Opportunities for improving construction health and safety using real-time H&S management innovations: a socio-technical-economic perspective

The potential health and safety (H&S) benefits of advanced technologies are not currently being optimized in the construction industry. This research aims to identify the technical, economic and social issues and their respective solutions of real-time H&S management technologies during their implementation and operation. A comprehensive literature review is conducted to analyse the technical, economic and social aspects of a number of example real-time H&S management technologies. Using the information gathered from the literature review, Social Construction of Technology approach is used to theoretically analyse each real-time H&S management technology by considering four aspects: technology, social groups who utilize or interpret the technology, problems encountered by each social group and solutions or mechanisms to solve those problems. The study shows that the most common technical issues are occlusions, background disturbances, disturbed line-of-sight and low battery power. Most of these systems have high implementation cost. There is a considerable resistance to physical tagging due to health and privacy concerns. Researchers continue to explore ways to solve the technical issues. However, attention to solving the economic and social issues is relatively low in comparison. The research outcomes will contribute to future innovations and improvements in performance and productivity associated with construction H&S.