Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
DESIGNING FOR EASE OF MAINTENANCE AND SAFETY
Author:
Kyran Sze, Managing Director, Aedas Ltd
Abstract:
In Hong Kong the rates of fatalities and accidents in construction and building
maintenance remain unacceptably high. With a stock of older buildings as part of the
Hong Kong built environment for some time to come, regulation and education will
continue to play an important role in ensuring workers’ safety. Equally important to
workers’ safety are construction technologies, practices and training that minimise
the risks of falling from heights. The architecture profession can also contribute to
workplace safety by designing new buildings and retrofit older ones to maximise inbuilt access for movement of equipment to and from areas of maintenance. The
industry should also go further by systematically incorporating maintenance
requirements as an integral part of a building’s overall safety to all users. Design to
reduce unnecessary maintenance should also comprise future approaches to the
development of environmentally sustainable buildings.
Keywords:
Design for Construction Safety (DFCS), Maintenance, Education, Regulation,
Sustainability
1.0
INTRODUCTION
In Hong Kong, the construction industry is responsible for the highest rates of both
workplace fatalities and accidents. In 2006, the construction industry experienced a
fatality rate of .303 per 1,000 workers or 6.4 times the rate for all industries in Hong
Kong. During the same year the industry’s overall accident rate was more than
doubled the general Hong Kong industry average.1 The construction industry also has
a fatality rate that is eight times that for manufacturing, and an accident rate that is
three times that for manufacturing.
Table 1: Fatalities and Accidents Per 1,000 Workers in Hong Kong (2006)
Construction Manufacturing
Catering
All Major
Industries
Fatality Rate
.303
.037
0.0
0.047
Accident Rate
64.3
18.4
47.2
31.5
(Source: Labour Department, 2007)
When there is a workplace accident costs do not end with workflow disruption, lost
business opportunities, medical expenses, compensation payment, increased insurance
premiums, or indeed the reputation of a business or brand name. More incalculable is
the trauma of co-workers and, where there is a fatality or permanent injury, the costs
that have to be borne by the victim’s family for the rest of their lives. How does one
calculate, for example, the cost of a deceased father or mother to the life of a young
child?
1
Labour Department (2007) Occupational Safety and Health Statistics 2006
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
The architectural profession can play a leading role in reducing fatalities and
accidents in the construction and maintenance workplace. This paper will outline how
buildings and facilities can be designed with a view to, amongst other demands and
requirements, take into account ease of maintenance and safety. It needs to be
stressed however that design is one aspect of safety and health in the construction and
building maintenance industry which also requires additional and important roles to
be played by:
•
Regulation, including that which sustains competitiveness within the construction
and building maintenance industry;
•
The management of health and safety, including training and accepted codes of
conduct in the construction and maintenance workplace; and;
•
Innovations in construction technologies that contribute to the reduction of
accidents and fatalities on the building site and during maintenance.
2.0
CONSTRUCTION AND BUILDING MAINTENANCE AND SAFETY
IN HONG KONG
Before outlining how fatalities and accidents can be reduced, it is important to analyse
more closely how fatalities and accidents actually take place on Hong Kong building
sites and during the repair and maintenance of buildings and other built environmental
facilities. This part of the paper will draw largely the Hong Kong Labour
Department’s statistics on industrial accidents as well as on fatalities and accidents
within the construction and building maintenance industry. 2
2
Labour Department (2005) Accidents in the Construction Industry in Hong Kong (2000-2004)
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
Having noted that the construction industry is responsible for the highest levels of
both fatalities and accidents, it is instructive to note (Chart 1) that there has been a
significant reduction from a peak of 247.9 accidents and 0.709 fatalities per 1,000
workers in 1998. Whilst it appears that the construction industry has significantly
improved its accident record in comparison to other industries, one needs, however, to
be circumspect to the fact that this timeframe also coincides with a downturn in the
Hong Kong economy and, with it, the construction sector.
Table 2: Construction and RMAA Accidents
2000
2001
Construction
11,925
9,206
RMAA
3,402
2,582
RMAA as % of Total
28.5%
28%
(Source: Labour Department, 2005)
2002
6,239
1,925
30.9%
2003
4,369
1,485
34.0%
2004
3,833
1,454
37.9%
Moreover, over the last several years, the rate of accident reduction in the repair,
maintenance, minor alterations and additions (RMAA) sub-sector of construction has
not fallen as fast as that for construction as a whole (Table 2). This may be a
reflection of the fact that work for the industry has shifted from new construction
work to RMAA over the last decade. Thus, the percentage of reported RMAA
accidents has increased from 28.5 percent of reported construction accidents in 2000
to 37.9 percent of reported construction accidents in 2005.
When examining fatalities between construction of new works and RMAA (Table 3),
the portion represented by RMAA is almost equally dramatic. Between 2000 and
2004 for example RMAA accounted for 32.9 percent of total fatalities in the
construction sector.
Table3: Fatal RMAA Accidents as a Portion of Total Construction Fatalities
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Reported RMAA Fatalities
33
31
29
29
21
RMAA as % of Total
41.4%
14.3%
41.7%
32%
35.3%
(Source: Labour Department, 2005)
When examining the Labour Department’s report on type of accidents in RMAA
between 2000 and 2004 (Table 4), ‘fall of a person from height’ comprise 55 percent
of fatalities while ‘contact with electricity or electric charge’ account for another 25
percent of fatalities.
Of the top five types non-fatal industrial accidents in RMAA and these are more
spread out across the board and include:
•
Striking against or being struck by moving objects;
•
Striking against fixed or stationary objects;
•
Being injured whilst lifting or carrying;
•
Slipping, tripping or falling from the same height; and
•
Falling from height.
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
Table 4: Fatal and Non-Fatal Accidents in RMAA Analysed by Type of Accident
Fatal Industrial Accidents by Top 5
Non-fatal Accidents by Top 5 Accident
Accident Types
Types
No of
%
No of
%
Cases
Cases
Fall of persons from
22
55.0% Striking against or
2,402 22.2%
height
struck by moving
object
Contact with electricity
10
25.0% Striking against
1,624 15.0%
or electrical discharge
fixed or stationery
object
Contact with moving
2
5.0% Injured while lifting
1,458 13.5%
machinery or object
or carrying
being machinery
Trapped by collapsing or
2
5.0% Slip, trip or fall on
1,370 12.7%
overturning object
same level
Fall of person from
1,361 12.6%
height
(Source: Labour Department, 2005)
Of the type of work being performed in RMAA between 2000 and 2004 when
accident occurred, the top ten activities were:
•
Material handling (14.6%)
•
Manual work (11.6%)
•
Electrical Wiring (10.0%)
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
•
Water pipe fitting (6.5%)
•
Lift/escalator installation (5.9%)
•
Woodworking (5.8%)
•
Air conditioning installation (5.4%)
•
Painting (4.3%)
•
Plastering (3%)
•
Glazier work (2.5%).
Finally when examining fatalities in construction and RMAA by ‘fall of person from
height’, bamboo scaffolds are responsible for the largest number of falls in both
construction and RMAA. Within construction, working platforms/falseworks were
the second most numerous locations from which fatal falls took place whereas for
RMAA, unfenced edges and lift-shaft openings were the second largest locations of
fatalities involving falling from height (Chart 2).
2.1
Implications for Construction Design and Maintenance Safety
There are a number of implications of the above statistics for the construction and
building maintenance industry as a whole. Firstly, while accident rates as a whole has
significantly fallen, the industry’s rate of workplace fatalities is still unacceptably
high. There is clearly an important role to be played by the adoption of new or
improved safety training, incorporating new construction techniques or innovative
building maintenance or repair practices. Notable areas of required focus include
safety at height, the management and reduction of electrical discharges and the
securing of machinery and objects involved in construction and maintenance.
Secondly, with regards to RMAA, one needs to add to the mix the fact that fatalities
and accidents are likely to have taken place on older established buildings around
Hong Kong where safety of maintenance were not necessarily considerations in their
initial design. Many of these buildings are and will be part of the Hong Kong built
environment for a very long time before being replaced by more modern buildings
with improved safety features for maintenance and repairs. As such there is an
equally important role to be played by regulation, both from Government and industry
self-regulation, as well as through ongoing campaigns and worker education in safety.
Thirdly, for designers of modern building and other facilities in Hong Kong’s built
environment, there is a clear case for new designs or retrofitting that reduce, if not
eliminate the need for scaffolding, ladders and other makeshift means for accessing
high locations for routine maintenance and repairs. Moreover the management of
electrical machinery and equipment, and the securing of objects during the
maintenance process should also underpin good design for safety.
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
3.0
DESIGN FOR SAFETY CONCEPT
While construction and building maintenance safety becomes an important issue for
the industry globally, many developers and designers in Hong Kong have also been
acting positively to improve building design in such aspect. Many architects have
now realized that it is much more competent to incorporate safety into the design
process rather than trying to manage safety within an inherently unsafe process
afterwards. Below the graph demonstrates the project management corresponded to
the safety influence. In the graph, it is shown that by concerning the construction and
building maintenance safety (along with production, quality and project scope) in
early project life cycle, the greater ability to positively influence safety in building
designs.
Graph 1. Considering safety during design offers the Most Payoff (Design for
Safety, ASCE Construction Institute, Bucknell University, 2006)
Design for Construction and Maintenance safety emphasize on incorporation of
safety concept in design phase. For instance, it does not focus on how to use fall
protection systems, but it does involve design decisions that influence how often fall
protection will be needed. Similarly, architects do not address the way of safe
scaffolding, but involve design considerations on the location and type of scaffolding
for accomplishing maintenance and routine cleaning work in the future. Architects
and Design Engineers are in the position for decisions making and influencing to help
improve construction and maintenance safety as a whole.
4.0
PRINCIPLES UNDERPINNING SUSTAINABLE BUILDING SAFETY
In addition, there is a much broader scope for maintenance safety if architects and
designers were to incorporate safety in maintenance as a broader ‘triple-bottom-line’
sustainability approach to the built environment. It is further argued that an approach
to the design of building or other built environment design should incorporate
approaches that:
•
Seek to reduce, if not eliminate altogether, unnecessary maintenance, including
the use of durable materials and the deployment of modular and standardised
components that can be easily replaced or removed for repair or replacement;
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
•
Recognise that maintenance staff, contractors and other workers are a vital
component to the building or facility’s social ecology, and their safety is as
essential as those of other users such as owners, tenants, residents or visitors;
•
Pay attention to the location of areas requiring maintenance, the placement of
facilities or features that require maintenance, as well as the provision of built-in
access to these by maintenance staff or contractors; and
•
Integrate and simplify complexities that are often involved with modern building
management systems (BMS), including considerations for ease of safety in
maintenance of these systems.
4.1
Design to Reduce Unnecessary Maintenance
A basic principle of design of ease and safety of maintenance is to, where possible,
design out the need for ongoing maintenance. For example in Hong Kong
International Airport’s Terminal 2 building (Picture 1), the ‘big box’ nature of the
design softened by rounded corners of the façade which provides few, if any, spaces
for the collection of dust and grime that needs to be routinely cleaned. The same
design principle are applied to York House (Picture 2) as part of the Landmark
complex in Central, where the design of an in-house canopy has significantly reduced
the rate at which dusty surfaces need to be cleaned regularly.
Pictures 1&2: Hong Kong International Airport Terminal 2, Hong Kong & York
House, Central HK
In circumstances where styling requirements does not allow for the designing out of
maintenance, this can be compensated with the use of prefabricated materials that do
not degrade over time. In the Macao Venetian Casino for instance, Glassfibre
Reinforced Concrete or GRC was used to create the internal and external ornate
classical features and baroque architectural style and colours for the casino. These
intricate internal and external facades were designed and moulded with lightweight
modular GRC panels which were easily installed for subsequent low maintenance.
Equally important is the fact that GRC does not need any painting or re-painting.
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
Pictures 3&4: Venetian Casino, Macao
4.2
Maintenance Work/Workers as Integral to Sustainable Social Ecology to
the Built Environment
While maintenance can be minimised through design, it cannot be totally designed out.
The fact that the manufacturing sector has achieved relatively lower rates of industrial
fatalities and accidents as highlighted the first section of this paper should not escape
the attention of architects and designers particularly those of non-industrial building.
This is because industrial buildings are largely conceived and designed with their all
their workers’ safety in mind, and the maintenance of building, plant and equipment
are an integral part of the industrial or workflow processes.
By contrast, commercial, residential or public buildings are conceived as aesthetic
showpieces that reflect upon their owners, tenants or users while the processes for
their maintenance are often viewed, either with traditional maintenance technologies
in mind or as an afterthought. Thus a sustainability approach to designing for safety
should include consideration for the safety of service and maintenance workers in the
same manner as safety is considered for other users of the building or facility.
4.3
Placement of Amenities and Built-in Access to Necessary Maintenance
Buildings and facilities are living ecologies of social exchange and processes and
maintenance staff and contractors are an essential component to any building or
facility’s ongoing sustainability. Their safety can, however, be enhanced through the
considered placement of plant and equipment that provide access, including vehicular
or other access from height, such as service elevators, cranes or cherry-pickers.
The strategic clustering of areas, for example of lighting or projection or other
telecommunications systems that require maintenance, particularly those that are at
height, is also important. Equally important is the provision of built-in access to these
areas that eliminate the need for the erection of scaffolding or the use of ladders in
routine or regular maintenance. In areas where access by routine maintenance staff
cannot be concealed, for instance in skylight ceilings or high glass walls, one possible
solution is the inclusion of railings and walkways into the design aesthetics.
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
4.4
Building Management Systems (BMS) and Maintenance Safety
Finally any architect or design engineer will need to work to accommodate a range of
modern building management systems (BMS) that often integrate a facility’s power,
telecommunications and security requirements. More often than not, these systems
have their own built-in processes and requirements for maintenance. However where
these systems are multiple and overlap, considerations will need to be made for their
safe maintenance. Again, attention to the location of these systems requiring
maintenance, including access, and consideration of BMS contractors would be an
essential element of sustainable design for ease of maintenance.
5.0
CONCLUSION AND THE FUTURE FOR BUILDING MAINTENANCE
SAFETY
In summary, the construction industry’s accident and in particular its fatality rates
remain unacceptably high. The adoption of new or improved safety training, practices
and innovations incorporated into architectural design, construction techniques and
building maintenance/repair processes have an important role to play in reducing rates
in fatalities and accidents.
Secondly, the Hong Kong built environment will continue to comprise stock of older
building and facilities where maintenance for ease of safety was not necessarily a
consideration in their initial design. Accordingly Government and industry selfregulation, through ongoing campaigns and education in safety will continue to be
important in reducing fatalities and accidents.
Thirdly, there is a clear case for new buildings or retrofitting that reduce, if not
eliminate the need for scaffolding, ladders and other makeshift means for accessing
high locations for routine maintenance and repairs. For designers, moreover the
management of electrical machinery and equipment and the securing of objects during
the maintenance process should also underpin good design for safety.
Fourthly, this paper argues for a much broader scope for maintenance to incorporate a
broader ‘triple-bottom-line’ sustainability approach building design with approaches
that:
•
Seek to reduce, if not eliminate altogether, unnecessary maintenance, particularly
maintenance that require access at height;
•
Recognise that maintenance staff, contractors and other workers are a vital
component to the building social ecology;
•
Pays attention to the location of areas requiring maintenance and providing builtin access to these by maintenance staff or contractors; and
•
Integrate and simplify complexities that are often involved with modern building
management systems (BMS), including their maintenance.
By way of conclusion, it is argued that designing a triple-bottom-line approach to
safety in maintenance will best ensure its adoption into the future in Hong Kong.
Recognition of maintenance staff and contractors into the safety of the building or
facilities’ ecology brings with ‘financial bottom’ line benefits associated with reduced
uses of cleaning machinery, chemicals and materials. This is in addition to reduction
of accidents that are associated with workflow disruption, lost business opportunities,
medical expenses, compensation payment, increased insurance premiums, or indeed
the reputation of a business or brand name.
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Paper submitted to the Construction Industry Institute Hong Kong 2007 Conference
References
Chan, A.P.C., Chan, D.W.M. and Ho, K.S.K. (2003). Partnering in construction:
Critical study of problems for implementation. Journal of Management in
Engineering, ASCE, 19(3), 126-135.
Accidents in the Construction Industry of Hong Kong (2000 – 2004), Labor
Department 2005
Occupational Safety and Health Statistics 2006, Labour Department (2007)
http://www.ciihk.org.hk/research09_02.htm#team
http://www.designforconstructionsafety.org/
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