Rate In Malaysia From Construction Industry Construction Essay

In 2009, fatality rate in Malaysia from construction industry is the highest compared to the other industries. Although it decreases in 2010, it still remains as the top industry that contributes the most in terms of fatality. Social Security Organization (SOCSO) has reported that the number of victims in construction industry until September 2012 is the upmost among the others with 48 victims followed by manufacturing with 30 victims.

The factors of these occupational accidents are crystal clear. Safety issues are always considered secondary and take a back seat in construction. They do not emphasize on safety because they do not know how high the actual cost of accident is until it occurs. For instance, health and safety laws from the industry are regulated by themselves and that shows many employers gave less priority to the safe workplace concept. A safe workplace should be harmless and accident-free. However, it is not possible for them to follow this exact rule because of profit, cost, time and quality. Not only that, human factors especially poor ergonomics, manual handling of heavy loads, misuse or failure of equipment, exposure to general hazards, and inadequate safety training are all the roots of this accident.

The construction industry is a high risk industry because there is a high risk of accident occurrence. The statistics show that accident rate at construction site in Malaysia is still high. Therefore, preventive measures must be taken to prevent any occupational accidents. This includes Cleaner Production (CP) as an initiative whereby it is defined as “the continuous application of an integrated preventative environmental strategy to processes, products and services to increase efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment”. Usually CP is implementing to minimize the rates of waste and emission generation. However, CP also can be used to improve safety and prevent accidents at construction site.

Thus, the sole purpose of this research is to study the efficiency of Cleaner Production (CP) options in improving safety level at construction site and minimizing the occupational accident cases. To fit onto the safety purposes for construction industry, CP involves elimination of risky activities, minimized the accidents and improved the safety awareness among construction workers.

2.0 Problem Statement

Every year starting from 2009 until October 2012, statistic from SOCSO shows that construction industry in Malaysia is the most dangerous place to work by seeing the number of fatality occurs during that period. To avoid this from continually happen, a method need to be invented to diminish this problem. Implementation of cleaner production concept seems to be reliable and effective in order to solve this problem. For this research, a study will be made to propose cleaner production option for improving safety and minimize accident occurring at construction sites.

3.0 Objectives

The objectives of this research are :

a) To determine the most frequent accident cases and evaluate risk level of construction activities throughout site visits.

b) To propose suitable CP options which can reduce the risk level at construction site.

4.0 Scope of Research

High rise building construction site will be choosing as a site visit for data collection. All data that will be evaluated in this report will be obtained from survey form and interview sessions. The main focus for this research is to implement cleaner production option to reduce risk level at construction site. Thus, any conclusion and recommendation that will be made from this research will be based on this two important thing.

5.0 Literature Review

5.1 Construction industry in Malaysia

Construction industry is recognized as one of the main contributors for economic growth in Malaysia. Statistic from Department of Statistic (DOS) shows that construction sector in Malaysia posted a double digit growth in 2010 with 11.1% average annual growth of gross output compared to 2005. This growth comes along with the increase of total workforce engaged from 551,755 people in 2005 to 974,488 in 2010. This gives a clear picture of how fast this industry had developed.

However, with this positive growth, there are negative feedbacks along with it. In 2010, according to Department of Safety and Health (DOSH), construction industry were in the leading chart of the most industry that contribute to death with 66 numbers of victims, followed by manufacturing industry with 59 victims. The same pattern followed in 2012 as construction industry contributes the most number of victims. Whatever the growth of this sector is, it remains the most dangerous industries to work in.

Figure 5.1 : Occupational accidents by sector for the category of death (DOSH, year 2012)

5.2 Hazard at construction sites

There are two main category of hazard in construction sites (A Hamid, MZA Majid, B Singh, 2008) :

The risk of physical injury or physical injury hazard.

Hazard that associated with process of works or equipment used and climatic condition such as scaffolds, power access equipment and manual handling, ladder, roof work, plant and machinery, excavation, etc.

Can cause direct injury at site and if severe can cause of death.

The risk of ill health or health hazard.

Health hazard in construction work may be grouped under chemical, physical and biological hazard.

Can be notified after long term of period and shall cause sickness or death after certain period of time.

5.3 Types of accident

5.4 Introducing of cleaner production

5.5 Implement cleaner production option for safety at construction site

5.6 The important of Cleaner production option

6.0 Methodology

Data and information were gathered through literature review from various sources which include from journal papers, articles, thesis and website which are listed in the reference. From that study, a design of interview session and questionnaire will be made according to the study. A site visit at construction place will be held for data collection. The data will be analyzed and evaluate using a simple statistical method to show a clear picture of the data( data from survey form). From the analysis, new CP option will be propose to reduce risk level oreliminate the accident. A period of time will be given for the implementation of CP option proposes. The effectiveness of the propose option will be evaluate by comparing frequency of accident occur before the implement of CP option with after the implementation of CP option.

Figure : Summary of research methodology

7.0 Work Plan

Week

No.

Activity

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

1

Site visit & data collection

1 week break

2

Data Analysis

3

Propose and Implementation of CP option

4

Data Analysis

6

Final report & article writing

8.0 Limitations

Cannot cover other place of construction site. So, just restricted only to one high rise building of construction site.