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- ItemIdentifying the Factors Influencing Hazard Recognition Capability of Construction Workers(2020)Literature on construction safety have reported the importance of hazard recognition to an\ safety management initiative. The persistence of poor safety records of the construction industry has been linked to the inability of workers to recognise and manage work hazards. This is certainly among the major reasons for the growing research interests on the improvement of hazard recognition performance of construction workers. To avert the negative consequences of poor hazard recognition of construction workers, it is important to understand the factors that influence their hazard recognition capabilities. This will enable the development of appropriate strategies to improve the level of hazards recognized and managed by the workers, thereby achieving the desired improvement on the general safety performance of the construction industry. This paper reports on efforts to provide empirical evidences of factors influencing hazard recognition capability of construction workers. A total of 53 factors were identified from literature and validated with 14 construction experts. The factors were grouped as personal, organisational, social, and project factors. The paper is the first step in a larger sludy aimed all developing a model for evaluating hazard recognition capability of construction workers
- ItemInfluential Factors Driving Material Sourcing for Sustainable Construction Practice(2020-10-08)The construction industry is characterised to being highly resource dependent. Owning to the spiralling cost of resource processing as well as dwindling resources globally, sustainable construction emerged as a concept to optimise the use of resources in construction. Ever since its emergence, sustainable construction has been researched upon from several approaches such as: space management; energy and water efficiency of buildings; and waste management among other approaches. While these approaches are deemed to be rather specific, a sustainable construction approach deemed to be more generic is the use of alternative sustainable materials because most often than not, implementing the specific approaches relies on the use of construction materials that are sustainable. Although there exist researches on sustainable construction materials in Nigeria, not much exist on the influential factors driving the sourcing of sustainable construction materials which is key to successful construction project delivery. As such, this research investigates the influential factors driving the sourcing of construction materials for sustainable construction practices. Primary data is collected through conducting a survey with the aid of a structured questionnaire using purposive sampling from 61 postgraduate students in the Department of Building Ahamdu Bello Univeristy /aria Nigeria. The procedure for data analysis is both descriptive and inferential using IBM SPSS Statistics 23 as well as MS Excel to compute the Mean Score as well as the Relative Index (RI). Out of the 61 questionnaires distributed, only 48 were used for analysis. Results indicate that all the respondents believe that all influential factors studied drive sustainable construction. This study found that while 'environmental impact' and 'material quality' are the most influential factors always driving material sourcing in sustainable construction, instances prevail whereby compliance to statutory regulations and laws', "available specialist skills to use material for sustainable construction' and also "incentive in the use of sustainable material' never drive material sourcing in sustainable construction. The study concludes by asserting that professionals in the construction industry rely on various influential factors to drive their decision on material sourcing in sustainable construction. There is need to invest more efforts on enforcing material compliance to regulations, developing skills to use material for sustainable construction and provide more incentives in the use of sustainable materials. Future studies can cover influential factors speciafically categorised according to the three dominant pillars of sustainable practice which are social, economic and environmental. Also, more indepth relationships between and among the influential factors may be explored.
- ItemTHE ROLE OF SAFETY ATTITUDE IN CHANGING SAFETY BEHAVIOUR AND HAZARD RECOGNITION CAPABILITY OF CONSTRUCTION WORKERS(2021)Worker's safety has been a major concern in the successful execution of various construction activities. Workers that are unable to recognise the active, emerging, or latent hazards, in the work environment are often exposed to safety risks, leading to catastrophic accidents and injuries. Despite research efforts on strategies to improve the safety of workers on construction sites, recent studies have reported the apparent disregard for human-related factors in the formulation of safety strategies which limits their effectiveness. In this regard, this study provides insight on the specific role worker's safety attitude plays on safety behaviour towards improving Hazard Recognition Capability (HRC) of the worker. A quantitative research approach was adopted for the study, using a structured questionnaire to collect both ordinal and nominal data. Both descriptive and inferential statistical tools were used to analyse the data. Spearman's correlational analysis technique was used to ascertain the monotonic relationship between worker's safety attitude, safety behaviour, and hazard recognition capability. Findings of the study show that worker's safety attitude has an influence on worker's safety behaviour on the job site, although no relationship was established between worker's safety behaviour and respective hazard recognition capability. This finding provides an empirical evidence on the fractional relationship between safety behaviour and HRC. Thus, it is recommended that other human-related factors be studied in relation to the area of safety management with a view to find a sustainable solution to the abysmal safety performance of the global construction industry.
- ItemAN INNOVATIVE APPROACH FOR THE EVALUATION OF EXPANSION OPTION IN BUILDINGS(2021-09-11)Expansion option (EO) in buildings is more valuable when it is easier to achieve. Creating EO in initial building designs facilitate future expansion. However, this requires additional investment and the future is unknown whether or not the option would ever be exercised. This paper proposes an innovative approach for the evaluation of EO in buildings to avoid under or over-investment. Mathematical equations and algorithms were first developed based on the binomial method (BM) of real options analysis which were then implemented on a computer system. An algorithm was also developed for Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and integrated with the binomial model. To illustrate its applicability, a real-life project was used to test the model. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to explore the influence of input variables on expansion option value (EOV). The result shows that inflation rate (i), borrowing rate (b), and rental value (Ri) are the most sensitive variables for EOV. An increase in i and Ri by just 5% causes a corresponding increase in EOV by 16.26% and 10.60% respectively. While an increase in b by just 5% causes a corresponding decrease in EOV by 14.61%. However, the least sensitive variables appear to be the discount rate (r) and volatility (6), An increase in r by 5% causes a decrease in EOV by 6.9% while an increase in 6 by 5% causes an increase in option value by 5.85%. Also, the result shows that creating EO in the initial design adds over 10% value to a building. More so, by integrating the BM with the MSC method, EOV increases by 190%. The model builds upon a previously developed model for evaluating building development option (DOV) which was found to have a result accuracy of 80.77%. It was recommended that building investment decision-makers should combine both BM and MCS to obtain more reliable and sustainable results.
- ItemIMPACT OF RISK FACTORS ON CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS QUALITY IN NIGERIA(2021-09-11)One of the primary objectives of every construction project is meeting or exceeding the quality requirements of clients. The nature and complexity of construction projects encompass a lot of risks, which could hinder the attainment of the desired project quality. Evaluating the impact of risk is essential for determining the extent to which it could derail the attainment of project objectives. This study assessed the impact of risk factors on construction projects 'quality in Nigeria. Quantitative research method comprising questionnaire survey was used for the study. Data was obtained using close ended structured questionnaires distributed to 192 construction practitioners. The impact of 65 risk factors on construction project quality was evaluated. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The study found eighteen (18) risk factors as having high impact on projects quality; the topmost being 'shortage of skilled labour '(MS = 4.30), 'poor design '(4.19), 'inadequate experience by project team '(4.18), 'deviating from specifications due to misunderstanding of drawings and specifications '(4.05) and 'inadequate project monitoring '(3.96). The study concludes that the impact of some risk factors could adversely lead to unacceptable quality reduction. The study recommends paying more attention to managing the risk factors having high impact so as to achieve the desired projects quality.