ic

cobingtontes

rativonffectiveness, and analytical learning capacity of the process. Dedicated tools for

application that aims to address such drawbacks and improve the day-to-day practices andmanagement of safe-ty inspections. Evaluation results indicate the usefulness and practicality of the application and identify innova-tive uses not previously envisioned. Furthermore, the developed tool allows consistent data collection that caneventually be used to aid the development of advanced safety and health data analysis techniques.

dustries [1]. According to the United States (US) Bureau of Labor Statis- than those that did not. By analyzing the total OSHA recordable injury

nd widely used strate-ection process lacks aaccompanied by inef-tance, during a typical

Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Automation in

j ourna l homepage: www.e lssuch as regular safetymeetings, substance abuse programs, task specicsafety training, and pre-project safety planning. Among these commonapproaches, conducting regular and frequent construction site safety

safety inspection, a safety specialist looks for violations on site andtakes notes to record observed issues. However, inspection notestaken by different safety specialists may vary greatly for the same typefrom the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), re-quire that employers provide their employees with safe and healthyworking environments free from recognized hazards. To meet this re-quirement, contractors typically adopt a mix of safety approaches,

Although safety inspections are a successful agy for improving safety in construction, the inspcomprehensive and structured procedure and isfectiveness and inefciency throughout. For instics, more than 1000 work-related fatalities took place each yearbetween 1994 and 2011 in the US construction industry on average.Furthermore, construction consistently ranks as one of the top threemost dangerous industries in the US, with the greatest total number ofwork-related fatalities among all industries.

In the US, safety regulations, in particular the General Duty Clause

rate of 59 projects, the Construction Industry Institute [5] concludedthat the practice of checking safety inspection records on a regularbasis is generally associatedwith projects that have better safety perfor-mance. Kaskutas et al. [7] determined that safety inspections couldmeasure the risks of observed projects. Aksorn andHadikusumo [6] sug-gested that safety inspections are very effective in preventing accidents. Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 206 616 1915.E-mail addresses: kenyulin@uw.edu (K.-Y. Lin), meng

ucg@uw.edu (U.C. Gatti), jacob@caece.net (J. Je-Chian Lin(C.-H. Lee), sckang@caece.net (S.-C. Kang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2014.08.0120926-5805/ 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.ss global construction in-ed a survey concluding that the injury and illness incidence rates ofcompanies that performed safety inspections were signicantly lowerWorkforce safety is an important topic acroKeywords:Construction safetySafety inspectionSite inspectionField inspectionSafety auditField data collectionUser-centered designInformation and communication technologySafety technologyResearch to practice

1. Introduction 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

inspections is particularly important [2,3]. Abudayyeh et al. [4] conduct-Accepted 27 August 2014Available online 16 September 2014

up

ser-centered information and communications technology could signicantly reduce such drawbacks. Thisaper discusses the use of an original two-step user-centered design approach to develop and evaluate an iPadReceived in revised form 16 August 2014 that hinder the efciency, eA user-centered information and communto improve safety inspections

Ken-Yu Lin a,, Meng-Han Tsai b, Umberto C. Gatti c, Jaa Department of Construction Management, College of Built Environments, University of Washb Center for Weather Climate and Disaster Research, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwac Department of Construction Management, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United Stad Department of Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 14 August 2013

Occupational safety is impethat help enforce job safetyhan@caece.net (M.-H. Tsai),), piggyhoward@caece.netation technology (ICT) tool

Je-Chian Lin d, Cheng-Hao Lee d, Shih-Chung Kang d

n, 120 Architecture Hall, Box 351610, Seattle, WA 98195, United States

e in construction, and safety inspection is among the most common practicessite. The safety inspection process, however, suffers from several drawbacks

Construction

ev ie r .com/ locate /autconof issues, making it difcult to have a systematic understanding of theobserved issues. Current practices do not take advantage of the timeand resources that safety professionals have already committed duringsite inspections. Therefore, repetitive steps are taken to transform eldnotes into ofce les and then administrative reports. In addition,

54 K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363inspection results are rarely analyzed further to serve as performanceindicators for administrative and management use or to reveal the un-safe patterns on site.

These limitations may severely reduce safety specialists' effective-ness and efciency in collecting and compiling eld observations, andas a result may hamper their ability to monitor site safety performance.However, dedicated information and communication technology (ICT)tools, such as portable tablets capable of retrieving applicable safetyprocedures, rules and regulations, and software capable of automatingrecurring activities (e.g., creation of violation statistics and reports),could signicantly improve the day-to-day practices and managementof safety inspections.

Numerous ICT tools have been benecial for the construction indus-try. Goodrum and Haas said, Many industries have spent considerabletime and money studying how technology inuences productivity.These studies have led to sizeable gains in productivity and prot mar-gins [8]. Furthermore, the Construction Industry Institute [9] stated,Advances in technology have many benets. Among the most oftencited are improved quality and productivity. ICT tools also provide ben-ets to workforce safety and well-being. For instance, ICT innovationsallowing the industrialization and automation of work tasks wereconsidered to be one of the main factors preventing a signicant in-crease of injury rate in the US construction industry during the 1990s[10]. The importance of ICT-enabled automation in improving safetywas also supported by Kim and Cho [11] and Cinkelj et al. [12]. Hanet al. [13] and Sulankivi et al. [14] implemented building informationmodeling (BIM) and a 4D model for safety planning. Chi et al. [15],Teizer [10], and Walia and Teizer [16] employed 3D imaging sensorsto reduce the occurrence of collisions within a construction site. Wuet al. [17] used a radio-frequency identication (RFID) sensor networkto create an autonomous real-time tracking system of near-missaccidents and Yang et al. [18] applied the same technology to identifyaccident precursors.

However,many innovative technologies that have been proven to bebenecial are not commonly adopted by construction practitioners.There are different reasons for this. First, it is well known that the con-struction industry is considered reluctant regarding the adoption andimplementation of innovations [19,20]. Koningsveld and van derMolen commented that As we look at the pace of innovation in otherbranches of industry, the building and construction industry should becharacterized as most conservative [21]. Furthermore, ICT tools havetraditionally been developed by adopting a technology-centered design[22]. A technology-centered design occurs when researchers develop anew technology or apply an existing technology to a different eld,without considering users' needs and capabilities. Thus, a technology-centered design forces users to adapt to the new technology and even-tually fosters the occurrence of errors. According to Rogers [23], atechnology-centered design also implies that innovative technologiesare developed without considering factors that can signicantly affectinnovation diffusion and acceptance. Such factors include relative ad-vantage (the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being bet-ter than the idea it supersedes [23]), compatibility (the degree towhich an innovation is perceived as consistent with the existing values,past experiences, and needs of potential adopters (p. 15)), complexity(the degree towhich an innovation is perceived as relatively difcult tounderstand and use (p. 15)), trialability (the degree to which an inno-vation may be experimented with on a limited basis (p. 16)), and ob-servability (the degree to which the results of an innovation arevisible to others (p. 16)). Several studies have demonstrated thatwhen an innovation has relatively higher advantage, compatibility, sim-plicity, trialability, and observability, the innovation also has a higherchance to be extensively and rapidly accepted [24]. In fact, Mitropoulosand Tatum [25] suggested that uncertainty in obtaining benets or com-petitive advantages from using innovative technologies is among thebarriers that impede the introduction and development of innovative

technologies in construction.To mitigate technology-centered design issues and limitations,innovative ICT tools should be designed and developed through auser-centered (also known as human-centered) approach [26]. Whena user-centered design is used, researchers develop a new technology,or apply an existing technology to a different eld, by adapting it tousers' needs and capabilities and understanding how users interactwith it [27,28]. The employment of user-centered design principleshas been shown to be successful [29] and the importance of user-centered design is also emphasized by the fact that the InternationalOrganization for Standardization [30] issued a specic standard foruser-centered design. The limitations of current safety inspection proce-dures can be addressed by dedicated ICT tools, but introducing innova-tive ICT tools in construction cannot be successful without a user-centered approach.

To this end, the objectives of this study are twofold. First, through auser-centered approach, this study aims to verify the technological re-quirements that correspond to the safety inspection procedures andtheir management implications. Second, based on the veried techno-logical requirements, this study intends to develop an iPad (Apple) ap-plication for potential users to experience how the tool can effectivelysupport the day-to-day practices and management of safety inspec-tions. Echoing Mitropoulos and Tatum's suggestion [25], adopting auser-centered approach as themain research strategy is expected to re-duce user uncertainty about the technology and illustrate the competi-tive advantages of using the technology.

2. Background: The safety inspection process

Based on eld observations, the safety inspection process can be di-vided into three phases. These are the project information collectionphase, the recording of observed violations phase, and the administra-tion of inspection results phase. The conceptualized safety inspectionprocess is illustrated in Fig. 1.

After the details of a project are mostly settled and as the projectcommences, safety specialists responsible for the project begin to con-duct inspections at the project site. Generally, the site inspectionfrequency depends on the scale and importance of the project. Duringa site inspection, a safety specialist typically takes notes of any violationsand safety issues identied and communicates with workers on site toexpress observed concerns. Upon returning to the ofce, the specialistthen recaps and compiles the inspection results into a report. Inspectionresults are often further discussed during regular project managementmeetings to prevent similar issues from recurring, to target specicareas for training, and to raise safety awareness among all employees[31]. Eventually, the inspection results can be used to identify strong in-dicators for safe (or unsafe) projects and improve site safety perfor-mance by identifying and understanding the trend of unsafe workingconditions/behaviors. The inspection results can also potentially beused to establish relationships between project safety and other aspects,such as schedule, productivity, and cost of the project. An integrated ap-proach that examines the results of safety inspections and productivityhas been explored [32] and such efforts could inform organizations onhowprojectmanagement factors inuence each other. In addition, inte-grating safety inspection results with other aspects of the project hasproved to be benecial in reducing accident rates and improving pro-ductivity [33].

The safety inspection process, however, is ineffective and inefcientbecause of several drawbacks in current practices. The ve main draw-backs are described in the following paragraphs.

Drawback 1: Lack of Process StandardizationA safety inspection is expected to identify safety issues related to thevarious trades, means, methods, and materials of construction, afterconsidering all applicable safety standards [34]. However, the vol-ume of applicable safety standards is sizable and it is impossible

for safety specialists to verify whether all applicable standards are

o

ecand

owit

ordla

s of

55K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363satised. Alternatively, safety specialists use their experience tocheck the overall site surroundings and identify the most alarmingissues on site. The inspection process lacks standardized proceduresand is prone to errors and bias. This could explain why the inspec-tion results are not always recorded and why corrective actions arenot taken every time [31].Drawback 2: Lack of Standardized DocumentationIn discussing how to develop effective quality, environmental, andsafety management systems, Abudayyeh et al. [4] suggested thatpreparing and implementing standard inspection checklists can beextremely benecial in improving poor safety performance.Withoutstandardization of inspection documentation, ineffectiveness canoccur owing to arbitrary descriptions of observed safety issues(e.g., face and eye protection violation versus missing weldingshield) or inconsistent references to the same project information(e.g., Project at Pine Street versus Pine Tower). Consequently,the quality of inspection outputs is reduced, making it difcult to

Project and project

parcipant informaon

Bid informaon Site Inspec

Idenfy and rviolaons

issues

Discuss violaand issues

workers

Phase 1: Collecng Project Informaon

Phase 2: RecObserved Vio

Fig. 1. The procescompile inspection records for analysis.Drawback 3: Restricted Access to InformationSafety specialists have to walk around the construction site to checkfor safety issues. However, research indicates that the inspectionprocess is not well-prepared [35]. On-site personnel and/or docu-mentation often cannot provide timely information (e.g., the nameof a particular subcontractor or trade involved), thus requiring addi-tional efforts to locate the required information and making therecording process inefcient. Furthermore, it may be difcult forsafety specialists to provide specic regulations to workers whendiscovering safety issues on site as applicable safety rules or trainingmaterials might not be immediately accessible or retrievable.Drawback 4: Repetitive Data PreparationPoor accident recordkeeping and reporting systems are the majorproblems that cause ineffectiveness for safety management [36].During safety inspections, there are multiple recordings of thesame inspection results across several mediums (e.g., paper note-books, inspection reports, and spreadsheets). Thismakes the processmore prone to documentation errors, such as those introduced bymultiple and manual entries of the inspection results. In addition,pictures taken on site separately from the eld inspection noteshave to be integrated with the notes. Such integration generates anadditional complicated and time-consuming task that may fostermistakes and inaccuracies during data compilation.Drawback 5: Limited Availability of Safety SpecialistsThe number of safety specialists that a contractor employs dependson the company's size. For a small- to medium-sized company, itssole safety specialist often has to oversee many projects at thesame time. It was found that there are not enough on-site safetypersonnel to bear the workload [6] and safety specialists can onlyconduct site inspections sporadically [34]. This may decrease the ca-pacity of safety inspections when it comes to the identication of is-sues and violations. For example, the limited availability of a safetyinspector spread across multiple projects might lead to simplica-tion of the inspection process or ignorance of someviolations. To fur-ther challenge the limited availability of safety specialists, there is ageneration gap between novice and experienced safety specialists.This may be due, for instance, to economic decline and the loss oftalented employees who turned to other industries for employment.

n

ord

ns h

Violaons and issues are compiled in a report and/

or tracked

ing ons

Phase 3: Administrang Inspecon Results

The collected data can be: Analyzed to improve

safety performance Integrated with other

project data (e.g., producvity)

Etc.

safety inspection.Experience is a key factor for recognizing violations [37] and there-fore improving the availability of experienced safety specialiststhrough better work efciency and training is critical.

These ve main drawbacks negatively affect the inspection processand its mission to identify and record eld issues and violations. Thelack of standardized documentation and the repetitive data preparationparticularly affects the management of inspection results by hindering,for example, the further investigation of safety performance and the in-tegration of safety data into other aspects of project performance. Thereis an obvious need to streamline the safety inspection process andmax-imize the effectiveness and efciency of safety inspections.

2.1. Information and communication technology tools for safety inspections

Given the issues and limitations affecting the safety inspection pro-cess, contractors have turned to ICT for remedial solutions. ExistingICT tools for safety inspections are mostly developed onmobile devices,from PDAs and smart phones to tablets, for portability purposes andeld applications. Existing ICT tools can be classied into threemain cat-egories: (1) safety auditing tools, such as iAuditor from Safety Culture;(2) eldmanagement tools, such as BIM360 Field fromAutodesk, Pervidifrom Techs4Biz, and Pocket Jobsite Inspector from PDAge; and (3) dataanalysis tools, such as SafetyNet from Predictive Solutions. Although all

these tools are intended to support safety specialists in recording ob-served issues and violations during site inspections and administratinginspection results, they provide signicantly different functions.

Safety auditing tools mainly provide functions for recording theinspection results. For instance, iAuditor presents templates of site inspec-tion checklists for user selection and customization, and creates inspec-tion reports that can be printed or saved in a digital format. A typicalinspection report contains an overall safety score to indicate the safetyperformance of a project. However, iAuditor does not support integratedcommunication with subcontractors, and cannot analyze the collecteddata (e.g., to identify trends of unsafe working conditions/behaviors) ormerge them with other project performance measurements.

Field management tools provide comprehensive functions for qualityand safety management. For instance, BIM 360 Field consists of a seriesof eld data management applications that allow construction projectactivities to be recorded and stored in a centralized cloud database.Since project participants can access this database, it can support inte-grated communication between project managers and subcontractors.BIM 360 Field can also store the collected data and generate summaryreports to assess delays, rework, and punchlist items. However, BIM360 Field does not have an integrated application to further analyzethe collected inspection records.

Data analysis tools provide powerful applications to perform com-prehensive and statistical analysis. For instance, SafetyNet provides

data learning algorithms to analyze the collected data in order to iden-tify and examine safety-related issues. This tool specically aims to pre-dict workplace injuries by determining leading indicators and can beused to record issues and violations identied during site inspections.

2.2. Key functions of information and communication technology

By analyzing (1) the specic steps involved during safety inspec-tions, (2) the ve drawbacks in current practices, and (3) the availablefunctions of existing ICT tools, the authors conclude that any ICT toolmust provide a series of key functions to effectively support the safetyinspection process. The authors used a bottom-up approach to linkmajor functions of existing ICT tools with the three inspection phases.Information from tool vendors' websites and available trial versionsprovided insights into the existing ICT tools. The identied key functionsare described below and divided according to the three main safety in-spection process phases, with Fig. 2 further illustrating how these keyfunctions correspond to the recognized drawbacks:

Phase 1. Collecting project information: Pre-congured lists of project and project participant information. In-

formation about a project (e.g., project name and location) and itsparticipants (e.g., subcontractor names and performed tasks) canbe incorrectly reported in the documents generated during safety

Hardware portability

Photo capturing

Project and project parcipant

informaon pre-congured lists

Safety score

ccee sand

ndeola

Phase 1: Collecng Project Informaon

Phase 2: Recording Observed Violaons

Phase 3: Administrang Inspecon Results

gec

Integraon with other project data

gen

S

(For drawbacks 1, 3 & 5) (For drawbacks 3, 4 & 5)

bac

ack

bac

ack

56 K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363Aapplicabl

st

Remirelated vi

Pre-consafety ch

Le

BIM 360 Field iAuditor

(For draw

(For drawb

(For draw

(For drawbFig. 2. Comparison of current ICT toProject administraon

communicaon

Integrated communicaon

with project parcipants

Analysis of violaons trends/

paerns

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r for ons

ured klists

d

afetyNet None of the tools provide the funcon

ks 4 & 5) (For drawbacks 4 & 5)

s 1, 2 & 5) (For drawbacks 1 & 5)

ks 3 & 5)

s 1 & 5) (For drawback 5)ol functions and key functions.

in the Seattle area in late 2012, 85% of them still resorted to the pen-and-paper approach for conducting safety inspections, even though in-tegrated project or quality management solutions generally have aplaceholder for safety records. As such, the safety inspection processcontinues to suffer from the drawbacks outlined above.

3. Methodology

In this section, the authors explain the user-centered approach theyadopted in the development of an ICT tool, which incorporates thetechnological requirements from Section 2 so that potential users canexperience how the tool can support the day-to-day practices andman-agement of safety inspections. Although user-centered design has beenextensively discussed in several publications, no preferred method hasbeen advocated. For instance, the International Organization for Stan-dardization [30] determines the overarching process and phases(Fig. 3) but does not detail the exact methods.

By applying user-centered design principles and the ow chart inFig. 3, two main development phases were performed (Fig. 4). First,the authors designed a paper prototype based on actual safety inspec-tion procedures and administered two evaluations (i.e., interim and ex-pert evaluations) using mock-up violation scenarios and an evaluationquestionnaire. Second, the authors developed an application prototypebased on the rened paper prototype and consulted safety specialiststo evaluate the application prototype through eld tests. The develop-ment and evaluation stages were heavily informed by user inputs andare described in detail in the following sections.

57K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363inspections, or require additional efforts for verication. Therefore,ICT tools should provide pre-congured lists to contain reusableproject and participant information.

Phase 2. Recording observed violations: Hardware portability. To allow safety specialists to use an ICT tool

during site inspections and instantly record the observed violation,ICT tools should run on a portable device.

Photo capturing. Pictures of identied violations can be a powerfulinstrument in recording and describing the violations. Therefore,ICT tools should integrate a photo capturing function.

Pre-congured safety checklists. Having pre-congured safetychecklists stored in the ICT tool would ease site inspection proce-dures and improve process and documentation standardization.

Access to applicable safety standards. It is extremely unlikely that asafety specialist will carry a paper copy of all the applicable safetystandards and regulations during inspections. Therefore, ICT toolsshould store a digital copy of such safety standards and regulations,and allow safety specialists to quickly locate applicable rules fordiscussing with workers on how a violation or issue should beaddressed.

Reminder for related violations. Some violations are generally con-current with other violations. Therefore, ICT tools should automat-ically remind safety specialists to investigate certain violationswhen related violations are identied.

Phase 3. Administrating inspection results:

Safety score. ICT tools should provide a site safety performancecomprehensive measure, such as a safety score, based on the in-spection results. In fact, such a measure could provide the projectmanagement team with an easy-to-relate indication of the sitesafety level and eventually suggest directions for improvement.

Integration with other project data. The collected safety data can beused to analyze the relationship between safety and other projectaspects, such as schedule, productivity, and cost. Therefore, ICTtools should allow the data to be exported to other tools capableof integrating and synthesizing the different data.

Integrated communication with project participants. Integrating in-spection results into the communication protocols among projectparticipants (e.g., general contractor and subcontractors) can in-crease participant awareness of the safety issues and ensure thatno issues are overlooked. Therefore, ICT tools should supportsuch integration.

Analysis of violations trends/patterns. The analysis of historical datacollected across several sitesmay identify trends/patterns betweenspecic causal factors and the occurrence of violations, accidents,and injuries. Understanding these casual factors helps to minimizeor prevent the occurrence of related violations, accidents, and inju-ries. Although this function does not specically address any of theve drawbacks, it is essential to the establishment of a proactivesafety and health culture and should be included in the intendedICT tools.

Project administration communication. Providing corporate leader-ship with a high-level overview of the inspection results is imper-ative to the success of overall business management, but it is oftendeferred until monthly or quarterly meetings with the leadership.Therefore, ICT tools should allow safety specialists to communicatethe results obtained to the project management in a timelymanner.

As shown in Fig. 2, not all the key functions are fully supported bythe current ICT tools even if they are integrated into one solution andthere does not seem to be reported efforts on the unfullled functions.Some tools are also too costly or bulky for small- to medium-sized con-tractors. Furthermore, by considering the general reluctance of con-struction practitioners in adopting innovations and the lack of ICTtools providing a user-oriented experience, it is not surprising to see

that when the authors surveyed 20 medium-sized general contractors3.1. Informed design of the template

The rst step of the development and evaluation of the ICT safetyinspection tool was to initiate a paper prototype that can help com-municate and reect the process of safety inspection. The draft de-sign of the paper prototype was informed by the experience of oneof the co-author faculty internship with a general contractor fromthe greater Seattle area [38]. A single internship cannot serve as theonly point of reference but is a good starting point with the exibility

User

-cen

tere

d de

sign

phas

es Understand and specify context of use

Specify user and organizaonal requirements

Produce design soluons

Idenfy need for user-centered design

Evaluate design against requirements

Does the design sasfy user and organizaonal

requirements?

START

END

YES

NOFig. 3. General user-centered design ow chart.

to allow subsequent changes. Specically, formats, content, andrecording logic of desirable data for the preservation of site inspec-tion results were identied.

also reviewed to reveal additional common precautions (e.g., policy)for inclusion in the paper prototype. Finally, the topological structure ofthe US OSHA's construction safety standards was applied to adjust and

Fig. 4. Development and evaluation process.

58 K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363Safety issues of different types, as indicated by the host company's in-ternal site inspection records, were clustered to reveal major types(e.g., Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) related violations) and sub-types of safety issues under each theme (e.g., missing safety glasses).Safety inspection resources from different general contractors were

ScaffoldFall HazardsGuardrailFall ProtectionOther, please specify:

TrenchingElectrical

CordOther, please specify:

Ladder SafetyPPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

Face ShieldSafety GlassesHard HatGlovesOther, please specify:

Hazardous Chemicals

Fuel GasOther, please specify:

Fig. 5. Initial draft of thcomplete the base paper prototype design. Fig. 5 illustrates the violationtypes (e.g., Scaffold and Fall Hazards) and subtypes (e.g., Guardrail)dened in the base design. At this point, the paper prototype was essen-tially a static inspection form for organizing and recording all possiblesafety issues on site.

Tool SafetyPowder Actuated Tool

Power ToolMachine GuardSaw GuardOther, please specify:

PolicySmokingHeadphonesOther, please specify:

House KeepingEquipment Operation

CraneScissor LiftForkliftsVehiclesOther, please specify:

Work and PublicOther, please specify:

e inspection form.

classication and terminologies used in the form; and (3) prototyperevision and improvement required. It took each practitioner about

59K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 53633.2. Mock-up violation scenarios and evaluation questionnaire

By utilizing pictures of common site violations, 20mock-up viola-tion scenarios were compiled and equally divided into two sets(i.e., basic and advanced). Violations in the basic set were morestraightforward and easier to spot whereas violations in the ad-vanced set were generally more ambiguous or involved more thanone major hazard.

In addition to the violation scenarios, a questionnaire for evaluatingthe paper prototype was drafted. In particular, the questionnaireassessed four areas that the paper prototype could support in the site in-spection process, including the form's effectiveness (i.e., does the formhelp to describe the given violation scenarios?), coverage (i.e., doesthe form cover most of the on-site violations?), ease of use (i.e., is theform easy to understand and work with?), and other potential usecases of the form.

Once the violation scenarios were compiled and the evaluationquestionnaire was drafted, they were pre-tested by two Universityof Washington construction management graduate students. Thestudents had more than 3 years of experience in the construction in-dustry and were not involved in drafting the violation scenarios orthe evaluation questionnaire. As a result of this process, unforeseenevaluation problems (e.g., violation scenario pictures being unclear)and confusing questions in the questionnaire were identied andaddressed.

3.3. Interim evaluation

In order to obtain a consensus on how various safety issues shouldbe grouped in the paper prototype tomake sense in the eyes of potentialusers, an interim evaluation of the general organization of prototypecontent was conducted with 65 University of Washington undergradu-ate students taking a class on construction safety. The students weretasked with performing mock site inspections for the basic set of viola-tion scenarios using the paper prototype. This helped verify if the group-ing structure of the safety issues in the prototype was logical. If moststudents in the class could assign the same violation to a particular cat-egory, then the category was considered logical. Since not all studentshad construction experience prior to the test, those who recorded agiven violation scenario under an obviously inapplicable type ve ormore times were considered outliers and their responses were not con-sidered. The outlier determination threshold came from the most com-mon number of incorrect violation recordings conducted by studentswho possessed no prior construction experience. Out of the 65 studentswho participated and the 650 violations recorded, only 52 violations(about 10%) were recorded under inappropriate categories, with scaf-fold, housekeeping, and tool safety being the top three problematiccategories for inexperienced students. The interim evaluation resultsimplied that the structure of the violation categories was logical forthe most part.

After the evaluation, students further completed the evaluationquestionnaire and their responses indicated that the formwas effective,comprehensive, easy to deploy, and additionally served as a checklist.After the interim evaluation, three main changes were made to rectifyor clarify the terminologies used. Specically, Face Shield was re-placed by Respirator under PPE, Fencing and Otherwere incorpo-rated into the subtype Work and Public, and the subtype Policywasrenamed to Company Policy. The entire interim evaluation lastedabout 30 min.

3.4. Expert evaluation

The purpose of the expert evaluation was to conduct a more in-depth examination on the paper prototype in order to further reneand conrm how safety issues should be organized in a standard

recordkeeping form that makes sense to industry practitioners. For70 min to complete the process.Although the number of participating practitioners was limited

owing to the nature of the interview approach, the researchers wereable to obtain consistent feedback from the six practitioners. The mostsignicant input from these experts was about the coverage of safetyissues. This contradicted the student input, which could be explainedby the safety knowledge these experts had accumulated as their frameof reference when they evaluated the comprehensiveness of the paperprototype. As a result, additional violation types and subtypes wereidentied. Two new types, Fire Protection and Required Documents,and their related subtypeswere added to the paper prototype. New sub-types under existing violation types including Scaffold, House Keep-ing, Trenching/Excavation, and Ladder Safety were also added.Finally, the names of some violation types and subtypes were also re-vised (e.g., Work and Public to Worker and Public Safety). For theprocess-related recommendations, expert feedback further indicatedthe hidden relationships between some violation types (e.g., if theviolation is related to Electrical, then it has a high chance of alsobeing a Tool Safety violation). These relationships, if built into the pro-totype, could help potential users perform site inspections more rigor-ously. Some also suggested that the violation types and subtypes benumbered for easy reference. These recommendationsweremore relat-ed to the inspection process andwere considered during the tool proto-type development and evaluation. Compared to the initial paperprototype, the total number of violation types increased from 13 to 15and the total number of subtypes more than doubled, increasing from25 to 51. The rst 14 types categorize the most common violations,whereas type Other (15) allows the recording of rare issues. As a re-sult of this process, the framework of how safety issues should be orga-nized and described in order to practically support the recordkeepingrequirement during site inspections was shaped. Two requirements onwhat an ideal inspection tool should do to streamline the inspectionprocess were also identied.

3.5. Application prototype development

The purpose of the application prototype is to embed criticalfunctions in the safety inspection process in order to carry out user-oriented testing and solicit feedback in the anticipated environment ofthe application. The application prototypewas developed as an iPad ap-plication since, according to Johnson [39], an iPad is still by far themostprevalent mobile technology for eld applications in the US construc-tion industry. In particular, the application prototype was developedusing FileMaker Pro from FileMaker.

The authors developed the application prototype based on the nal-ized paper prototype and it included all the ICT tool key functions iden-tied and listed in Fig. 2, except for access to applicable safetystandards. Themissing function is planned to be added in a future ver-this purpose, both the basic and advance sets of violation scenarioswere used. Six eld practitioners from ve companies, including onesafety consulting rm and four general contractors from the greater Se-attle area, participated in the expert evaluation. Among the six partici-pating practitioners, one was a superintendent and ve were safetydirectors. Together, these practitioners had over 60 years of experiencein construction site safety, with one practitioner having between 5 and10 years of experience and theothers eachhavingmore than 10 years ofexperience. Each expert recorded the 20 given violation scenarios usingthepaper prototype, responded to the evaluation questionnaire, and an-swered additional open-ended questions. The additional questionswere intended to collect concerns about (1) the current safety inspec-tion practices, the forms used for such practices, and existing analyticalapplications of the inspection data records; (2) the applicability of thesion of the application as the function itself calls for a substantially

different scope of investigation and expertise in text classication. Keyfunctions included in the application prototype are as follows:

Pre-congured lists of project and project participant information.After aproject commences, trades involved on site, names of subcontractorsemployed, project title and prole number all become available infor-mation. Therefore, the application prototype allows the input of suchinformation in pre-congured lists (Fig. 6) so that users do not have tomemorize or key in the informationwhen they are conducting inspec-tions.

Hardware portability. Since the most important function is portabilityduring site inspections, the authors developed the application proto-type in a way that it can be hosted on iPad tablets.

Photo capturing. The photo capturing function utilizes an iPad's cam-era, allowing users to take and save violation pictures and includethem as a part of the inspection records. In particular, a user cantake up to four photos of each observed violation (Fig. 7).

Pre-congured safety checklists. The authors incorporated the paperprototype's pre-congured safety checklists into the applicationprototype (Fig. 8). The checklist interface design required thoughtfulconsideration on how to best organize the checklist informationwhile minimizing the number of clicks it takes to work through thechecklists.

Reminder of related violations. Different violations may be strongly re-lated to each other. Therefore, the application prototype shows poten-tially related violations if certain violations are entered. For example,when an electrical violation is chosen, the bottom of the interface

tem allows safety specialists to email inspection reports to relatedproject participants (e.g., subcontractors).

Analysis of violation trends/patterns. To identify possible violationtrends, the application prototype is capable of presenting differentcharts about the violations. Users can choose to view violation distri-butions by projects or by subcontractors and understand the viola-tions over different aspects.

Project administration communication. This function supports users inkeeping track of the violation statistics and provides the related viola-tion pictures in the cloud. The application prototype shows the overallviolation distribution of all the projects, and the site safety statisticsdisplayed in the charts would change immediately when a new viola-tion is recorded. This gives administrators or the leadership immedi-ate feedback.

3.6. Field evaluation

After the application prototype was completed, it was evaluated tosee if it satised the practical needs of site inspection and at the sametime exhibited the potential to support future data analysis. Three safetyexperts from different construction companies participated in the eldevaluation. Two of the three experts were the heads of their respectivesafety departments while the third expert was a senior safety ofcer.Two safety experts used the application prototype for 2 weeks whereasone used it for over 6 months. Each safety expert was instructed to, at aminimum, use the application prototype to record violations in the eld(Fig. 10) and administer inspection results (e.g., generate violation re-ports for meetings and investigations). Members of the research team

60 K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363will show Please check Tool (09) for related violation in red toremind users that there could be a potentially related hazard. Thisfunction differentiates the application prototype from existing soft-ware and could eventually be congured to benet and learn fromcollected inspection records over time.

Safety score. This function allows users to enter an overall score for theconducted inspection.

Integrationwith other project data. To allow integrationwith other datasources, the application prototype can export the data into a spread-sheet le, which is compatible with many common software applica-tions (e.g., Microsoft Excel). Although a shared schema for integratingFig. 6. Project information interface.inspection records with other project data was not explored, as thistopic was outside the user-centered focus of this study, the existingdata-exporting capability engages end-users to brainstormpotentiallybenecial data fusion scenarios.

Integrated communication with project participants. The applicationprototype provides cloud capabilities (Fig. 9) by hosting an online da-tabase operable through FileMaker's services. Furthermore, the sys-

Fig. 7. Photo capturing interface.participated in several site inspections with the safety experts to

61K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363introduce them to the application prototype, assess their user experi-ence, and collect their feedback through interviews.

As a user provides feedback, the application prototype improved thesafety inspection process by minimizing repetitive data preparationtasks and increasing work efciency, thus addressing issues caused by

Fig. 8. Scaffold safety checklist interface.the limited availability of safety specialists. For instance,many of the ap-plication prototype functions helped to reduce the overall amount ofpaperwork required (e.g., integrated communication with project par-ticipants) and the efforts that safety specialists take to collect project in-formation (e.g., pre-congured lists of project and project participantinformation), record observed violations (e.g., hardware portability,photo capturing), and administer inspection results (e.g., projectadministration communication). Repetitive data preparation-related is-sues were reduced by the functions related to communication, becauseonce inspection records are generated, they can be reused in differentcommunication formats, such as emails.

Fig. 9. Data management interface.Theeld evaluationwas also extremely benecial because it enabledthe authors to envision new uses of the application prototype that hadnot previously been considered. First, the prototype application allowedsafety experts to provide immediate feedback to the superintendents.For instance, safety experts can show violation pictures to site superin-tendents before leaving the inspected sites and discuss with themwaysto prevent similar violations in the future. Second, a constructioncompany decided to use the data collected through the application pro-totype to rate subcontractors' safety performance as a basis for futureproject prequalication. The company also used the data to assess su-perintendents' safety performance in order to determine their yearlybonus.

Furthermore, through eld evaluations, the authors identied threeproblems in the application prototype. First, the iPad 2 was used as aplatform and the iPad camera was not good enough for taking violationpictures in low-light situations. As pictures serve as good evidence forrecording violations, the issue with the tablet camera can only be im-proved when its manufacturer upgrades the specications. Second,even though the iPad is a portable device, use of the tablet on site isstill far from ideal. Users had to be mindful with the device to avoidrain, scratches, and falls. Providing a full protection case for the devicecould minimize this problem, but also makes it difcult for users totype or check the violation box on the device. Third, the existing processof site inspection is mostly paper-based and different companies havedifferent paper templates for their safety inspections. Therefore,

Fig. 10. A safety expert using the prototype tool for site inspection.connecting the application prototype with the existing processes re-quired additional research (i.e., a study of data schema) to integratesafety and health data into the larger business management practices.

Additional evaluation was performed in the form of an expert work-shop in the summer of 2013, with 10 participating subject expertswhosemain job tasks are related to construction safety and healthman-agement in the industry. In the workshop, experts learned about theapplication prototype through hands-on interactions and then lledout a two-page survey to indicate their level of agreement with givenevaluation criteria. A 5-point Likert scale measured the level of agree-ment with 1 being Disagree and 5 being Agree. Results fromthe survey are summarized in Table 1. Since the workshop, 10 privateentitiesfour specialty contractors, four general contractors, oneconsulting rm, and the Associated General Contractors of America(Western Washington District)have signed the evaluation licenseagreement with the University of Washington and obtained free accessto the tool.

Although a quantitative eld evaluation was not conducted duringthe reported research stage, the authors considered the collected quali-tative feedback to help support the intended research objectives andguide the research into its next phase. In the future, the research team

cation prototype. For example, the ability to edit the pre-conguredsafety checklists is desirable for contractors who want to design safety

62 K.-Y. Lin et al. / Automation in Construction 48 (2014) 5363checklists specic to each project and/or special clients. However, a con-sistent schema for labeling violation data will be hard to create, makingplans on recruiting a larger group of eld users and taking quantitativemeasurements to document the user experience.

4. Discussions

The developed ICT tool has proved to be benecial in improving theefciency and effectiveness of the safety inspection process for thesubject experts studied. In fact, the most noticeable benets identiedin the eld evaluationwere the reduction of paperwork and faster com-munication between project participants. In addition to addressing thelimited availability of safety specialists and repetitive data prepara-tion-related issues, implementing the ICT tool minimizes other draw-backs in the safety inspection process. For instance, the use of pre-congured lists of project and project participant information allowssafety specialists to store and quickly retrieve project data and, there-fore, improve their access to project information. Then, functions suchas pre-congured safety checklists, reminders of related violations,and integrated communication with project participants can improveprocess standardization by making these steps an automatic part ofthe process. Finally, the lack of standardized documentation can bereduced by the use of pre-congured safety checklists.

Although the ICT tool functions were developed to support safetyspecialists, some functions have both positive and negative impactsand, as a result, not all the possible featureswere integrated in the appli-

Table 1Survey results for the application prototype evaluation.

Criteria Avg. agreementlevel

1. The prototype can reduce the challenges you face whenperforming safety inspections.

5.00

2. The prototype can improve your current approach to safetyinspection.

5.00

3. The prototype is compatible with your company's businessvalue and needs.

4.71

4. The design of the prototype aligns with your inspectionpractices.

4.50

5. The prototype is easy to understand and use. 5.006. The benet of using the prototype can be easily

communicated to your peers.4.87

7. The benet of using the prototype can be easilycommunicated to your boss.

4.87it difcult to analyze violation data for trend and pattern recognition.Thus, as an informed design decision, the application prototype doesnot allow users to customize the pre-congured safety checklists. Toprovide users with a certain level of customization without affectingthe quality and consistency of the collected data, the application proto-type has a place in the pre-congured safety checklists where users canadd options that are not already in the list.

The collection of consistent and high-quality eld safety inspectiondata can have a tremendous inuence on the development of advanceddata analysis techniques. For instance, a statistical report of the resultscan reveal the most frequent violations in the eld and direct furtherresearch to understand the relationships between weather conditions(e.g., temperature) and violation features (e.g., trade type involved).Eventually, it will be possible to develop ICT tools capable of autono-mously identifying the priority inspection items and presenting the po-tential workplace safety issues based on the site weather, worker, and/or trade information. Therefore, although additional uses of the collect-ed data beyond recordkeeping applications still need to be explored,this research established a structured safety inspection process andincluded related functions in the preliminary process to facilitate ad-vanced data analysis. This enhances our systematic understanding ofthe inspection process and provides researchers as well as practitionersthe opportunity to explore and experience potential benets, echoingMitropoulos and Tatum's suggestions [25] on minimizing uncertaintywhen introducing and developing innovative technologies for construc-tion applications.

Regardless of all the possible benets, the integration of an innova-tive ICT tool with existing procedures and business practices remainsa critical challenge. In fact, one safety specialist who participated inthe eld evaluation decided to stop using the application prototypetool because the integration was an additional workload for him. Thegeneral resistance to change and technology in the construction indus-try remains an additional barrier. Although a user-centered design ap-proach was used in developing the application prototype, anothersafety specialist involved in the eld evaluation demonstrated a clearreluctance to shift their inspection process from paper to ICT. Therefore,best practices in the use of technological innovations for eld safety in-spections should be established in order to showcase success stories andprovide incentives for adopting innovations within the industry. Suchbest practices need to highlight how technological innovations benetnot only day-to-day practices and safety inspection processes but alsooverall safety management.

Finally, it is important to point out that the implementation of auser-centered design approach in the reported study was extremelybenecial. By working with industry practitioners closely, the authorscaptured and understood the end-users' business needs, preferences,practices, and objectives. Similarly, by participating in the researchstudy, the industry partners better understood the technological capa-bilities andweremotivated to envision new ICT tool uses not previouslyconsidered.

5. Conclusion

Safety inspection is imperative for reinforcing and promoting jobsite safety. However, it is often undermined by the inefciency andineffectiveness of the process. The authors concluded that the safety in-spection process is hampered by several drawbacks, including lack ofstandardized processes and documentation, restricted access to infor-mation, repetitive data preparation, and limited availability of safetyspecialists. Among other negative impacts, these drawbacks preventcurrent practices from generating consistent and high-quality inspec-tion records and therefore limit the potential of advanced safety andhealth data analysis.

By analyzing the features of the safety inspection process, its draw-backs, and available ICT tools, the authors determined a series of keyICT functions that can improve the safety inspection process. A two-step user-centered design approach was implemented to investigatethe requirements of these functions with the goal of embedding themin an ICT tool for evaluation in the intended area of application. In therst step, the authors developed and evaluated a paper prototype. Inthe second step, the research team developed and evaluated an ICTapplication prototype running on an iPad and containing most of thekey functions. In particular, this research carried out user-orientedtesting and feedback solicitation in the anticipated environment of ap-plication. The use of such a user-centered design approach positively in-uenced the research activities and enabled the authors to identifysafety specialists' needs and practices. The user-centered approachalso enabled the participating safety specialists to understand the ICTtool's capabilities and to envision innovative ICT-based procedures forthe eld.

iSafe, the iPad application developed, can now be accessed forfree under the evaluation licensing agreement at the University ofWashington's Safety and Health Advancement through Research andEducation (SHARE) in Construction Management Lab's website at

http://cm.be.washington.edu/Research/SHARE.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the nancial support for thisresearch received from the University of Washington's Royal ResearchFund. The authors would also like to recognize their construction indus-try partners from the greater Seattle area.

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A user-centered information and communication technology (ICT) tool to improve safety inspections1. Introduction2. Background: The safety inspection process2.1. Information and communication technology tools for safety inspections2.2. Key functions of information and communication technology

3. Methodology3.1. Informed design of the template3.2. Mock-up violation scenarios and evaluation questionnaire3.3. Interim evaluation3.4. Expert evaluation3.5. Application prototype development3.6. Field evaluation

4. Discussions5. ConclusionAcknowledgmentsReferences