Exploring the relationship between project integration and safety performance

While recent studies suggest that there is a relationship between indicators of project integration—such as early involvement of constructors—and the quality of project health and safety outcomes, there is no study that empirically investigates this relationship. To address this limitation in the current body of knowledge, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between several characteristics of the integrated projects and construction safety performance. To achieve this objective, the following activities were conducted. First, to collect detailed information regarding recently completed building projects, a survey questionnaire was developed in which, safety performance metrics—such as the number of accidents—were considered as dependent variables, and project organization, team integration, and using emerging processes and technologies were included in the questionnaire as independent variables. Second, the questionnaire was distributed to reach a diverse set of respondents, and a database of 204 building projects was created. The collected data was validated by conducting follow-up phone interviews with respondents. Finally, the database was analyzed using various statistical techniques to investigate the relationship between project integration indicators and safety performance. The results of this study provide preliminary evidence that early decisions of owners and contractors to move towards more integrated projects can impact the safety performance of projects.

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