06-10-2016, 03:46 PM
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ABSTRACT
The construction industry is known as one of the most hazardous activities. Therefore, safety on the job site is an important aspect with respect to the overall safety in construction. This paper assesses the safety level perception of the construction building workers towards safety, at job site. In a market-driven society, it is common for construction stakeholders, especially those at the lower end of the supply chain, to concentrate exclusively on completing projects to the required quality standard with the minimum time and cost.
Safety is, therefore, regarded as a secondary concern. The lack of motivation in fostering a safety culture at both organizational and a project level has resulted in a poor safety record in general, with construction being one of the most hazardous industries globally. In view of the importance of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), the organization have adopted a self-regulatory approach to safety, whereby proprietors (including contractors) are required to develop, implement and maintain safety management systems. In addition to setting out safety objectives and targets in their safety management systems, construction firms need a rational framework for Safety Performance Evaluation (SPE) in order to objectively gauge their effectiveness in accident prevention over time.
A systematic SPE framework will also help companies to identify potential hazards at an early stage so as to help avoid unnecessary losses in life and cost. The loss which is caused from the accidents can be in many ways like in terms of money, material, time or even life in most of the cases & most importantly the reputation of the company is lost. These large numbers of accidents which will cause loss to the industry in many ways can be avoided by implementing safety management in the work site.
A safety audit system is an important tool for identifying and assessing the status of existing occupational safety and health management system in an organization. It’s carried out by qualified OHSE professionals or safety auditors.
A report of the safety audit is prepared by the audit team bringing out the strength and weakness of OHSE of the organization along with the recommendations for improvement. This paper deals with safety audit system in construction industries and various aspects of safety audit system.
The paper addressed the extent at which reduced accident/incident rate and increased organizational productivity is depending on the implementation of construction site safety audit. It assumes that if a company incorporates construction site safety into its investment in machines and technology through regular site safety audit/inspection, it will result in better safety performance of employees, the management and the company as a whole.
It therefore the regular site safety audit to identify/eliminate potential workplace hazards, regular staff training to improve their hazards identification skills, involvement of both management and workers in the execution of construction site safety audit, formation of production quality circles to identify and eliminate potential hazards at each stage of construction activity and making hazards identification/reporting everyone’s responsibility.