Construction Management For Accident Analysis & Prevention

Literature Review

Discuss about the Construction Management for Accident Analysis & Prevention.

As stated by Akintola et al. (2016), there are risks associated with every workplace. In some cases, the outcome of an incident is relatively lower than the other. However, any kind of industrial accidents create personal grievances and results in huge distress and negativity among the workers at the workplace. In fact, carelessness towards health and safety might also result in loss of money of that the organization has to pay in order to compensate the loss. Therefore, as commented by Pink, Lingard and Harley (2016), health care and safety measurements should fall under utter priority of the organizations’ important stakeholders like managers or leaders of the employees.

The aim of the report is to evaluate the specific function and duties of managers, that includes strategic as well as operational managers, to take care of the safety measurements at the workplace. The report focuses on the duties of managers in the construction industry and the duty of a leader to perform safety leadership. Safety leadership has been defined as the process of interaction between the leader and employees at the workplace. The leader has the responsibility of setting safety goals for the employees or the followers. As commented by Hardison et al. (2014), in framing such safety goals the responsibility of the leader and management often gets interchanged. In case of construction industry, these goals proved to be of utter importance to be followed at the specific workplace.

Construction sector has been recognized as one of the leading sector that is prone to accidents. With the continuous development and regeneration process of the urban centers, construction sector has become a norm that has fueled the creation of accidents. The global construction industry has been noted as the most hazardous sector that results in the death of at least 60, 000 workers in a year (Zhu et al. 2016). Hughes and Ferrett (2015) claimed that the increasing accidents at the construction sites have increased the fear of death than mere accidents. Statistical reports have also showed that the rate of death and accidents are becoming unacceptably high and requires immediate attention to address the situation.

Reading, it has been identified that there are a number of strategies that are the basic keys to plan the health and safety for the employees or workers working at the construction sites. These are:

1. To employ safe system at the work place and mitigate every personal health and safety issues.
2. To inform the workers about the site prior starting construction work; during the induction.
3. To look into effective communication with each worker on-site (Sherratt, Farrell and Noble 2013)
4. Depending upon necessity, to draft and implement valid designs and layout on-site
5. To appoint an on-site traffic coordinator to take care of the complete construction procedure.

Function of Managers at Construction Site

Function of the managers at the construction sites includes the following:

Management of the construction sector is responsible for the overall planning, coordination as well as the control of the project, right from the start of the project till its completion. Understanding the requirement of the clients and produce a functional and viable project also falls under the responsibilities of the managers (Zhang et al. 2013). The major functions and responsibilities of the managers are:

1. Framing a specific project objective and outline by deciding the budget, schedule, performance requirements and delineation of scope and selecting the project participants as well.
2. Procuring the labor, materials, equipment and maximizing the resources to increase the productive of the complete process (Choudhry 2014).
3. Planning the entire construction process and designing step by step operation with proper coordination and control along with a right estimated budget is one of the major duties of the manager at the construction site.
4. Again, developing a perfect communication plan to resolve any kind of dispute that might take place among the workers at the construction site (Patel and Sharma 2016).

Supervisors are group of individuals who are responsible for looking into the different activities and operations related to construction. A supervisor is next to the line manager and they are important for implementing effective tools and practices to ensure good flow of work (Goetsch 2013).

The responsibilities of the on-site supervisor at construction sites can be stated as follows:

1. The primary responsibility of the supervisor is to involve in the supervision of the general contractors, subcontractors and the other community partners (Siddula et al. 2016). The Supervisor is responsible for knowing the exact work to be done and what resources are to be applied in order to accomplish the work.
2. Supervisor is also responsible for setting the right guidelines and directives to make the program right in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the program.
3. Meeting the operational standard by assuring proper construction plan, customer service quality as well as by monitoring the budget of the complete project are important functions of the supervisor (Jaselskis et al. 2014).
4. In case of meeting the demands of the safety and security of the workers at the construction site, the supervisor is responsible for taking care of them.

A comparison between the manager and the supervisor of a construction industry can be drawn here:

Basis of comparison	Supervisor	Manager
Definition	The person responsible for keeping a record of the overall activities of the employees and the workers and regulates their performance as well is known as a supervisor (Xiaolong et al. 2012).	The person responsible for the managing the resources of the organization to achieve the ultimate goals and objectives of the organization are the manager.
Position at the management level	A supervisor is responsible for the lower level of management.	Managers are at a higher level than the supervisors and they represent the middle level of the management (Shin et al. 2014).
Responsibility of reporting to	The supervisor is supposed to report the complete activities to the manager at the next level.	The manager directly reports to the people at higher authority, that is, to the Board of Directors.
Responsibility of work	The main job of the supervisor is to supervise people at work.	As commented by Li and Poon (2013), the manager’s duty includes looking after the 5 M’s of the organization. They are: men, money, material, method and machinery.
Fundamental rights	A supervisor does not hold the right of hiring or firing an employee of his team but can recommend people and report to the higher authority (Park and Kim 2013).	The manager on the other hand, holds the right of recruiting or firing a worker depending on the ability or performance of the person.
General function	A supervisor can propose ideas or plans to the higher authority to make operations smooth.	A manager also encourages and supports the employees and the workers at the workplace.

From the above table, it has been understood that a supervisor is the one who looks into the complete activities of the employees at the work site whereas the manager is mainly responsible for the looking at the appropriate use of the resources and to increase the productivity of work as much as possible.      

If the leadership quality of the supervisor or the manager at the construction site is consider, it has to be said that they have to perform good leadership to manage the people at work. For any construction work, a large number of people are required for successful work. To manage the same group of people, a leader or a manager is evident. At the same time, the safety of the employees also falls under the responsibility of these managers (Shin et al. 2014). Therefore, leadership does not account for checking the work process but also to take care of the health and safety of the workers at the work environment.

Accidents and occupational health problems have been common traits in major industries but in case of the construction industry, these incidents are fatal (Siddula et al. 2016). It has been found that although there have been considerable development in terms of technology that has ensured the safety of the workers and employees working in critical situations but the death toll has been found to increase (Zhang et al. 2013). Construction sites also results in causing major health hazards that also has a long time effect on the victim.

Comparison between Manager and Supervisor

With the modernization and development of the urban and inner cities, construction sector has been gaining importance in the recent time. The construction industry contributes 5.1% to the GDP of the country (Zhang et al. 2013). However, due to long term impact of the health hazards and fatal injuries in the workplace, the industry is getting bad reputation. Guarding safety precautions and legal safety has become vital for the construction sector. Every construction site must be equipped with most efficient safety precautionary resources to keep the employees as well as the worker safe from the hazardous operational activities.

With the analysis of various situations and the responsibilities played by the leaders in the construction industry, it has been understood that the lives of the employees and workers are not safe at the place of their duty. It falls under the responsibilities of the supervisors and the leaders to take care of the people. In this respect, a number of recommendations can be made that shall improve the safety condition of workers.

1. The stakeholders of the construction firm should be responsible for taking care of the safety and the health of the employees at the construction site.
2. The supervisors and managers should focus on the programs related to the construction effectively by following the regulations and the fundamental laws and duties of the construction industry (Siddula et al. 2016).
3. If required, a construction designer should be appointed to take care of the safety and health related issues by developing a plan and safety measurements.
4. It is important to evaluate the risks and hazards and decide on the mere factors that result certain fatal incidents or accidents.
5. Another important thing that should remain under the prime responsibility of the supervisor is to monitor the place and keep reviewing the areas of operation to check safety of the place nad ensure a safe environment for the workers at work.
6. Communication holds great importance at the time of risk. The employee faced with any kind of difficulty or risk should have the facility of communicating with other supervisors and manager at the work site.

With the recommendations stated above, it can be said that if these approaches are made at the construction site, the situation might get better and the fatal accidents that take place at the construction sites might get reduced.

Conclusion:

A detailed analysis has been made on the duties and responsibilities of the managers and the supervisors responsible for the construction activities. It has been observed that there lies a great risk of life and accident in the construction industry as compared to any other industry. There have been considerable advancement in the work done at the construction sites but the risk of life has also been increasing. There are clear evidences of increasing construction of high rise buildings and sky scrapers and other construction marvels that have questioned the construction capabilities of human. At the same time, the leadership approach of the managers and the supervisors have also been changed. Rather than focusing only on the business activities, focusing on the safety and security of the employees and the workers has also become a prime responsibility of these persons.

It can be said that with the increasing need of the human kind, there is no chance of reducing the construction activities but there will be continuous increase of construction of buildings, monuments and other such places. These activities are also responsible for increasing accidents and death toll but human lives cannot be considered to be less important and has to be valued. Therefore, it should be the prime responsibility of the leaders and the supervisors to think of better ways to secure the lives of people at the construction sites.

References:

Akintola, A., Barlow, J., Cooke, E., Fynn, W., Hansen, H., Heim, M., Jackson, R., Mennes, S., Pendrey, D., Perkins, B. and Popat, N., 2016, April. Construction Site Safety Standardisation. In SPE International Conference and Exhibition on Health, Safety, Security, Environment, and Social Responsibility. Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Choudhry, R.M., 2014. Behavior-based safety on construction sites: A case study. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 70, pp.14-23.

Goetsch, D.L., 2013. Construction safety and health. NJ: Pearson.

Hardison, D., Behm, M., Hallowell, M.R. and Fonooni, H., 2014. Identifying construction supervisor competencies for effective site safety. Safety science, 65, pp.45-53.

Hughes, P. and Ferrett, E., 2015. Introduction to Health and Safety in Construction: For the NEBOSH National Certificate in Construction Health and Safety. Routledge

Jaselskis, E.J., Behm, M., Stimpson, M. and Nelson, C., 2014. Virtual construction site safety monitoring (V-SAM). Achieving Sustainable Construction Health and Safety.

Li, R.Y.M. and Poon, S.W., 2013. A Literature Review on the Causes of Construction Accidents. In Construction Safety (pp. 1-11). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Park, C.S. and Kim, H.J., 2013. A framework for construction safety management and visualization system. Automation in Construction, 33, pp.95-103.

Patel, J.K. and Sharma, N.Y.N., 2016. Construction Safety Criteria Framework for Surat City.

Pink, S., Lingard, H. and Harley, J., 2016. Digital pedagogy for safety: the construction site as a collaborative learning environment. Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy, 1(1), p.5.

Sherratt, F., Farrell, P. and Noble, R., 2013. UK construction site safety: discourses of enforcement and engagement. Construction Management and Economics, 31(6), pp.623-635.

Shin, S.S., Bae, Y.B., Ha, H.B. and Kang, K.S., 2014. Crash of a small construction site accident analysis and Risk Assessment Study-Focusing on project value of less than 20 billion small construction sites. Journal of the Korea Safety Management and Science, 16(4), pp.41-51.

Siddula, M., Dai, F., Ye, Y. and Fan, J., 2016. Classifying construction site photos for roof detection: a machine-learning method towards automated measurement of safety performance on roof sites. Construction Innovation, 16(3).

Xiaolong, X.U.E., Ning, S.H.I., Xiang, C.H.E.N., Wang, C., Zhao, Q. and Luo, Y., 2012. A Framework for Real-Time Monitoring and Early Warning to Scaffold Safety at Construction Site. Journal of Convergence Information Technology, 7(19).

Zhang, S., Teizer, J., Lee, J.K., Eastman, C.M. and Venugopal, M., 2013. Building information modeling (BIM) and safety: Automatic safety checking of construction models and schedules. Automation in Construction, 29, pp.183-195.

Zhu, Z., Park, M.W., Koch, C., Soltani, M., Hammad, A. and Davari, K., 2016. Predicting movements of onsite workers and mobile equipment for enhancing construction site safety. Automation in Construction, 68, pp.95-101.