Professor Robert Amor from the University of Auckland and member of the BIMSafe Advisory Group summaries the recent analysis of international research papers on BIM and Health and Safety which has identified key areas of development for New Zealand.
To start off his PhD at the University of Canterbury, international student Zhe Zhang has undertaken a comprehensive review for BIMSafe of the research literature applying Building Information Modelling (BIM) to Health and Safety.
Thanks to his sterling efforts in identifying and scanning 537 academic papers we have a report summarising what is known worldwide in the areas of: safety in design; site construction health and safety management; safety during procurement processes; whole lifecycle H&S management; and safety during construction. A summary of what stood out in each of the areas follows.
BIM-based safety in design has an ongoing focus on rule-based safety checking and risk assessment systems. BIM is seen as a tool to support visualisation of H&S aspects (e.g., 4D animation to review, assess and communicate construction hazards and risks) and to extract information for reasoning and assessing, particularly around fall hazards. Most research looks at just one hazard and developing a more holistic approach that could identify and present all major hazards looks like a future approach. There seems to be very little work looking at how BIM-based safety in design methods would work with existing safety in design methods and their standard processes.
BIM for H&S in procurement was a surprisingly sparsely studied area, with just a single research paper found in the area. This area is hindered by concerns over legal and contractual risks of BIM, though the research identified a range of mitigation strategies for particular BIM risks.
BIM-based H&S management on site was by far the most studied area with 491 papers identified with a concentration of effort in China and the USA. Safety planning was a core application area for BIM looking to prevent accidents by proactively managing safety risks. Hazard management papers looked at identifying, predicting, and communicating specific hazards often for a particular project or construction type.
The use of BIM for safety inspection and monitoring was prevalent with a range of sensors for workers and machinery as well as vision-based approaches to give real-time notifications. Safety training is a core concern with the use of virtual-reality (VR) for site induction processes and ensuring training for project specific hazards. VR systems look to tie in psychology approaches to help build risk resilience and identify unsafe behaviour.
BIM-based modelling of temporary structures (which is often missing in BIM models) is studied to allow simulations to visualise risk levels, especially around scaffolding. BIM-based heavy equipment management and work zone management look to simulate and optimise placement and movement of equipment and personnel on site and use trajectory calculations to warn of potential conflicts.
The research papers incorporated almost every technology imaginable alongside BIM for H&S management. Sensors were used for location and clash detection as well as gas, dust, etc on site.
Virtual reality and augmented reality as well as game engines provide advantages for training and visualisation of hazards on site. Computer vision plus UAV or robots helps identifying incursions to BIM modelled safe zones. It is clear that researchers like their toys!
Key areas of development for New Zealand
Analysis of the international research pointed to six areas where we believe further work should be carried out in New Zealand to improve the use of BIM for Health and Safety:
- Update the NZ BIM Handbook to have a chapter on H&S. For any project embarking on its BIM journey there should be guidance on how to improve H&S aspects when using BIM. The NZ BIM Handbook is the starting point for understanding all aspects of BIM use in the country and this would be a valuable addition.
- Standard H&S processes within BIM could be promoted across NZ. The recent internationally approved BIM process standards (ISO 19650) will soon have a H&S specific set of processes drawn from the UK’s BS 1192-6. This is a strong candidate to be adopted for use in NZ.
- Statistical data should be collected on the impact of BIM for specific H&S measures. Currently, there is little evidence that can be provided on the impact of BIM in NZ for H&S outcomes.
- Promote BIM for collaboration around H&S. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA) requires active engagement with workers around H&S and BIM should enable further communication to achieve this goal.
- BIM object libraries could be created containing objects necessary for safety management (e.g., scaffolding, safety nets, anchorage systems, passive, and active fall systems, etc) and to ensure safety critical information is attached to standard BIM objects. Over time this could be enhanced to provide a national BIM object library as being developed in countries such as the UK.
- A computable safety knowledge base could be created from NZ’s codes and regulations and safety knowledge. This would allow automated assessment of BIM models against NZ specific H&S expectations.
If you are interested in detailed information on the review undertaken, you can find a copy of the complete report (95 pages) on the BIMSafe NZ website.