UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS RIO GRANDE VALLEY
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE
CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
CIVE 4349: Construction Planning and
Management
Safety in Construction
Instructor: Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Raheem
Courtesy of : Dr. Ahmed Khalafallah
SAFETY: WHY?
Why is safety so important?
• Insurance Premiums (Public liability, property damage,
and equipment insurance rates)
– Premium = f (Industry Rate, Experience Modifier Rate (EMR))
– EMR has strong impact upon a business.
– It is a number used by insurance companies to gauge both past
cost of injuries and future chances of risk.
– The lower the EMR of your business, the lower your worker
compensation insurance premiums will be.
– An EMR of 1.0 is considered the industry average.
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SAFETY: WHY?
Why is safety so important?
• Insurance Premiums (Public liability, property damage,
and equipment insurance rates)
– Premium = f (Industry Rate, Experience Modifier Rate (EMR))
• Time lost
– Workers
– Supervisory & Mgmt time (reporting, investigating, responding to
accidents)
• Equipment Repairs
• Fines
• Workers Compensation Claims
• Legal Costs
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Construction Safety and Health
• Construction workforce represents 5% of
U.S. workforce.
• However,
– Accounts for 20% of work fatalities!
– 12 % disabling injuries !
Construction is one of the most dangerous
jobs in the US
Construction Safety and Health
• Most serious accidents involve:
• Falls from heights
• Construction equipment operations
• Collapse of temporary structure or structure
under construction
• Trench and embankment failure
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Construction Safety and Health
• OSHA safety regulations are considered to
be the minimum federal safety standards
PART 1926—SAFETY AND HEALTH
REGULATIONS FOR CONSTRUCTION
• Under OSHA regulations employers are
required to keep records of work-related
deaths, injuries and, illnesses.
Think Safety
Is Safety really second nature?
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What Is Wrong with
This Picture?
What Is Wrong with
This Picture?
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What Is Wrong with This Picture?
Employee
safety is our
company’s 1st
priority!
What Is Wrong with
This Picture?
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What Is Wrong with
This Picture?
• This picture was
published in a
newspaper showing
that the worker is
wearing all the
correct Safety Gear.
• Rather than being
best practice, it
displays two of the
most dangerous work
practices in
construction:
• Working on a
suspended load, and
• Working at height
without fall protection.
What Is Wrong with This Picture?
800 ft high, London, UK
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What Is Wrong with This Picture?
• Personal
protective
equipment
(safety
glasses,
full-face
shields, or
hard hats.)
• Pedestrian
safety
(Signs,
physical
barricade )
• Noise, air
and
chemical
Brooklyn, NY hazards
What Is Wrong with This Picture?
Guardrails protecting edges Rigging: The safety latch is
broken on this hook. The
must have full enclosure. hook should be repaired
or removed from service
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What Is Wrong with This Picture?
This worker is attached to a Scaffolds should never
guardrail post that will not be set on bricks, masonry
support 5,000 lbs. If he fell, the blocks, etc. These are not
post would likely bend over and structural elements and
could snap. He would have a could crush under the
swing fall. scaffold load.
What Is Wrong with This Picture?
This trench is out of Cutting Concrete: This
compliance and unsafe. worker needs a proper
particulate respirator
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The Safety Challenge
To create conditions that encourage
people to work safely because they
want to Let’s do
it!!
not because they have to
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Safety isn’t a sometimes thing, it is an
all the time thing…
What Management Wants
• An Accident Free Workplace
• Empowered Employees
• Pro-active Rather Than Re-active Work
Process
• To Minimize Direct and Indirect Costs and
Threat of Liability From Accidents
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What Employees Want
• A Safe Workplace
• A Positive Workplace
• To Take Care of One Another
Are Accidents Expensive ??!
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TOTAL COST OF LOST TIME INJURIES
AND OCCUPATIONAL DEATHS
Total Costs USA = $121,000,000,000
Wage and
Productivity Loss
$60.2 Billion $19 Billion
Medical Expenses
Administrative Costs
Associated Injuries &
Injury Reporting
Other Costs
$25.6 Billion
$11.3 Billion
$5 Billion
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Why Safety Programs Do Not
Work?
• Safety is not an option. It is a
priority!
• Safety cannot be managed in the
same manner as time, cost, or
quality!
• Safety is not driven through
continuous improvement! 26
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Core Elements in Successful
Safety Programs
• Culture that says “Safety is
important around here”
• Intervention: A tight
accountability system
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Only 4 Types of Consequences:
• Positive Reinforcement (R+)
("Do this & you'll be rewarded")
• Negative Reinforcement (R-)
("Do this or else you'll be penalized")
Behavior
• Punishment (P)
("If you do this, you'll be penalized")
• Extinction (E)
("Ignore it and it'll go away")
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Traditional Hierarchy of Safety
Interventions
1. Attempts to eliminate the hazard
2. Reduce the impacts of the hazard
3. Guarding or warning employees about the
hazard
4. Training employees to deal safely with the
hazard
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If Safety Interventions are Effective
You Should See:
• % of safe behaviors increasing
• % at-risk behaviors decreasing
• Both the number of observations and level of
participation increasing
• Frequency & severity of injuries decreasing
• Employees more Comfortable Reporting of near
misses / hits increasing
• Increasing acceptance of responsibility and
accountability for personal behavior
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Training is the Key
Effective Training
Steps of an Effective Training Program
1. Identify Who needs Training!
2. Determine WHAT training is needed!
3. Identify Goals & Objectives
4. Design Learning Activities
5. Conduct the Training
6. Evaluate Program Effectiveness
7. Improve the Program
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Summary
• Accountability must be present
• Management commitment must be visible
• “Paper” safety programs are not acceptable
Why Do We Need to Change?
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll
get what you always got!”
W. Edwards Deming
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