2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (ICBEDC 2008)

HIRARC: A TOOL OF SAFETY IMPORVEMENT IN THE CONSTRUCTION

INDUSTRY

Ahmadon Bakri1, Rosli Mohamad Zin2 Wahid Omar3 and Lee Chia
Kuang4
1, 2, 3, 4
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
ahmadon@utm.my, roslizin@utm.my, wahid@utm.my,
chiakuang85@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT: The construction industry plays a vital role in Malaysia’s economy. However,
construction industry has been labeled as extremely dangerous and highly risky. In Malaysia,
the number of accidents occurred on construction sites is considered high in comparison to
other industries. This paper reports on the study carried out to identify the effectiveness of the
implementation of HIRARC in reducing accidents on construction sites, based on 10 different
projects that implemented HIRARC. From structured interviews conducted to 10 safety
personnel who implemented HIRARC in their projects, it has been found that the basic
process of HIRARC was 100 % implemented and carried out. The study also revealed that
each and all process of HIRARC was found to be “effective”. In addition to that, another
structured interviews conducted to 26 consultants engaged with construction projects on the
effectiveness of the implementation of HIRARC shows that HIRARC is also “effective” in
identifying all potential hazards; assessing all the risks of hazards; making adequate risk
control and accident preventive measures; acting as an occupational safety and health
management system; and reducing accidents on construction sites. Finally, a comparison is
made on the safety performance between construction projects which implemented HIRARC
and construction projects which did not implement HIRARC. The findings show that
construction project with HIRARC is actually more effective in reducing accidents on
construction sites. In conclusion, the implementation of HIRARC is indeed effective in
reducing accidents on construction sites.

Keywords : Construction Safety, Project Management, Safety Management.

INTRODUCTION
Construction sites are generally complex and sometimes unsafe (Teo et al,
2004). Construction is even widely recognized as one of the most
hazardous occupations for those who work in the industry and significant
source of accidents for members of the general public who are affected by
the industry’s work (Churcher and Alwani Starr, 1996)
It is well known that construction projects have many work-related
accidents and injuries (Aksorn et al, 2007). Workplace fatalities and
injuries only bring great losses to both individuals and society (Fang et al,
2004). According to Haslam et al (2005), inadequate risk control and
management causes accidents, and is an indicative of management
failing. Providentially, studies by Tam and Chan (1999) have shown
implementation of hazard identification and risk control in Hong Kong has
reduced accidents drastically since 1986. At the same time, NIOSH (2005)

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believe that accidents at construction at construction sites may be avoided

or minimized given the proper planning and control of hazards, which can
be done through proper management of risk using strategies of
implementing hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control
(HIRARC).
In Malaysia, the construction industry is a vital part of the economy.
Chan (2008) reported that construction industry made a steady
contribution for Malaysian Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with an
average 2.9 % of contribution to GDP since the year 2001 until first quarter
of 2007 and is expected to generate an annual growth of 3.5% between
the years 2006-2010. However statistic record from SOCSO reveals that
the rate of fatality in construction is always higher than in all industries with
the average of 1.7 times higher between the years 2001-2004.
Undeniable, construction sites have exposed a lot of hazards and risks to
workers, which has caused to a high number of accidents. Occupational
Safety and Health Act 1994 (OSHA94) which also covers the construction
industry has been urging the implementation of occupational safety and
health (OSH) in workplaces. Safety and Health Committee Regulations
1996 and Safety and Health Officer Regulations 1997 are among the
regulations that stress on the important of safe working places. The
implementation of HIRARC is among the tools to achieve safe working
place and therefore can reduce accidents effectively.

BACKGROUND
The procedures of HIRARC in specific details are not mentioned in this
paper. Briefly, HIRARC comprises the procedure of Strategic planning,
Identify and Searching for Hazards, Determine the risk level, Prepare risk
control action plan for high-risk activities, and Periodically review the
adequacy and effectiveness of action plan (at least once in 3 months).
Under “strategic planning”, the management in the company
establishes risk assessment team or a committee which included
workforce representatives and competent personnel within the
organization. All team members will be trained and briefed about their
roles, objectives, and management’s safety policy, and scope of the

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HIRARC. Methodology for risk assessments and planned against agreed

timescale will be defined. From time to time, all relevant information and
existing documentations regarding HIRARC will be collected. During any
assessment, action plan being proposed for each evaluated and defined
risk (Loughborough University of Technology, 1994)
Hazard identification is a process of finding possible harms which will
lead to accidents. In construction sites, the hazard to be identified are
those associated with machineries, equipments, tools, and others, which
are categorized under health hazards and physical hazards. As some
hazards may not be readily identifiable, hazard identification is conducted
by reviewing the overall work activities and verify-onsite, and by using
hazard evaluation models, hazards are then recorded. Safety and health
officer shall review all the work activities, and conduct hazard identification
trough brain storming method, Job safety analysis, What If analysis, Fault
tree techniques and Accident investigation.
Risk assessment is a process of determining the significance or value of the
identified hazards and risks to the workers. The methods for assessing risk may
be formal or informal. Formal risk assessments which can be qualitative or
quantitative takes into account the likelihood of injury and the outcome
(consequence) of injury. An informal assessment might be done by a worker or
the supervisor. However, such an informal assessment should not be accepted
as the official risk assessment in managing OSH. It might often be based on
wrong ideas ending in a near-misses or accidents of some kind.
Risk assessment as defined by Colling (1990) is to determine the probability
level of the identified hazardous event, severity of the consequences of the
hazard event, and finally to determine the risk level of an event. Basically, after
the hazards have been identified, the effects of the hazard will be analyzed and
the level of risk will be assessed. According to Colling (1990), risk is the product
of frequency of occurrence and the severity of consequences. Frequency and
severity are dependent each other in an inverse way, meaning more severe an
accident, the less frequently it will occur. However, risk can be reduced by
reducing either frequency or severity.
After the risks have been assessed, the risks should be controlled.
When the risks is considered as intolerable, control action plan should be
initialize to record any recommendation of control actions, and suitable

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program implementation. Control measures can be by the options of

elimination, substitution, isolation, engineering control, management
control or the use of personnel protective equipment. According to Holt
(2001), risks can be reduced through corrective measures.
HIRARC should be carried out continuously whenever there is a
significant threat and uncertainty in the effectiveness. Action plan shall be
viewed from time to time by the safety and health officers to control the
risks. Where possible, the adequacy and effectiveness of the plan will be
reviewed.

METHODOLOGY
To show the effectiveness of HIRARC in reducing accidents on
construction sites, a few methods have been adapted in this study.
Interviews had been made with 10 different key personnel who had
implemented HIRARC in 10 different construction projects in Malaysia. To
compare safety performance, the safety records of another 6 projects
which did not implement HIRARC were sought and analyzed as well.
Then, an analysis is made to get the feedbacks from the client’s
consultants from each construction projects that implementing HIRARC. At
least one client’s consultants were interviewed from each HIRARC-
implemented project to get their opinions about the effectiveness of
HIRARC, and how severe was the accidents affected the construction
progress. These criteria were chosen to strengthen the findings when
identifying the effectiveness of HIRARC. A total of 26 client’s consultants
were interviewed, as they would give non-biased feedbacks of the
implementation when they were involved in the construction projects. This
study consists of four parts based on demographic as briefly described
below.

First Part: Level of Implementation

From the 10 projects which implemented HIRARC, the level of the
implementation is based on the level of procedures being carried out as in
accordance to the basic principles of HIRARC. The safety personnel who

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implemented HIRARC was asked to tick the implemented process of

HIRARC.

Second Part: Level of Effectiveness of HIRARC Implemented from the

implementer’s opinion
Miller (1991) defined effectiveness as the degree to which a system
achieves its goals and objectives. Hence, when comes to see
effectiveness of implementation of HIRARC is by seeing the reduction in
number of accidents. This part is to see how effective the procedures
being implemented in the implementer’s point of view. The respondents
were asked to make their opinions regarding the effectiveness for each
process of HIRARC based on Likert Scale 1-5, and then calculations will
be made to identify the mean score based on classification as shown in
Table 1.

Third Part: Feedbacks from Consultants

To strengthen the identification of the effectiveness of HIRARC, a total of
26 respondents from the same 10 sites that implemented HIRARC were
interviewed. The purpose of the feedbacks is to get a non-biased and a
general view towards the effectiveness of HIRARC. Once again, questions
will be asked about the effectiveness of HIRARC and the level of
effectiveness will be made based on Likert Scale and classified based on
Table 1.

Table 1: Classification of mean score (Levin and Rubin, 1998)

Level of Effectiveness Class Range
Not effective 1.000 ≤ < 1.802
Less effective 1.802 ≤ < 2.604
Fairly Effective 2.604 ≤ < 3.406
Effective 3.406 ≤ < 4.208
Very effective 4.208 ≤ < 5.000

Fourth Part: Comparing Safety Performance

The effectiveness of HIRARC in reducing accidents can be identified by
comparing the safety performance of projects with HIRARC, and projects
without HIRARC. The average issuance of stop work order, average

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issuance of Notice of Improvement (NOI), average accident frequency

rate, and average severity rate for HIRARC project and Non HIRARC
projects are compared. The average number of these criteria will give a
picture of the safety performance averagely.

Demographics
For the ten construction projects implementing HIRARC, ten personnel
who consist of safety officers and site safety supervisors were interviewed.
In addition to that, at least one consultant from each of the projects was
interviewed. On the other hand, For six construction projects without
implementing HIRARC, six personnel consist of safety officers and site
safety supervisors were interviewed as well. Type of respondents
interviewed were; client’s consultants 61.9 % (26 person), SHO 26.2% (11
person) and site safety supervisors 11.9 % (5 person). The client’s
consultant’s field of specializations were; Architect 23.1% (6 person), civil
engineer 19.2 % (5 person) quantity surveyor 19.2 % (5 person), Project
Management Consultant 7.7 % (2 person), Resident Landscape Architect
3.8 % (1 person), M&E Engineer 19.2 (5 person), Safety Consultant 3.8 %
(1 person) and Environment Specialist Consultant 3.8 % (1 person).
According to the years of experience 21.4 % (9 people) of the total
respondents had practiced 0-5 years , 40.5%( 17 person) had practiced 6-
10 years , 23.8% (10 person) had practiced 11-15 years , 7.1 % ( 3
person) had practiced 16-20 years, and finally 7.1 % ( 3 person) had
practiced more than 20 years in construction field.

Background of projects

The background and the characteristics of HIRARC projects are shown in

Table 2, while non HIRARC projects are shown in Table 3. For
standardization purposes, the status of these projects dated on 31st
January 2008 was obtained, and all projects at least have reached
physical completion.

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Table 2: Type of construction projects that implemented HIRARC

Cost of project Status on 31st
Project Type of Project
( RM Million) January 2008

A High Rise 80 Physical Completion

B Office Building 15 Physical Completion

C High Rise 78 Physical Completion
Completion on site.
D Sludge Treatment Facility 1.5
(Hand Over to client)
Immigration and Custom Completion on site.
E 1266
Center (Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
F Commercial Centre 112
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
G Factory 112
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
H Shop Office 27.5
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
I Shopping Complex 200
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
J Petrol Station 1.57
(Hand Over to client)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

To identify the effectiveness of implementation of HIRARC in reducing
accidents on construction sites, the research had been designed in 4 parts
which is vital to reach the objective. Hence, the key word of the research
itself is: Implementation, Effectiveness, and Accident Numbers. Analysis
must be done on the implementation, and the outcome of the
implementation to see its effectiveness. The results are shown below:

Table 3: Type of Construction Projects without HIRARC

Cost of project Status on 31st
Project Type of Project
( RM Million) January 2008
Completion on site.
A’ Stadium 12.5
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
B’ 4 storey school 3.9
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
C’ High Rise 80
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
D’ High Rise 10
(Hand Over to client)
Completion on site.
E’ High Rise 8.5
(Hand Over to client)
Shop office Completion on site.
F’ 4.9
(Hand Over to client)

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a. Level of implementation of HIRARC

There are six main procedures in HIRARC such as: “Strategic Planning”,
“Classify and Analyze the Work Activities”, “Identify and searching for
Hazards” “Risk Assessment”, “Risk Control”, “Periodically Review the
Adequacy and Effectiveness of Action plan”. Results from the survey
reveals that these six main procedures were 100% implemented in these
ten projects.

b. Level of Effectiveness of HIRARC Implemented from the implementer’s

opinion
All sub process under “Strategic Planning” had reached the level of
“effective”, and all sub process under “Classify and analyze the work
activities” had reached the level of “effective”, and under the main process
of “Identify and searching for hazards”, all sub process reached level of
“effective”. Followed by the main process of “Risk assessment”, all sub
process reached the level of “effective”. Under the main process of “Risk
control”, all the sub process reached the level of “effective”. And finally,
under the main process of “Periodically review the adequacy and
effectiveness of action plan”, all the sub process reached the level of
“effective”. From here a deduction can be made whereby HIRARC was
effective in its process and objective in reducing accidents.

c. Feedbacks from Consultants regarding to the Effectiveness of the

Implementation of HIRARC on Construction Sites
The effectiveness of HIRARC implementation was measured based on the
following aspects:
• Effectiveness of HIRARC in making adequate risk control and
accident preventive measures on construction site;
• Effectiveness of HIRARC in reducing accidents on construction
sites;
• Effectiveness of Implementation of HIRARC in identifying all
potential hazards on the construction site;
• Effectiveness of HIRARC to act as an occupational safety and
health management system in promoting a safe and healthy
workplace, and

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• Effectiveness of HIRARC in assessing all the risks of hazards on

the construction sites. deduce

Results from the survey reveals that implementation of HIRARC to the ten
sites is found to be “effective” as classified in Table 1. It can be deduced
that the consultants are satisfied and convinced with the effectiveness of
HIRARC in managing safety.

d. Comparison of Safety Indicators between HIRARC-Projects and Non

HIRARC Projects.
From Figure 1, it can be seen that HIRARC project averagely has a better
safety performance compared to non HIRARC project. Non HIRARC
project averagely has higher NOI, stop work order, near miss, accident
frequency rate, and severity rate compared to HIRARC project.

CONCLUSIONS
From the level of implementation, the effectiveness of the implementation,
and the feedbacks from the client’s consultants, and the result and
comparison of HIRARC with Non-HIRARC projects, HIRARC has shown
its effectiveness in reducing accidents on construction sites. It can be
conclude that the implementation of HIRARC is indeed effective in
reducing accidents on construction sites. When managing safety on
construction sites, HIRARC should be encouraged and made compulsory.
While gaining credentials from consultants as well the implementers
themselves, HIRARC is proven to be effective in controlling hazards and
leads to the minimization of construction accidents.

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Figure 1: Comparison of average number for criteria evaluating

effectiveness between HIRARC and Non-HIRARC project

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