BEST PRACTICE FOR SAFER CONSTRUCTION

FROM DESIGNERS’ PERSPECTIVE

(CM-003)

Abdul Rahim Abdul Hamid1*, Bachan Singh1, and Tan Kin Liang1
1
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Johor Bahru, Malaysia
*e-mail of corresponding author: rahimfka@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
This paper presents the general overview on the designers about their perspective in order to have a safer
construction. Construction industry always has high rate of accidents. It is considered that many safety
hazards were “designed” into construction projects. Safety is evaluated from designer’s perspective to
come out with best practices in order to achieve safer construction. Awareness of designers about
construction safety and self-responsibility are also tested by conducting questionnaires survey, as well as
the safety practices being implemented to achieve construction safety. However there are several factors
that could significantly affect the adoption of safety practices such as motivation, knowledge on the
concept and etc. The level of significance of those factors will also be tested. This research identifies the
best practices to achieve safety in construction in relation to designers’ perspective, can be known.
Keywords: Safety and health, design, designer, construction, best practice.

1. INTRODUCTION
Construction industry is often linked up with the terms such as “accidents”, “hazards”, “high-risky” and etc.
Something that one cannot deny is in most countries construction industry generally takes up the most
percentage of industrial while the size of construction industry is relatively insignificant compared to others.
It is often considered by construction industry safety professionals that many safety hazards are “designed
into” construction projects (Gambatese, 2003). So it comes to the core of this research which the
construction safety comes into the topic. The construction safety will be evaluated from a designer’s
perspective, and so to come out with the ideal practices to be implemented in order to have a safer
construction on site. Basically it implies designing for construction safety, where it is more on preventing
the risks and hazards. By doing so, it significantly improves the safety and health of those who build it,
namely construction workers. The fact is the construction project design imposes prominent effect on both
the safety of project contractors as well as end users.
According to statistics, there is more than one accident happen in construction sites each ten seconds
around the globe, but yet construction industry comprises only a small percentage of overall workforces. It
is also stated that the construction takes up 17% of the work place deadly accidents. Studies have shown
that fairly large percentage of construction accidents could have been eliminated, reduced, or avoided by
implementing better practices in the design and planning stages of a project (Hecker, 2005). Tony
Baxendale et al. suggests that main task of designer is to cope with OHS issues by designing them out as
far as practicable. Gibb et al. (2004) report that a change in design phase would have reduced the risk of
injury.
The aim of this project is meant to identify the best (ideal) practices to be implemented in order to produce
safer constructions from a designer’s perspective. While the objectives are:
a) To determine designers awareness towards the importance of design to achieve safer construction.
b) To determine designers’ responsibilities as a key role to conduct safer construction.
c) To explore the implementation of safety design principle practices by designers.
This report comprises the studies targeting the group of construction designers (i.e. architects and civil
engineers) from the construction firms/organizations only in the area of Johore Bahru and Pulau Pinang,
Malaysia.

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2. BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Key Elements in Best Practices for Safety
It includes multi-level planning, communication, sharing information, monitoring, sharing stakeholders’
responsibility for safety, team building and mentoring, incentives, work-life balance, training and inductions,
measuring safety.
2.2. Duties of Designers
The duties are making sure that they are competent and adequately resourced to address the health and
safety issues likely to be involved in the design. They also have to check that clients are aware of their
duties. When carrying out design work, avoid foreseeable risks to those involved in the construction and
future use of the structure. In doing so, they should eliminate hazards (as far as is reasonably practicable,
taking account of other design considerations) and reduce risk associated with those hazards which
remain. They ought to provide adequate information about any significant risks associated with the design,
and coordinate their work with that of others in order to improve the way in which risks are managed and
controlled (Alves, 1999). Also they have to focus on the end-users and safety as well, promote design for
safety, visit site regularly, manage risk at design level, analyze the design continuously, identify and limit
risks, extend safety practices by incorporating safety aspects into designs and reviewing pre-tender design
risk assessments after tender.
2.3. Design for Safety in Construction
At the design stage of construction, safety by design appears to be critical to enhancing OHS performance.
Best practice in designing for safety also requires designers to retain a solid understanding of OHS and
incorporate this into their designs. In order to bring about this solid OHS knowledge, designer training
should be both competency- and experience-based. It should also encompass the following dimensions,
viz., theoretical safety knowledge, industry experience, and interstate or inter-country experience.
Structured review processes that facilitate interrogation of design are also critical to improving OHS. With
respect to design, coordination among designers and architects is also facilitated by means of design
administrator programs. Weinstein et al. (2005) observed that comprehensive safety review processes,
which include the owner of the project, design firm, general contractor and the numerous trade contractors
involved in the construction and operation of a particular project, effectively eliminate or mitigate OHS risk
during construction.
2.4. How Design Influences Safety
Designers can manipulate construction safety by making more proper alternatives in the design and
planning stages of a project (Behm, 2005). Statistic published by the European Foundation for the
Improvement of Living and Working Conditions concluded that 60% of fatal accidents in construction were
consequences due to decision made before the construction started. It is indeed a causal link between
design decisions and safe construction. According to Smallwood (1996), 50% of OHS issues are
attributable to inadequate design. In view of this, the concept of considering safety in the design phases of
construction (Gambatese 2003) is gaining momentum on a global scale (Behm 2005).

3. METHODOLOGY
The approach used is to conduct survey by questionnaires and literature reviews on journals, books and
online resources. The data collected will be on the duration of involvement of respondents in construction
industry, the factors that affect the implementation of safety concepts, the duties of designers and the
safety practices that they think that the implementation could help improving construction safety.
The questionnaire clearly denotes the level of agreement of the respondents and it is important to be in
ordinance scale from 1 to 5. The respondents have to choose from one of the ordinance scale according to
the understanding about such question. The said scale is composed based on Likert Scale of Five Ordinal
Measurement of Agreement.
The data collected from the questionnaires was analyzed using average indices and relative indices to rate
and rank the elements of data according to level of importance, level of significance and level of
agreement. Tables and charts are composed using the data primarily from within the results of
questionnaires. This method of data presentation is much more preferred among others, as it provides
easier understanding and clearer picture of information to be delivered.

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4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1. Respondents’ Duration of Involvement in Construction Industry
Among the 32 successive respondents, there are three (4) respondents with experience lesser than two
years, five (4) with three to five years, twelve (12) with six to ten years, and twelve (12) with more than ten
years. Figure 2 illustrates the percentage of respondents according to the duration of involvement in
construction industry.

 
Figure 2. Percentage of Respondents According to the Duration of Involvement in Construction Industry.

4.2. Awareness of Designers in Construction Safety

This part of analysis (Figure 3) will answer the first objective i.e. “to determine designers awareness
towards the importance of design to achieve safer construction”.

 
Figure 3. Result of Analysis on the Awareness of Designers in Construction Safety

4.3. Factors Affecting the Implementation of Safety Concept in Design

From the analysis, motivation is rated the most significant factor that could affect implementation of safety
concepts in design (Figure 4). It has the average index as high as 4.13. In order to have safety by design
to become an effective OHS strategy, designers must develop a high regard for safety and be motivated to
design for safety. And others are as shown in the Figure 5.

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Construction Management and Project Management

 
Figure 4. The Factors and Consequences In Relation to Implementation of the Design for Safety Concept

 
Figure 5. Results of Analysis on the Factors Affecting the Implementation of Safety Concept in Design

4.4. The Duties of Designer in Construction Safety

The data analysis results in Figure 6 are about the level of agreement of the designers on which duty
should be carried by them to achieve construction safety. This part would answer the second objective
which is “to determine designers’ responsibilities as a key role to conduct safer construction.

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Figure 6. Results of the Analysis on the Duties of Designers in Construction Safety

4.5. The Adoption of Safety Practices

Figure 7 was obtained by analysing data from questionnaires regarding the designers’ opinions whether
those practices could help improving construction safety. From the overall data analysis on Part D, The
overall average index is 3.858, which is satisfactory. This part would answer the third objective which is “to
explore the implementation of safety design principle practices by designers”.

 
Figure 7. Results of Analysis on the Adoption of Safety Practices by Designers.

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5. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the analysis of the result of this study, the objectives were accomplished and can be concluded
as follows:
1. Designers’ awareness in construction safety is satisfactory, they are well aware with the laws and
regulations, they understand about their responsibilities towards achieving safer construction, they
understand that design could affect safety, they do know that there are potential benefits designing for
safety, and they also consistently refer to Standard Code of Practice.
2. The responsibilities of designers in construction safety that they most agree are: coordinating with
other parties, providing sufficient risk information to others, exercising safety management over other
parties, eliminating hazards as far as practicable and eliminating risks during design with information
provided.
3. The safety practices that the designers most agree to adopt in order to achieve safer construction are:
including safety information in design documentation, being aware of the industry-specified
requirement, reviewing design to eliminate risks, evaluating effectiveness of design safety review,
considering constructability for the design, communicating the project safety risks with constructors,
recording effective design solution for future reference, developing safety plans, addressing safety in
tenders, including safety requirement in contracts, evaluating tenders against safety criteria, assessing
safety criteria of constructors and reviewing safety risk of design changes.

6. REFERENCES
[1] Alves Dias, LM (1999) “Construction Safety Coordination in Portugal”, in id. and RJ Coble (eds),
Proceedings of the Conference on Construction Safety Coordination in the European Union, CIB
Publication 238, CIB Working Commission W99. Lisbon: CIB, pg. 153–163.
[2] Behm, M. (2005). “Linking Construction Fatalities to the Design for Construction Safety Concept”.
Safety Science. 43:8, pg 589-611.
[3] Gambatese, J. A., Behm, M. and Hinze, J.W. (2003). “Viability of Designing for Construction Worker
Safety.” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 131(9): pg 1029-1036.
[4] Hecker, S., Gambatese, J. and Weinstein, M. (2005). “Designing for Worker Safety: Moving the
Construction Safety Process Upstream”, Professional Safety 50(9): pg 45–56.
[5] Tony Baxendale (1984). "Construction Management and Economics", 1466-433X, Volume 2, Issue 3,
1984, Pg 201 – 217.
[6] Weinstein, M, Hecker, S., and Gambatese, J. (2005) “Designing for Worker Safety: Moving the
Construction Safety Process Upstream”, Professional Safety 50(9): pg 32–44.

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