Information technology and safety: Integrating empirical safety risk data with building information modeling, sensing, and visualization technologies
Abstract
Purpose
The architecture, engineering and construction industry is known to account for a disproportionate rate of disabling injuries and fatalities. Information technologies show promise for improving safety performance. This paper aims to describe the current state of knowledge in this domain and introduces a framework to integrate attribute-level safety risk data within existing technologies for the first time.
Design/methodology/approach
The framework is demonstrated by integrating attribute safety risk data with information retrieval, location and tracking systems, augmented reality and building information models.
Findings
Fundamental attributes of a work environment can be assigned to construction elements during design and planning. Once assigned, existing risk and predictive models can be leveraged to provide a user with objective, empirically driven feedback including quantity of safety risk, predictions of safety outcomes and clashes among incompatible attributes.
Practical implications
This framework can provide designers, planners and managers with unbiased safety feedback that increases in detail and accuracy as the project develops. Such information can support prevention through design and safety management in advanced work packaging.
Originality/value
The framework is the first to integrate empirical risk-based safety data with construction information technologies. The results provide users with insight that is unexpected, counter-intuitive or otherwise thought-provoking.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Early Career Award (CAREER) Program. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1253179. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Citation
Hallowell, M.R., Hardison, D. and Desvignes, M. (2016), "Information technology and safety: Integrating empirical safety risk data with building information modeling, sensing, and visualization technologies", Construction Innovation, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 323-347. https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-09-2015-0047
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited