Safety considerations during the design process in construction industry

Abstract

Construction industry plays an important role in improvement of any country’s economy. Despite the contributions to economy, there are many accidents and fatalities happening in construction industry. The intention of this research is to address workers’ safety in the design stage prior to commencement of construction activities. To achieve the aim of this research construction site hazards are identified through previous literatures, interview and distributing questionnaires among safety officers, safety supervisors and project managers. The seriousness of construction hazards and level of effect of design factors on construction hazards are determined. Data collected through questionnaires have been analyzed using SPSS software and MS Excel. The reliability of data was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha (a) value; frequency rate, Mean value and Relative Importance Index (RII) are used for analyzing data. The results indicate that serious construction site hazards originate from process of work, manual handling of operations and equipment; however these hazards can be extremely affected through factors in the design stage such as training and educating designers on construction safety and choice of construction methods and materials.