Improving Construction Job Site Safety with Building Information Models: Opportunities and Barriers

Effective management of construction job site safety is a critical aspect of successful management of construction projects. Research has shown that safety planning at construction jobs sites relies on 2D documents, manual observations, which is a labor-intensive, time-consuming and thus highly ineffective and inefficient process. In addition, the link between safety planning and work task execution is often weak due to communication barriers, ambiguous interpretation of information and subjective judgment of Jobsite safety workers. Safety knowledge transfer is a difficult process when using 2D documents, instruction manuals and verbal instructions, especially in projects with multicultural and multilingual construction workforce, such as in the case of the UAE construction industry. This paper explores the potential of using Building Information Models (BIM) to overcome the problems of safety management & knowledge transfer in the construction jobsite in the UAE. BIM-enabled 3D models and visualization tools can effectively simulate actual job site conditions and can educate the job site crew in an interactive way to enhance their understanding of the job site conditions and safety requirements. The research has used a survey questionnaire to understand the safety knowledge transfer practices in the UAE and has investigated various aspects of safety management and where BIM can bring radical improvements. This study is useful for construction stakeholders, and policymakers in the UAE, to leverage BIM potential for improving construction Jobsite safety. This study also invites future research to devise tools and strategies towards BIM-enabled visualization centric approaches for safety management, training and knowledge transfer in the UAE construction industry.