A risk assessment approach for enhancing construction safety performance

The construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries worldwide due to deadly fatalities and accidents recorded yearly. Though many countries have established and implemented safety programs, the situation does not seem to have been mitigated. This study aims at developing a risk assessment approach that can be used to enhance the safety performance of construction projects. The study has employed pair-wise comparisons and weighting-by-ranking surveys to establish risk scores and weights for the various construction accidents, and their potential causes. Data has been collected from safety professionals in 15 large construction sites across the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The study revealed that the type of accident with the highest risk score is “falling objects”, while the most significant cause is excessive winds on the project site. The developed approach was applied on an on-going car park construction project. Results showed that slips, trips and falls had the best safety performance. Furthermore, based on six sigma evaluation, the average project safety performance was at 2.33-sigma which implies that 228,739 accidents may occur in every million opportunities. The paper also provided recommendations to improve the safety performance of the case study.