Search results

Safety performance indicators are a major research concern globally in the construction sector, so this study aims to systematically analyse construction safety performance indicators from some top research publications from 2000 to 2019.

Systematic review was performed using Scopus search engine and relevant publications were compiled. Visual and far reaching search in all publications were performed. Final analysis was done to evaluate selected attributes.

The outcome of the analysis showed growing interest in research on construction safety performance indicators since 2000. From the review, 48 safety performance indicators are identified from 41 selected publications. The most reported safety performance indicators were safety climate, safety orientation, management commitment to safety, near-miss and job site audits. It was noted further that USA, Australia, Canada and China have been international locations of attention for most research on construction safety performance indicators. The 48 safety indicators are classified into six categories, namely people indicators, culture indicators, processes indicators, infrastructure indicators, metrics indicators and technology indicators

The findings identified provide researchers and practitioners a summary of the safety indicators in the construction sector through a vision to streamline future applications and increase the safety performance in the construction sector.

A safety performance indicators' list has been established for the adoption of future empirical research. The findings will make a significant contribution to current but limited knowledge on safety performance indicators in construction industry.

Since its introduction in 1992, the balanced scorecard (BSC) has rapidly gained in importance throughout the world. Harvard Business Review even selected it as one of the most important management tools of the past 75 years. This paper takes the performance indicators used in an offshore health‐and‐safety benchmarking study carried out by Aberdeen University on 13 offshore installations operating on the UK Continental Shelf and relates them to the BSC framework. The results from the benchmarking study are discussed from the perspective of suggesting which indicators should populate each perspective of the BSC: financial, customer, internal business and learning and growth. In addition the paper includes the results of interviews conducted with senior managers in the UK and Norwegian oil and gas sector, about use of the BSC in general and with regard to health and safety performance indicators in particular. Reasons for including occupational health and safety in the BSC and reports/papers covering occupational health and safety indicators and the BSC are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a practical framework to measure the safety performance of workers in the Indian construction industry. The key safety performance indicators are identified and ordered on the premise that the higher order assignment of an indicator implies a strong indication of an effective safety performance.

Various indicators of safety performance in the construction industry were identified from extant literature review combined with author's personal viewpoint. The identified variables were inquired for appropriateness for the Indian construction scenario by consultation with experts. Fuzzy Technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) technique was considered for the ranking of the indicators from most to least important.

The most important highlight of the study was the importance of the role of management by participating in informing workers about the safety rules and compliance toward safety measures. Proper and timely safety training to the workers and equipping them with sophisticated safety equipment for daily activities is perceived to be highly important in ensuring a safe and healthy workplace environment. Controlling the absenteeism rate reduces the burden of extra work on the employees, thereby, encouraging safe work-related behavior.

Senior management should make safety induction programs compulsory at the time of joining of the employees. The guidelines for safety practices, rules and information about the safety equipment should be properly documented and arranged in safety manuals. Periodical drills involving visual demonstration of the safety practices should be followed to ensure safety at workplace.

This study proposes a straightforward set of performance measurements for industrialized nations. The aims of this paper are twofold. First, the paper explores the notion of ranking nations based on food safety performances, beyond benchmarking. The paper appraises how a global comparative analysis could contribute to best practices and continuance improvement in food safety. Second, this paper presents an experiment in which a group of regulators took part in a workshop held in Helsinki, Finland in the Fall 2011.

A session was held in October 2011 in Helsinki, and many countries were invited. A total of 17 countries were represented. The following countries were represented: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA. The session was designed to be informative, interactive and flexibly tailored to the delegates' needs and experience. It was also designed to raise awareness and understanding of benchmarking and supra-national ranking systems, what it is and how it can be applied using practical examples from healthcare and across other sectors.

The session also introduced the principles of process thinking and illustrated how process benchmarking can be a useful tool for continuance improvement. The session then built upon the theory presented in the introductory portion by focusing specifically on the essence of ranking indicators. In this session, delegates spent time familiarizing themselves with indicators provided by the University of Guelph, discussing how they might implement it within their individual nations and across the trust as a whole.

The collection of primary data was also debated at the session. Public trust, for example, could easily be an indicator which could be included. Measurement of public trust in food safety might be important for governments. It could provide them with information on the performance of the food safety systems from a consumers' perspective. To be an effective indicator of performance the measurement of public trust in food safety should be liable to change. Therefore, changes in performance of the food safety systems have to be reflected through the measurement of public trust in food safety.

The Helsinki session is believed to be the first international meeting in which benchmarking metrics were discussed in order to rank countries based on food safety risk practices. Ranking programs in food safety remain controversial. Most particularly, risk assessors and the public service remain skeptical about their effectiveness. The Helsinki meeting was not met to alleviate the skepticism around ranking systems, but it did allow many to better appreciate several perspectives from around the world.

This paper seeks to examine a hierarchical measurement model for occupational health and safety (OHS) performance developed for use in the Australian construction industry and tested over the life of one case study construction project. The model was intended to provide a more sensitive and informative measure of project OHS performance than traditional injury frequency rates.

Two measurement tools were tested. The tools, a monthly weighted safety index and a quarterly safety climate survey, were used to measure OHS performance and performance data are presented.

The data suggest convergent validity, indicated by consistent results between the two measures. Results also indicated that a combination of measurement techniques provides more comprehensive data pertaining to project OHS performance and enables the diagnosis of OHS issues that would be undetected with reliance exclusively on traditional measures, such as lost time injury frequency rates.

The implications for future research lie in the demonstrated need to carefully evaluate the validity of the safety index and safety climate survey in future construction projects, and in the broader construction context. The results were limited to an evaluation of the measurement model in a single case study construction project and future testing is needed to determine the generalisability of the model.

The implications for practice are that multiple measures of OHS performance, including leading indicators and surveys of workers' attitudes and perceptions of project OHS, provide a more useful basis for the development of targeted OHS improvement strategies.

The paper develops a theoretical framework for the measurement of OHS using positive performance indicators and safety climate surveys. The evidence for convergent validity suggests that, in combination with traditional lost time injury rates, these measures provide a more robust method for the early detection and rectification of OHS issues in construction projects.

Two case studies in health and safety management identified key performance indicators that reflected a company’s overall performance obtained from a full benchmarking audit. An intra‐company benchmarking audit, comparing operational health and safety management performance was completed within 12 semi‐autonomous subsidiaries of a large national food manufacturer. A significant (r = 0.985) positive relationship was obtained between ten operational performance indicators and overall performance. The key factors were found to have a common theme relating to employer‐employee openness in communication on health and safety issues. An inter‐company benchmarking audit comparing strategic health and safety management performance was completed within eight companies in the small, multi‐site retail sector. A significant (r = 0.988) positive relationship was obtained between ten strategic performance indicators and overall performance. The key factors did not have a common theme but there was evidence that integration of health and safety management into long‐term business decision making was a strong factor.

The purpose of this paper is to present a critical review of the use of safety performance indicators in the construction industry. The authors consider the strengths, limitations and managerial consequences associated with commonly used indicators.

The authors combine two separate data sets in this critical review. These include 32 semi-structured interviews with construction industry representatives involved in the collection and reporting of safety indicators, as well as a multi-level safety climate survey that was conducted at 12 construction sites across Australia.

The analysis provides new evidence that, in their current use, commonly used H&S indicators are subject to manipulation and misinterpretation. Their usefulness as tools to support safety management activities in construction projects and organisations needs to be understood in the context of their limitations. In particular, safety indicators do not reflect the full set of factors that affect workplace safety and there will always be disagreement about what should be counted and how.

As a result of the substantial shortcomings of safety indicators, great care needs to be taken when using them to determine or evaluate organisational safety policy and practices.

This study aims to quantify the multifaceted relationship between lean implementation and occupational health and safety (OHS) performance. Hypotheses based on a set of antecedents (mediating factors) are built and quantitatively tested.

Data were collected through an international survey with responses from more than 20 countries. Partial least square-based structural equation modeling was used to test a theoretical framework derived from literature. Leading indicators (formative indices) were used to evaluate the four antecedents of OHS performance (mediating factors).

All the identified antecedents show a significant mediating role. Antecedents related to the working environment and organizational factors have the strongest mediating effect. Results support the importance of using OHS leading indicators to appropriately measure the impact of lean implementation on workers’ health and safety.

The proposed OHS leading indicators connecting lean practices to OHS performance antecedents are only explored in this study. Therefore, to establish a comprehensive, validated and practically usable set of leading indicators, further research is needed.

As there are some synergistic and trade-off relationships between lean and safety, the findings of this study will enable managers and organizations to leverage the positive effects of lean implementation on workers’ health and safety and mitigate the negative effects.

Several prior studies investigated the multifaceted link between lean and OHS; however, this is the first study that tested direct and mediated influence by defining a coherent set of antecedents. The results justify and strongly support the adoption of OHS leading indicators to measure the impact of lean implementation on OHS performance.

Despite the efforts of organizations to improve safety performance, shortfalls of the strategies have been reported in numerous studies around the globe. However, previous studies in countries with more organized construction sectors show that adopting a resilient safety culture by organizations has a tendency of improving safety performance. As safety culture is dynamic which differs with geographical context, the purpose of this paper is to achieve two objectives: testing the causal relationship between safety performance and resilience safety culture in the Nigerian construction environment; and determining the key components for ensuring the resilience of construction organizations with regards to safety.

Quantitative research approach was used. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire. The population of the study comprises small and medium construction organizations predominantly across the Northern region in the Nigerian built environment. A total of 180 questionnaires were distributed to construction managers and safety managers in respective organizations to serve as respondents to the study. Partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the relationship between safety performance and resilience safety culture. While principal component analysis was used determining the key components for ensuring the resilience of construction organizations with regards to safety.

Findings of this study revealed that resilient safety culture has a significantly strong positive relationship with safety performance. Safety hazard recognition and effective safety response attitude were identified as the key components for guaranteeing a resilient safety culture.

With a view to achieve a consistently high safety performance, organizations have to acknowledge and anticipate unexpected hazardous events and provide the necessary safety resources to manage them. Furthermore, there is also the need to create awareness on recognized safety concerns on safety hazards, coupled with a dynamic risk response attitude to ensure consistent improvement in safety performance.

This study presents an alternative to the slow and reactive safety culture of the Nigerian built environment. This study builds on existing literature, and the findings explore the potential impact of adopting a resilient safety culture in construction organizations in Nigeria. This study provided further insights into key factors organizations need to focus on to ensure resilient nature. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no prior study in this regard was conducted in Nigeria despite its apparent need.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of research and development in the measurement of maintenance performance. It considers the problems of various measuring parameters and comments on the lack of structure in and references for the measurement of maintenance performance. The main focus is to determine how value can be created for organizations by measuring maintenance performance, examining such maintenance strategies as condition‐based maintenance, reliability‐centred maintenance, e‐maintenance, etc. In other words, the objectives are to find frameworks or models that can be used to evaluate different maintenance strategies and determine the value of these frameworks for an organization.

A state‐of‐the‐art literature review has been carried out to answer the following two research questions. First, what approaches and techniques are used for maintenance performance measurement (MPM) and which MPM techniques are optimal for evaluating maintenance strategies? Second, in general, how can MPM create value for organizations and, more specifically, which system of measurement is best for which maintenance strategy?

The body of knowledge on maintenance performance is both quantitatively and qualitatively based. Quantitative approaches include economic and technical ratios, value‐based and balanced scorecards, system audits, composite formulations, and statistical and partial maintenance productivity indices. Qualitative approaches include human factors, amongst other aspects. Qualitatively based approaches are adopted because of the inherent limitations of effectively measuring a complex function such as maintenance through quantitative models. Maintenance decision makers often come to the best conclusion using heuristics, backed up by qualitative assessment, supported by quantitative measures. Both maintenance performance perspectives are included in this overview.

A comprehensive review of maintenance performance metrics is offered, aiming to give, in a condensed form, an extensive introduction to MPM and a presentation of the state of the art in this field.