Safety Management System (SMS) framework development - Mitigating the critical safety factors affecting Health and Safety performance in construction projects

The construction industry is known both for its significance in economic growth and its hazardous nature. The accidents on construction sites not only cause fatalities but also affect project performance severely in term of delayed completion, cost overruns, reduced quality and eventually low productivity. Statistically, poor safety performance is the main cause of the accident on sites due to the number of influencing factors. To improve safety performance, it is inevitable to investigate potential factors involved in safety management. This is a working paper and examines the relative importance of key factors influencing Health and Safety (H&S) performance and the rationale for developing a robust safety management system (SMS) that migrates all factors into one framework. This paper adopts an empirical research methodology based on literature review and secondary data gathered systematically from peer-reviewed journals. There are around sixty H&S factors and these have been assigned to cluster leadings forming six groups namely: 'organisational', `managerial', 'legislative', 'social', 'environmental' and 'personnel' factors. In developing the rationale for the safety management system (SMS) framework it has become apparent that the effective safety performance can only be achieved through effective (1) implementation of safety regulations, (2) leadership, (3) safety planning, (4) safety compliance, (5) performance measurement, (6) risk assessment, (7) safety inspection, and (8) Safety Culture. These factors are interrelated with each other and they cannot be isolated, however, in order to significantly improve the safety performance target on construction projects, there is a need to re-alignment and re-balance the priorities assigned to factors influencing safety performance.

Automated summary

The construction industry is known for its economic significance and hazardous nature. Poor safety performance is the main cause of accidents on construction sites, and in order to improve safety performance, it is necessary to investigate potential factors involved in safety management.