Assessment of Safety Performance Measures at Construction Sites
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 112, Issue 4
Abstract
Various methods for the measurement and classification of safety performance at construction sites, e.g., timing relative to the moment of accident, data collection method, safety effectiveness criterion, performance measure, and frequency and severity of the measured event, are analyzed. The effectiveness of the various methods and the extent of their use at construction sites are examined. Attributes that are investigated include efficiency, reliability, and validity and diagnostic capacity of the measure in order to identify the cause for success or failure, respectively, of the safety program at a site. The data for the study were collected through questionnaires which were addressed to the largest construction companies in the United States. The most effective and the most widely employed measurement methods were lost‐day cases, doctor's cases, and cost of accidents. The least effective and most limited in use were the no‐injury cases.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
1.
American National Standards Institute, Method of Recording and Measuring Injury Experience, (Z‐16.1), New York, American National Standards Institute, 1967, revised, 1973.
2.
Babbie, E. R., The Practice of Social Research, Wodsworth Publishing Co., Belmont, Calif., 1979.
3.
Bird, F. E., and German, G. L., Damage Control, A New Horizon in Accident Prevention and Cost Improvement, American Management Association, N.Y., 1966.
4.
Dar‐El, et al., “Development and Improvement of Plant Safety by Management Involvement,” Technical Report, Research Centre for Work Safety and Human Engineering, Technion, Israel, Sept., 1983.
5.
ENR, Directory of Contractors, New York, Engineering News Record, 1984.
6.
Gilmore, C. L., Accident Prevention and Loss Control, American Management Association, N.Y., 1970.
7.
Goodman, P. S., Assessing Organizational Change, John Wiley & Sons, New York, N.Y., 1979.
8.
Grimaldi, J. V., and Simonds, R. H., Safety Management, Homewood Ill., Richard D. Irwin, 1984.
9.
Hays, W. L., Statistics, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, London, England, 1972.
10.
Heinrich, H. W., Industrial Accident Prevention, McGraw‐Hill, New York, N.Y., 1959.
11.
Hinze, A. M., and Harrison, C., “Safety Programs in Large Construction Firms,” Journal of the Construction Division, ASCE, Vol. 107, No. CO3, Sept., 1981.
12.
Jacobs, H. H., “Towards More Effective Safety Measurement Systems,” Journal of Safety Research, Vol. 2, No. 3, Sept., 1970.
13.
Jones, D. F., Human Factors‐Occupational Safety, Department of Labor, Ontario, Canada, 1968.
14.
Kerlinger, F., Foundations of Behavioral Research, Holt, and Winston, New York, N.Y., 1973.
15.
Kjellen, U., “The Application of an Accident Process Model to the Development and Testing of Changes in the Safety Information Systems of Two Construction Firms,” Journal of Occupational Accidents, June, 1983.
16.
Laufer, A., “On Site Performance Improvement Programs,” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, ASCE, Vol. 3, No. 1, Mar., 1985.
17.
Lawler, E. E., et al., Organizational Assessment, John Wiley and Sons, New York, N.Y., 1980.
18.
Levitt, R. E., et al., “Evaluation of the Line Foreman Safety Training Course,” Technical Report No. 281, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., May, 1984.
19.
Maggar, S. V., “Measuring Safety Performance, A Management Guide,” Professional Safety, Nov., 1983.
20.
Pollina, V., “Safety Sampling—Technique in Accident Control,” Environmental Control and Safety Management, Sept., 1970.
21.
Robinson, M. R., “Accident Cost Accounting as a Means of Improving Construction Safety,” Technical Report No. 242, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., Aug., 1979.
22.
Rockwell, T. H., “Safety Performance Measurement,” The Journal of Industrial Engineering, Vol. 10, No. 1, Jan.–Feb., 1959.
23.
Rockwell, T. H., “Two Approaches to a Non‐Accident Measure for Continuous Assessment of Safety Performance,” Journal of Safety Research, Vol. 2, No. 3, Sept., 1970.
24.
Samelson, N. M., and Levitt, R. E., “Owner's Guidelines for Selecting Safe Contractors,” Journal of Construction Division, ASCE, Vol. 108, No. CO4, Dec., 1982.
25.
Schreiber, R., “The Development of Engineering Techniques for the Evaluation of Safety Programs,” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1956.
26.
Stevens, S. S., “Mathematics, Measurement, and Psychophysics,” Handbook of Experimental Psychology, S. S. Stevens, Ed., John Wiley and Sons, New York, N.Y., 1951.
27.
Surrey, J., Industrial Accident Research: A Human Engineering Approach, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada, 1968.
28.
Tarrants, W. E., The Measurement of Safety Performance, Garland STPM Press, New York, N.Y., 1980.
29.
U.S. Department of Labor, Safety Subjects, Bulletin 67, Washington, D.C., 1955.
30.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Injuries and Illnesses in the United States by Industry,” Bulletin 2196, Washington, D.C., 1982.
31.
Van De Ven, A. H., and Ferry, D. L., Measuring and Assessing Organizations, John Wiley and Sons, New York, N.Y., 1980.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 112 • Issue 4 • December 1986
Pages: 530 - 542
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 ASCE.
History
Published online: Dec 1, 1986
Published in print: Dec 1986
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.