Location-based leading indicators in BIM for construction safety

The US construction industry continues to experience a high number of injuries and fatalities in comparison to other US industrial sectors (BLS 2013). Although the U.S. construction accounts for only 4% of total employment, the industry experiences a disproportionate 19% of the total fatalities experienced by the U.S. workforce (BLS 2014). An enhanced understanding of safety leading indicators for construction sites can be an influential factor in mitigating existing hazards and predicting future hazards (Hinze et al. 2013, Hinze 2006). Although construction companies in the U.S. are required by OSHA regulation to report all fatalities, injuries, and illnesses that occur on construction sites, a more concerted effort including research and implementation is required for safety leading indicators including near miss reporting and hazard identification. This research seeks to test the hypothesis that it is feasible to collect, analyze, and disseminate safety leading indicators through location-based information and visualization. Because one of the most impactful transitions in the construction industry in the past decade has been a transition to digitized construction documents with visualization of construction processes through Building Information Modeling (BIM), BIM provides a real-time visualization and communication platform for construction stakeholders (Azhar 2011, Eastman et al. 2011). Furthermore, the construction industry is transitioning from lagging or reactive safety data collection (i.e. , injuries, illnesses and fatalities) to pro-active or leading indicator safety data collection (i.e. , near misses and hazard identification) (Hallowell et al. 2013). This research advocates for the effective retrieval, analysis, visualization and dissemination of safety leading indicator data through created databases, algorithms and BIM functionality. Since a large majority of function components in a BIM are location-based, the outcome of this research is limited to location-based safety leading indicators (i.e. , leading indicator safety data that can be assigned to a specific location). The research approach is divided into three major components: 1) near miss reporting, 2) automatic hazardous proximity zone generation, and 3) site location optimization. The framework will be evaluation in controlled laboratory settings as well as active construction sites. Throughout the research methodology, feedback and mentorship from construction engineering and management employees will be collected and integrated. This research connects the capabilities of BIM to safety data collection, storage, analysis and visualization.