2013 Best Paper Award

As our academic and professional community continues to strive for excellence, recognizing outstanding contributions is important. In an effort to promote continued achievement, the 2013 Best Paper Award goes to Aviad Shapira, Meir Simcha, and Marat Goldenberg for their paper “Integrative Model for Quantitative Evaluation of Safety on Construction Sites with Tower Cranes,” published in the November 2012 issue of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (Vol. 138, No. 11, pp. 1281–1293). The window of evaluation was from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013.

Tower crane safety is an extremely important topic because these cranes control progress on construction sites and because increasing the safety of tower crane operations has a profound and positive effect on the safety of the entire jobsite. Several recent spectacular tower crane accidents are reminders of the importance of tower cranes.

The paper summarizes a multiphase investigation that culminated with the development of a model that includes four modules. These modules provide the relative weights of various factors related to crane safety without being site specific, measure the factor for a specific site, convert each measurement into a value that represents potential risk, and cumulate the values to provide an index of the total site-specific risk. The input for the model made use of expert views and feedback in a rigorous and systematic manner. The model is adaptable for various uses by changing acceptable risk levels for certain hazards and acceptable risk levels for the entire site. For a specific jobsite, operations are examined and determinations are made regarding the investments that will yield the greatest safety improvements. The model may be used by regulatory agencies to detect weak spots, by insurance companies to adjust premiums, and by legal entities to identify risk factors that may cause an accident.

The paper is clearly written, making it understandable for a reader with little technical experience with tower cranes; it is also completely correct from an expert’s perspective. The narrative drives systematically to its conclusions. Given the importance of the topic, the significance of the research effort, and the communication skills that the authors exhibited, we are pleased to award the authors with the 2013 JCEM Best Paper Award. Congratulations!

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to the Paper Awards committee (Chuck Jahren—Chair, Young Hoon Kwak, Syed Ahmed, Mike Garvin, Khaled El-Rayes, Ioannis Brilakis, Yong Bai, Eddy Rojas, Amlan Mukherjee, Timo Hartmann, and Gunnar Lucko) for undertaking this assignment and for executing it in such a professional, transparent, and timely manner. I know how much work you put into the process.