To read this content please select one of the options below:

Information technology and safety: Integrating empirical safety risk data with building information modeling, sensing, and visualization technologies

Matthew Ryan Hallowell (Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering Department, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA)
Dylan Hardison (Construction Engineering Management Department, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA)
Matthieu Desvignes (Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering Department, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA)

Construction Innovation

ISSN: 1471-4175

Article publication date: 11 July 2016

2860

Abstract

Purpose

The architecture, engineering and construction industry is known to account for a disproportionate rate of disabling injuries and fatalities. Information technologies show promise for improving safety performance. This paper aims to describe the current state of knowledge in this domain and introduces a framework to integrate attribute-level safety risk data within existing technologies for the first time.

Design/methodology/approach

The framework is demonstrated by integrating attribute safety risk data with information retrieval, location and tracking systems, augmented reality and building information models.

Findings

Fundamental attributes of a work environment can be assigned to construction elements during design and planning. Once assigned, existing risk and predictive models can be leveraged to provide a user with objective, empirically driven feedback including quantity of safety risk, predictions of safety outcomes and clashes among incompatible attributes.

Practical implications

This framework can provide designers, planners and managers with unbiased safety feedback that increases in detail and accuracy as the project develops. Such information can support prevention through design and safety management in advanced work packaging.

Originality/value

The framework is the first to integrate empirical risk-based safety data with construction information technologies. The results provide users with insight that is unexpected, counter-intuitive or otherwise thought-provoking.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Early Career Award (CAREER) Program. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1253179. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Citation

Hallowell, M.R., Hardison, D. and Desvignes, M. (2016), "Information technology and safety: Integrating empirical safety risk data with building information modeling, sensing, and visualization technologies", Construction Innovation, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 323-347. https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-09-2015-0047

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles