ABSTRACT
The potential contribution of district assemblies to improving health and safety in Ghana's construction industry has not been investigated. This paper attempts to identify the local government responsibilities that could influence health and safety performance in the construction industry and to develop a confirmatory factor model based on these responsibilities. The paper adopted a positivist philosophy and a deductive methodology. A literature search was conducted to identify the local government factors that could potentially impact health and safety performance in the Ghanaian construction industry. These factors were adapted and designed into a questionnaire, and the generated questionnaires were distributed to respondents for their feedback. It was identified using the relative importance index that "the development of sanctions for violating occupational health and safety statutory obligations," "the institution of local government occupational health and safety approval and certification for new projects," and "the creation of occupational health and safety departments and committees that are adequately resourced to assist the Department of Factories Inspectorate" were the three most important roles that district assemblies could play as partners to improve health and safety in the construction industry. Conversely, the multivariate analysis identified the evaluation of the safety policies and risk management plans of contractors and suppliers as the most important role local government institutions could play in improving health and safety in the construction industry. The result of the study suggests that local government efforts, when given the needed attention and support, could advance health and safety in the industry. The practical implication of the study is that it identifies the roles of district assemblies that could enhance health and safety in Ghana's construction industry. All district assemblies should consider implementing these health and safety initiatives in their districts and ensuring they are regularly enforced and evaluated.
ABSTRACT
Construction safety culture can be greatly improved if safety planning is done hand-in-hand with project planning. This article investigates the integration of construction scheduling with construction safety planning by developing an automated safety planning add-in (ASPA) for Microsoft Project. A risk assessment database was developed that analysed the frequency and severity of hazards associated with construction tasks and the risk level of each hazard was calculated. The developed ASPA compares the ongoing construction activity in the schedule with the safety database, and an automated safety report is produced as a spreadsheet containing details of task name, risk priority, task start and end dates, and hazard and safety regulations related to the tasks. The schedule integrated ASPA was then tested for efficacy by implementing in a real-time project. The ASPA facilitated the safety engineers to plan daily activities by prior envisaging of hazards and safety regulations through schedule-based report generation.
