Prevention of Construction Failures: A Systematic Approach

Even though each construction failure is to be regretted, each failure provides information that may be used to prevent similar failures. The systematic investigation of construction failures helps advance the science of construction and building regulations. The results of such investigations identify errors to be avoided and contribute to increase the safety of future designs. Each construction failure points to a gap either in theory or practice and thereby fosters innovations. The present paper discusses several effective, mutually reinforcing methods to prevent construction failures. Among them are: macroscopic (i.e., statistical) analysis of large samples of construction failures, microscopic (i.e., case study) analysis of individual construction failures, collaborative design, design-construction reviews, peer reviews, monitoring, and the transfer of safety management methods, such as incident reporting systems, from risk-conscious industrial sectors, e.g., aviation, to construction.