Abstract
Construction project management usually has a high risk of safety-related accidents. An opportunity to proactively improve safety performance is with near-miss information, which is regarded as free lessons for safety management. The research status and practice; however, presents a lack of comprehensive understanding on what near-miss information means within the context of construction safety management. The objective of this study is to fill in this gap. The main findings enrich the comprehensive understanding of the near-miss definition, the near-miss causation model, and the process of near-miss management. Considering that near-misses are more tacit and obscure than accidents, the process for near-miss management involves eight stages: discovery, reporting, identification, prioritization, causal analysis, solution, dissemination, and evaluation. The first three stages aim to make near-misses explicit. The other five are adopted to better manage near-miss information, compiled in a well-designed near-miss database (NMDB). Finally, a case study was conducted to show how near-miss information can be utilized to assist in construction safety management. The main potential contributions here are twofold. Firstly, corresponding findings provide a knowledge framework of near-miss information for construction safety researchers who can go on to further study near-miss management. Secondly, the proposed framework contributes to the guidance and encouragement of near-miss practices on construction sites.
Highlights
Construction project management is always hampered by safety issues involving frequent but relatively small-scale accidents with diverse hazards, such as falling from heights, being struck by objects, collapse, mechanical injury, explosion, fire, poisoning, and electrocution [1,2]
To let practitioners and academics recognize the core value of near-misses, this study aims to explore the potential use of injury- or fatality-free lessons to enhance safety performance in the construction industry
Its main purpose was to explore the potential use of near-miss information for promoting safety performance during the process of construction project management
Summary
Construction project management is always hampered by safety issues involving frequent but relatively small-scale accidents with diverse hazards, such as falling from heights, being struck by objects, collapse, mechanical injury, explosion, fire, poisoning, and electrocution [1,2]. Despite improvements in safety performance for construction projects in the last decade, nonfatal and fatal accidents still ceaselessly happen [3,4,5]. There is still a long way to go before attaining the goal of zero accidents or harm in the construction industry. There are dozens of incidents without any injuries or loss prior to fatal accidents. This type of incident is called a “near-miss”, which is usually neglected by workers and managers on-site. According to Murphy’s Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong [9]
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