Evaluation of the factors affecting safety performance on Construction Project

Abstract

Safety in the construction project has always been a major issue. Wherever reliable records are available, construction is found to be one of the most dangerous on safety and health criteria, particularly in developing countries. Sudan is a developing country with a construction project suffers from a poor safety conditions. The hazards of this industry make it very essential to pay more attention to construction safety and to improve the safety performance of construction companies. However, safety is not a luxury but a necessity, and may be considered an important function to be used against unnecessary loss. Little studies have been done in this field in Khartoum state. The objectives of this research are to identify the factors affecting the construction safety and to establish a tool to assess and improve the construction safety of construction companies. Thirty nine sub factors were identified and grouped into ten main factors. In this study, construction companies in the Khartoum State that were qualified and registered in the Sudan Contractors Union (SCU) and classified companies were considered as large companies and had the chance to participate. A field survey was conducted through a questionnaire including 100 construction companies in Khartoum State. The collected data were analyzed to presents statistical measures. Importance index was calculated to rank the safety factors. The Safety Performance Attitude Score (SPAS) and Accidents Frequency Rate (AFR) are used to measure the safety performance and to develop a tool for assessing and improving the construction safety. It was concluded that the most important main factors affecting the safety performance in Khartoum State are; Administrative & Management Commitment;, Personal Protective Equipment; Emergency planning & preparation, Signs ,Signals & Barricades,. While the most important sub factors affecting the safety performance are; the Safety awareness of project managers; the Safety inspections by supervisor office; the Safety awareness of company's to management; the Availability a clear company's policy. . Based on this a tool, which can be easily applied, was developed to assess and improve the safety of the construction companies. Also it was concluded that the knowledge and usage of eighteen of signs, signals and symbols in construction projects site, the result was emphasized there are high level of knowledge with low level of use. Finally, in order to improve the safety performance of construction companies, a set of recommendations were made and topics for future researches were suggested