Abstract
The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in significant delays and cost overrun in construction projects. The implementation of health and safety (H&S) technologies is one of the most important strategies to alleviate the adverse impacts of COVID-19 on the construction industry and help the industry adapt to the new normal. This study aims to evaluate the adoption of H&S technologies for pandemic management in the construction sector under the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured interviews with eighteen practitioners engaged from construction companies and technology firms were conducted to collect their views on the driving forces and issues of the adoption of H&S technologies for pandemic management in Chinese construction projects. The results reveal that the major H&S technologies used included the health quick response (QR) code system, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered fever monitoring, and site access control system. These technologies were reported to be effective in preventing the spread of the pandemic in workplaces. The findings of the study amplify that the pandemic may serve as an acceleration of the adoption of H&S technologies in the construction sector. Other technologies, such as building information modeling, drones, AI-based safety monitoring, and robotics, however, were seldom used in the studied projects. The interviewees addressed several problems regarding the implementation of these technologies. High costs of technologies, a lack of client support, and disruptions to the normal work process were the main hurdles of the adoption of these technologies. The results indicated that the external influence factor—the COVID-19 pandemic—could considerably drive the use of H&S technologies, whereas the internal influence factors—cost and compatibility of technology—might be the major barriers to technology adoption. To encourage the wider use of H&S technologies in construction, the government is recommended to support the technology transformation by granting financial subsidies for costs involved in innovation adoption. Project owners may consider investing substantially in H&S technologies that can strengthen their resilient and innovative ability to adapt to the post-COVID-19 landscape. The present results will be useful to industry stakeholders and researchers interested in developing H&S technologies for combating the COVID-19 pandemic and future crises.
Highlights
Various innovative technologies have been developed to improve the performance of construction safety and promote the health and wellness of construction personnel.Despite this rapid development, the construction sector has been criticized because it is slow to adopt innovation and does not take full advantage of health and safety (H&S)technologies [1]
The interviewees provided relevant information based on their views of the impacts of COVID-19 on their construction projects, the adoption of H&S technologies under the pandemic, and the driving forces and issues associated with the implementation of
The study highlights the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese construction projects and the issues affecting the use of H&S technologies under the pandemic
Summary
Various innovative technologies have been developed to improve the performance of construction safety and promote the health and wellness of construction personnel.Despite this rapid development, the construction sector has been criticized because it is slow to adopt innovation and does not take full advantage of health and safety (H&S)technologies [1]. Various innovative technologies have been developed to improve the performance of construction safety and promote the health and wellness of construction personnel. Despite this rapid development, the construction sector has been criticized because it is slow to adopt innovation and does not take full advantage of health and safety (H&S). The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the tremendous loss of lives, economic recession, slack businesses, high unemployment rates, and changes in the ways people live, work, and socialize [2]. Given that the virus has become a new health and safety risk on construction sites, the industry has been forced to respond to these challenges in order to achieve rapid recovery from the COVID-19 fallout
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