Analysis of Residential Framing Accidents, Activities, and Task Demands
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136, Issue 2
Abstract
Framing contractors have the highest rate of nonfatal incidents among specialty contractors. This case study analyzes 654 safety incidents that occurred over a period of in a large residential framing company. Accident analysis and interviews with safety and production experts identify the high-risk tasks, the errors that lead to incidents, and the task factors that increase the likelihood of incidents. The analysis resulted in a framework of five task factors that increase the task demands: (1) working platform constraints; (2) ergonomic postures constraints; (3) material/load handling requirements; (4) tool use/accuracy requirements; and (5) difficulties due to external forces. The combined effect of these factors determines the task difficulty and the likelihood of incidents. The paper discusses safety measures to reduce the task demands of the high-risk tasks, as opposed to measures that reduce exposure or mitigate the consequences. Reducing task demands can reduce the likelihood of accidents while at the same time increasing productivity. For practitioners, the study points to the need to understand the high-risk tasks and reduce task demands in their operations. The framework of the five task demand factors provides the “building blocks” of task difficulty for framing tasks and provides directions for further research in understanding and mitigating the combined effect of the task demand factors.
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Acknowledgments
The writers greatly appreciate the help of the management and field personnel of the participating company for taking the time to review the incidents and explain their work activities and task difficulties. The research described in this paper is conducted with the support of NSF and the CAREER Award Grant No. UNSPECIFIED0645139.NSF
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136 • Issue 2 • February 2010
Pages: 260 - 269
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 1, 2008
Accepted: Jul 13, 2009
Published online: Jul 16, 2009
Published in print: Feb 2010
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