Industry Views on BIM for Site Safety in Hong Kong

Introduction

The construction industry remains a high-risk industry (Mohammadi et al., 2018; Shi et al., 2018) and has one of the highest fatality statistics of any other sector (Hafsia et al. 2018). Therefore, it should be the case that health and safety performance should be considered one of the key performance indicators. While the construction industry has traditionally measured performance based on time, cost, and quality, others have proposed expanding these KPIs over time. Albert and Ada (2004) considered that KPIs to reflect successful construction projects should cover eight different factors: quality specification, commercial value, environmental impact, user expecation, participant’s satisfaction, health, and safety performance time, and cost. Gould and Joyce (2009) pointed out that workers expect site safety management practoces in workplaces in the US, including construction sites.

The construction industry is a key sector of Hong Kong, representing between 4.2% to 5.2% of gross domestic product between 2015 and 2019 (Census and Statistics Department, 2020). Unfortunately, and despite all effects, Hong Kong still has a relatively high number of accidents. During 2010-2014, the construction industry accidents accounted for 25% of the total number of industrial accidents in Hong Kong. In fact, the construction industry accounted for 74% of all industry fatalities in Hong Kong over the same period (Labour Department Hong Kong Government, 2015). The high incident rates are also reflected in many other countries. For example, in the UK, the construction industry contributes about 25 per cent of all fatal injuries in the United Kingdom (HSE, 2018). While many initiatives have been proposed to improve health and safety performance, technological innovations offer great potential as a catalyst for health and safety performance. In particular, building information modelling is seen to offer this potential. Therefore, it is unsurprising to see the push by governments and industry leaders to expand the use of building information modelling, including for health and safety purposes. The UK’s HSE recognises BIM’s potential to improve health and safety outcomes in the construction industry (HSE, 2018). The development of BIM standards for health and safety [PAS1192-6, BSI, 2018] is another demonstration of the potential for improving health and safety outcomes through BIM. BIM for safety has also been a subject of research. See for example Ganah, A., & John, G. A. (2015); Martinez-Aires et al. (2018); Malekitabar et al. (2016); Alizadehsalehi, et al. (2018); Zhang et al. (2018); Kim et al. (2016); Park et al. (2016) among others.

Hong Kong is not an exception in driving the BIM agenda. To “build a better 2030”, the Construction Industry Council in Hong Kong issued the challenge of the construction industry manpower, productivity, safer, greener and collaboration including consideration of adopting Building Information Modelling (BIM) for safety McKinsey & Company (2015). The Hong Kong’s Construction Industry Council (2020) draft BIM standard also includes mechanisms for the application of BIM to health and safety management on construction projects. The use of BIM for health and safety is an on-going development in the construction industry. This chapter focuses on the perception of industry practitioners in Hong Kong on the potential for BIM to be a catalyst for improved health and safety performance.