within a comprehensive flow of the entire accident sequence. Furthermore, the study emphasizes consistent patterns that emerge across multiple accidents within the same sector, in order to learn valuable lessons to improve safety measures in the future.
Originality/value
This study constitutes an exemplary application in support of how Weick and Sutcliffe’s model is valuable for investigating HROs. It offers a second-order interpretative framework to understand accidents and underscores the interplay among these factors during the dynamic development of an accident.
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This study aims to improve the reliability of emergency safety barriers by using the subjective safety analysis based on evidential reasoning theory in order to develop on a…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to improve the reliability of emergency safety barriers by using the subjective safety analysis based on evidential reasoning theory in order to develop on a framework for optimizing the reliability of emergency safety barriers.
Design/methodology/approach
The emergency event tree analysis is combined with an interval type-2 fuzzy-set and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. In order to the quantitative data is not available, this study based on interval type2 fuzzy set theory, trapezoidal fuzzy numbers describe the expert's imprecise uncertainty about the fuzzy failure probability of emergency safety barriers related to the liquefied petroleum gas storage prevent. Fuzzy fault tree analysis and fuzzy ordered weighted average aggregation are used to address uncertainties in emergency safety barrier reliability assessment. In addition, a critical analysis and some corrective actions are suggested to identify weak points in emergency safety barriers. Therefore, a framework decisions are proposed to optimize and improve safety barrier reliability. Decision-making in this framework uses evidential reasoning theory to identify corrective actions that can optimize reliability based on subjective safety analysis.
Findings
A real case study of a liquefied petroleum gas storage in Algeria is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. The results show that the proposed methodology provides the possibility to evaluate the values of the fuzzy failure probability of emergency safety barriers. In addition, the fuzzy failure probabilities using the fuzzy type-2 AHP method are the most reliable and accurate. As a result, the improved fault tree analysis can estimate uncertain expert opinion weights, identify and evaluate failure probability values for critical basic event. Therefore, suggestions for corrective measures to reduce the failure probability of the fire-fighting system are provided. The obtained results show that of the ten proposed corrective actions, the corrective action “use of periodic maintenance tests” prioritizes reliability, optimization and improvement of safety procedures.
Research limitations/implications
This study helps to determine the safest and most reliable corrective measures to improve the reliability of safety barriers. In addition, it also helps to protect people inside and outside the company from all kinds of major industrial accidents. Among the limitations of this study is that the cost of corrective actions is not taken into account.
Originality/value
Our contribution is to propose an integrated approach that uses interval type-2 fuzzy sets and AHP method and emergency event tree analysis to handle uncertainty in the failure probability assessment of emergency safety barriers. In addition, the integration of fault tree analysis and fuzzy ordered averaging aggregation helps to improve the reliability of the fire-fighting system and optimize the corrective actions that can improve the safety practices in liquefied petroleum gas storage tanks.
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Qianmai Luo, Chengshuang Sun, Ying Li, Zhenqiang Qi and Guozong Zhang
With increasing complexity of construction projects and new construction processes and methods are adopted, more safety hazards are emerging at construction sites, requiring the…
Abstract
Purpose
With increasing complexity of construction projects and new construction processes and methods are adopted, more safety hazards are emerging at construction sites, requiring the application of the modern risk management methods. As an emerging technology, digital twin has already made valuable contributions to safety risk management in many fields. Therefore, exploring the application of digital twin technology in construction safety risk management is of great significance. The purpose of this study is to explore the current research status and application potential of digital twin technology in construction safety risk management.
Design/methodology/approach
This study followed a four-stage literature processing approach as outlined in the systematic literature review procedure guidelines. It then combined the quantitative analysis tools and qualitative analysis methods to organize and summarize the current research status of digital twin technology in the field of construction safety risk management, analyze the application of digital twin technology in construction safety risk management and identify future research trends.
Findings
The research findings indicate that the application of digital twin technology in the field of construction safety risk management is still in its early stages. Based on the results of the literature analysis, this paper summarizes five aspects of digital twin technology's application in construction safety risk management: real-time monitoring and early warning, safety risk prediction and assessment, accident simulation and emergency response, safety risk management decision support and safety training and education. It also proposes future research trends based on the current research challenges.
Originality/value
This study provides valuable references for the extended application of digital twin technology and offers a new perspective and approach for modern construction safety risk management. It contributes to the enhancement of the theoretical framework for construction safety risk management and the improvement of on-site construction safety.
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Rajan Kumar Gangadhari, Vivek Khanzode, Shankar Murthy and Denis Dennehy
This paper aims to identify, prioritise and explore the relationships between the various barriers that are hindering the machine learning (ML) adaptation for analysing accident…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify, prioritise and explore the relationships between the various barriers that are hindering the machine learning (ML) adaptation for analysing accident data information in the Indian petroleum industry.
Design/methodology/approach
The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) is initially used to identify key barriers as reported in extant literature. The decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique is then used to discover the interrelationships between the barriers, which are then prioritised, based on three criteria (time, cost and relative importance) using complex proportional assessment (COPRAS) and multi-objective optimisation method by ratio analysis (MOORA). The Delphi method is used to obtain and analyse data from 10 petroleum experts who work at various petroleum facilities in India.
Findings
The findings provide practical insights for management and accident data analysts to use ML techniques when analysing large amounts of data. The analysis of barriers will help organisations focus resources on the most significant obstacles to overcome barriers to adopt ML as the primary tool for accident data analysis, which can save time, money and enable the exploration of valuable insights from the data.
Originality/value
This is the first study to use a hybrid three-phase methodology and consult with domain experts in the petroleum industry to rank and analyse the relationship between these barriers.
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