Project Schedule Acceleration Optimization Integrated with Energy Source–Based Assessment of Occupational Health and Safety Risks
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 149, Issue 12
Abstract
This research devises a risk indexing method to assess the occupational health and safety (OHS) hazards associated with major sources of energy in the construction field, providing numerical inputs to project plan and schedule optimization. Further, the problem of “minimizing project schedule at lowest safety risks” (MPSLSR) is formalized to incorporate the concept of energy sources for OHS management in project planning and scheduling optimization. Instead of following commonly applied techniques to solve multiobjective optimization problems, the proposed research takes an alternative two-step approach to minimizing project duration and risk index, based on interpretation of path float in connection with the critical path method. This results in optimized project schedules that mitigate the substantial increment of OHS-related risks due to accelerating construction progress on projects through avoiding the incurrences of unnecessary activity time crashing and associated increases in OHS-related risks. The research application is demonstrated with (1) a tunnel construction project and (2) a made-up project featuring a large, complex network model.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code used during the study were provided by a third party. Direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments. Activity data for the second case including respective normal duration, acceleration capacity, risk slopes, and succeeding activities can be found at https://shorturl.at/ahsOT.
Acknowledgments
Our sincere and utmost gratitude goes to Dr. Simaan AbouRizk for his kind, generous, and unwavering support during this research work. We would also like to acknowledge Frank Policicchio, Jason Newfeld, and many staff members from the Drainage Services Department of EPCOR for sharing technical knowhow and experiences on this research. Authors are also thankful for the following individuals for providing assistance in conducting this research and improving this paper: Sasan Nasiri, Monjurul Hasan, and Nurul Syuhada’ Mohd Radzi. The presented research was partially funded by (1) the Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) Future Grants Program of the Government of Alberta, Canada (Grant No. 05245033), and (2) National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada (Grant No. CRDPJ492657) through a collaborative and development grant in collaboration with the Drainage Services Department of EPCOR.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 149 • Issue 12 • December 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 3, 2023
Accepted: Jul 7, 2023
Published online: Sep 22, 2023
Published in print: Dec 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Feb 22, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Business management
- Construction engineering
- Construction management
- Construction methods
- Engineering fundamentals
- Health hazards
- Management methods
- Methodology (by type)
- Models (by type)
- Numerical methods
- Occupational safety
- Optimization models
- Practice and Profession
- Project management
- Public administration
- Public health and safety
- Safety
- Scheduling
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