Construction Work Performance Under Bovis Lend Lease Safety Program

Throughout the construction projects starting from the design phase till the end of construction execution phase, numerous project management actions are deployed i.e. planning, quality assurance, communication system, and so forth (Chan et. al, 2004). Safety issues action is also included in order to execute the project safely. This is because if the accident occurs during execution, particularly major accidents, it leads to many disadvantages for company such as cost incurred from medical treatment, interrupting construction schedule, and impairing the reputation of firms.

Consequently, each company has established its own safety program for preventing the occurrence of accidents, as many companies have recognized the potential impacts of accidents. But do they ever review “What are the impacts of such safety program”, or in other words whether the program positively or negatively affected their execution. NOHSC (National Occupational Health & Safety Commission) has stated that most of companies have traditionally focused only on outcome measures of performance, for example, the accident records.

Systematic reviewing of performance is the key to successful management as stated in Holt (2001) since it reflects the actual conditions of the operation. Thus it will enable the re-development and modification of the strategy.

Therefore, these problems have arisen in Mr. Thanapat Leingtong’s study. His study focused in two aspects for reviewing the actual position. The first aspect is, for example, under their safety program, do they know that:

• Whether the root causes of accidents still exist or were eliminated – according to Holt (2001), the root causes of accidents are primarily referred to unsafe activities and conditions.
• Whether project participants satisfied the program.
• How does such safety program contribute to improving or declining the project work performances?

The second aspect is, whether their situation is superior or inferior to other companies that applied different programs.

According to the first aspect, the research has developed three significant issues in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in order to determine the impact of safety implementation. To this effect, Bovis Lend Lease Company has been selected as a case study and also it has been compared with other Non-BLL companies to study the second aspect of this study.

The study aimed to investigate the actual construction work performances under safety operation of Case Study Company i.e. Bovis Lend Lease Company. The main objectives of the study were enumerated as follows:

1. To study the Environment Health & safety program under Bovis Lend Lease Company

2. To study the impacts of Bovis Lend Lease EH&S program and safety management on construction work performances in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction.

Conclusions

Similar with finance, production or sales, the companies also need to measure and study the impact of their health and safety performances in order to find out if they are being successful. They need to know: where they are; and what’s the difference –and why. Therefore, the safety performance measurements are taken into account in order to answer these questions and provide related information as well as facilitate the management in decision making. Measures of safety performance are intended to give an indication of how a company is performing. The above mentioned questions such as where they are, what’s the difference and why, can be answered by conducting the safety performances measurement and making comparisons against a company’s past performances, industry standard, or other companies. Since this study undertakes to capture safety performances of Bovis Lend Lease Company, which is the case study company, the comparisons against other companies approach was selected in order to identify where BLL is and also the difference between BLL and Non-BLL Company.

After having determined the approach to track the company performances, the next problem was what should be measured to make comparisons. The reviews of past researches on the various types of safety performance measures showed that different types of information are provided by different measures. Therefore, the study has employed various effective measures, which are both positive and negative indicators, and reasonably measured the process, output, and outcome of each company for making comparisons against other companies.

Commencing from “input”, the study controlled the samples by selecting same scale and type of comparative companies, therefore, the uncontrolled hazards are not much of difference. In addition, comparative companies must have safety management system and its implementation during execution. Next, the measurement of “process” is conducted to see the differences and adequacy of system. Subsequently, the “output” and “outcome” are measured and compared to identify the differences in effectiveness and satisfaction of safety implementation in all aspects. Furthermore, the study of efficiency and productivity of workers are also included in this research to identify the labor productivity of each project i.e. if they have the same or different proportion of productivity when the site conditions are different.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

Similar with finance, production or sales, the companies also need to measure the impact of their health and safety performances to analyze if they are being successful. Therefore, safety performance measurements are considered to provide information and facilitate management in decision-making relevant to re-evaluation and development of strategy. This study is concerned with the systematic reviewing of safety performance in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. Study has been carried out with an aim to examine safety performances of BLL and Non-BLL Company. In order to compare BLL against Non-BLL Company, the study has employed various effective measures, both positive and negative indicators. The study has also reasonably measured the process, output, and outcome of the companies for making comparisons and in order to identify the current status of BLL and their differences with the Non-BLL in terms of safety management. The study indicated that BLL has better safety management than Non-BLL. Moreover, BLL’s performances are statistically better in terms of site conditions and employee satisfaction. But unsafe acts performed, worker satisfaction, and proportion of productivity are not statistically different. Strengths of BLL are comprehensive safety management, clear safety roles and responsibilities, systematic hazard control, well-organized safety training, high commitment, regularly conduct self-inspection, and employed full-time safety manager. Weaknesses of BLL are negligence, numerous subcontractors, and team conflicts.