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Business
& Labor
Owners Play a Major Role in Site Safety
Construction Industry Institute tackles owner involvement, value management, benchmarking
(enr.construction.com - 8/11/03 issue)
By Janice
L. Tuchman in Orlando
Key actions by owners can dramatically
improve the safety record of construction projects. A study
of 59 projects found that 25 steps taken by owners meant almost
six times fewer injuries per 1,000 employees. The study, one
of the first to focus on owners and safety, was released along
with other research studies by the Construction Industry Institute.
"The role that owners play in project
safety has been ignored until now," said John J. Mathis,
leader of the CII project team and manager of safety services
for Bechtel Corp., at CII’s annual conference in Orlando,
Fla., July 29-31. "We now have clear data that shows
owners can play a major role." The team produced a "scorecard"
that lets owners determine whether or not they have a strong
involvement in safety.
The research involved personal interviews,
usually with the owner’s representative who had responsibility
for safety. Safety performance, measured by total recordable
incident rate, was related to a range of practices of owners.
TRIR is the total number of injuries per 200,000 work hours
of exposure (the average number of hours worked by 100 workers
in a year).
The project team found that owners influence
safety by setting the number of days worked and shifts, selecting
contractors and by putting safety requirements in contracts.
They also exert influence by detailing requirements for contractor
safety programs, staying on top of the project and keeping
a representative who participated in site safety programs.
A. Dennis Cobb, regional safety consultant
for DuPont Engineering, said that five specific contract requirements
can reduce the recordable incident rate from 2.77 (when only
one or two are used) to 1.22 (when all five are present).
These contracts require at least one full-time safety professional,
owner approval of safety professionals, specified minimum
training for workers, a site-specific safety plan and submission
of a safety policy signed by its CEO.
The TRIR for the industry as a whole
was 7.28 in 2001, compared to 1.02 for CII members. The study
had low incident rates overall because most projects studied
were member projects. By implementing all 25 measures studied,
recordable incidents fell from 46 to just 8 per 1,000 workers.
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Value Management
Processes
VMP Title
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| Activity-based
costing |
Peer Review |
| Chartering
project teams |
Planning
for Startup |
| Choosing
by advantages |
Post-Occupancy
Evaluation |
| Classes
of facility quality |
Predictive
Maintenance |
| Constructability |
Pre-Project
Planning |
| Constrcution
simulation |
Process
Simplification |
| Design
effectiveness |
Project
Delivery Methods |
| Design
for maintainability |
Project
Execution Plan |
| Design
to capacity |
Quality
Functional Deployment |
| Design
to cost |
Risk Management |
| Energy
optimization |
Schedule
Optimization |
| FAST diagrams |
Six Sigma |
| Function
analysis concept development |
Sourcing
Strategies |
| Individual
value engineering |
Successive
Estimating |
| Knowlege
manangement lessons learned |
Sustainable
Design & Construction |
| Lean construction |
Technology
Gatekeeper |
| Life-cycle
costing |
Technology
Selection |
| Mechanical
reliability modeling |
Total Quality
Management |
| Minimum
standards and practices |
VE Change
Proposal |
| Modularization/Mass
customization |
Value Engineering |
| Owner values
and expectations |
Waste Mimimization/Pollution
Prevention |
| Partnering |
No. of
VMP's with Benefit |
The institute also announced its Web-based
value management tool kit. "Value management has been
absent from CII’s best practices," said project
team leader Katherine Fisher Bethany, value engineering manager
for Overseas Buildings Operations at the Dept. of State. She
clarified that "value" is a measure of how well
the owner’s objectives are met, and that to make the
list, value management tools had to be established, documented,
have proven benefits and yet not be standard practices on
every job.
The toolkit can be used to evaluate
44 optional value management processes–from peer review
to lean construction to total quality management–to determine
how beneficial they will be to a particular project or program.
Value management objectives include factors such as security,
regulatory compliance, operating cost- efficiency and risk
containment.
Another Web-based tool is the new questionnaire
developed for small projects benchmarking. CII’s benchmarking
and metrics program collects project data, and there are now
222 small projects with a value of $5 million or less in the
1,112-project database. "Small projects are a big piece
of the market we need to measure," said project team
member Frank K. Suhan, a project consultant for Johnson Controls.
He said Johnson Controls works on about 16,000 small projects
a year.
CII Chairman John Zachry, president
of Zachry Construction Co., also announced that Hans Van Winkle
will become director of CII. Recently retired as deputy chief
of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Van Winkle will manage
research and development efforts of CII’s 98 owner and
contractor members. CII is based at the University of Texas
at Austin. Van Winkle said CII gives him an opportunity to
"continue serving the public and to work with leading-edge
companies committed to improving the industry." Outgoing
CII Director Kenneth Eickmann will serve on the National Research
Council’s study of the national aerospace initiative
and continue work-ing with the Texas Homeland Defense Task
Force.
The program drew more than 500 members
and invited guests, but the same research projects will be
presented again at a Sept. 21-23 public forum in Austin. For
more information visit www.construction-institute.org/cpi2003.
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Owner's Influence
on Construction Safety Scoreboard
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Project Context,
Contractor Selection, Contractual Safety Requirements
and Owner Involvmemt in Project Safety
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Answer
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| Project
Context: |
| (1) Does
the project work on shift? |
Y |
N |
| (2) Does
the project work five days a week or less? |
Y |
N |
| Selection
of contractor: |
| (3)
Is the TRIR requirement for the contractor selection less
than 2.0? |
Y |
N |
| (4)
Are the qualifications of the project team reviewed? |
Y |
N |
| (5)
Are the qualifications of the safety staff reviewed? |
Y |
N |
| (6)
Does the evaluation of each contractor's safety perfromance
make a difference |
Y |
N |
| Contractual
Safety Requirements: |
| (7) Does
the project use a design-build contract? |
Y |
N |
| (8)
Does the contract require the contractor to place at least
one full-time safety representative on the project site? |
Y |
N |
| (9) Does
the contract rquire the contractor to submit all safety
personnel resumes for the owner's approval? |
Y |
N |
| (10) Does
the contract require the contractor to prepare a site-specific
safety plan? |
Y |
N |
| (11) Does
the contract require the contractor to submit a safety
policy signed by its CEO? |
Y |
N |
| (12) Does
the contract rquie the contractor to provide minimum specified
amount of training to the construciton worker? |
Y |
N |
| Contractor
Safety Program Requirements: |
| Which
of the following are required to be included in the contractor's
safety program? |
Y |
N |
| (13)
Contractor must prepare a plan for site emergencies? |
Y |
N |
| (14)
Contractor must conduct pre-task safety planning on the
project site |
Y |
N |
| (15)
Contractor must implement a substance abuse testing program? |
Y |
N |
| Owner's
involvement in project safety management? |
Y |
N |
| (16)
Does the owner's safety represenetative investigate near
misses? |
Y |
N |
| (17)
Are injury statistics on the projects maintained separately
on each computer? |
Y |
N |
| (18)
Are all project injuries included in the owner's overall
measure of safety performance? |
Y |
N |
| (19)
The owner actively participates (gives presentations)
during worker safety performance? |
Y |
N |
| (20)
Comprehension of safety trainining is evaluated through
testing? |
Y |
N |
| Which
of the following activities are performed by the owner's
site safety representative? |
Y |
N |
| (21)
Enforcing safety rules and regulations |
Y |
N |
| (23)
Participating in safety recognition programs |
Y |
N |
| (24)
Participating in safety and/or tool box meeting |
Y |
N |
| (25)
Does the owner set zero injury as its safety expectation
before the commencement of site work? |
Y |
N |
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Total Count of
Yes Reponses
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Multiply the Yes Count by 4 (x4)
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% |
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What the score means:
85% or better is strong owner involvement
40% or less indicates weak owner involvement
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