An integrated information management model for proactive prevention of struck-by-falling-object accidents on construction sites
Highlights
► The top three categories are beam and column, large mechanical equipment and pipe. ► 66% of struck-by-falling-object accidents have the potential to be avoided. ► An integrated information management model is proposed.
Introduction
The construction industry is one of the most hazardous industries in many countries [1], [22]. The most well known code categories of on-site accidents are falls, struck-by, caught in/between, and electric shock [13]. Struck-by accident is the second leading cause of death in construction, in which struck-by-equipment and struck-by-falling-object approximately account for 58% and 42% respectively [30], after accidents of falling from height [2], [9]. Nevertheless, struck-by-falling-object accidents are not given adequate attention to even though they are of great importance on construction sites [13], [28], [30].
It has been widely accepted that accidents are just the tip of an iceberg and henceforth understanding the cause of the accidents is of great significance for accident prevention [24]. However, simply learning from the accidents that have already happened is not enough. Near-miss accidents were usually referred to as precursors of accidents [4], indicators of potential accidents [5] or imminent signals of accidents [16]. In construction industry, the modified statistical triangle of accident causation described the process from near-miss accidents to fatal accidents [7]. Cambraia et al. [6] adopted the concept of a near-miss accident as an instantaneous event that involved the sudden release of energy and had the potential to generate an accident. Phimister and Bier [24] identified a near-miss accident as a special kind of precursor and defined it as an event in which no damages or injuries actually occurred but, under slightly different circumstances, could have resulted in great harm. In the meantime, many organizations had attempted to develop programs to identify and benefit from accident precursors, which were defined as the conditions, events and sequences that preceded and led up to accidents [24]. It should be pointed out that a near-miss accident is identified in a much wider range of severities and may include all defects and abnormal events [33]. However, the potentials of focusing on precursors and near miss-accidents on construction have not been fully realized [29]. It has been shown that the information of identity and location about equipment and material is highly related to accident precursors and near-miss accidents on construction sites [20], [28], [30].
In a word, little research has been done in both proactively preventive information requirement analysis of struck-by-falling-object accidents and automatic technological solutions to track crucial and controllable objects for proactive prevention. This paper aims to analyze and verify the proactively preventive information requirement of struck-by-falling-object accidents and bring forth an integrated information management model using a ZigBee RFID sensor network to fulfill these requirements. This study would provide a possible approach for tracking struck-by-falling-object accidents based on real-time information and could serve as a foundation for further study.
Section snippets
Empirical methods of case study
Useful information can be provided by the historical analysis of the accidents about the most frequent accidents, their origins and causes [10]. In order to conduct an integrated analysis of automatic identification requirement of struck-by-falling-object accidents, the historical records in USA from 1990 to 2008 are analyzed.
The cases used in this research come from the U.S. Department of Occupational Safety and Health Administrative (OSHA). They are in database form, created by the software
Involving objects
In summary, 499 cases are categorized into 14 kinds, which include beam and column (65 cases), large mechanical equipment (64 cases), pipe (53 cases), tree (47 cases), tool and small size equipment (46 cases), brick and block (38 cases), plate (35 cases), cable and rebar (17 cases), truss (17 cases), scaffold (15 cases), form (14 cases), decoration materials (13 cases), pole (12 cases) and others (63 cases). Others include the cases that do not describe the specific involving objects in
Integrated information management model
According to the result in the previous section, the primary requirements of the on-site Information Management Model for Proactive Prevention of Struck-by-falling-object Accidents are the real-time identification and location tracking of on-site objects, which include static objects, mobile equipment and human staff. Simultaneously, the information requirement of locomotion process of Mode A, is majorly considered as other modes' information (B and C) can be dealt together with the same model.
Discussion and conclusion
Fatal accidents on construction sites are just the tip of an iceberg because a large number of near-miss accidents exist and constitute the portion of under-water surface [12]. It was estimated that 90.9% of all accidents produced no injuries, while 8.8% resulted in minor injuries and only 0.3% caused major injuries [12], [21]. Thus, involved objects that have only one case record are also investigated in order to offer the great potential of improving safety by concentrating on hazardous
Acknowledgments
The research work for this paper is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51008073). This paper is also funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK2011609), and funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions. It is also funded by the Transportation Science Research Project of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. 2011Y14-2).
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