Kiŵ, K., aŶd Cho Y. ;ϮϬϭ5Ϳ. Autoŵated “afety PlaŶŶiŶg of “caffoldiŶg-Related Hazards iŶ BuildiŶg IŶforŵatioŶ ModeliŶg ;BIMͿ. The 6th International Conference on Construction Engineering and Project Management (ICCEPM). Busan, Korea, Oct. 11-14, 2015 Automated Safety Planning of Scaffolding-Related Hazards in Building Information Modeling (BIM) Kyungki Kim 1 , Yong Cho 2 ¹ Ph.D. Candidate, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A., E-mail: kkim369@gatech.edu ² Associate Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A., E-mail: yong.cho@ce.gatech.edu (*) Abstract: Scaffolds are frequently used in construction projects. Despite the impact on the entire safety, scaffolds are rarely analyzed as part of the safety planning. While recent advances in BIM (Building Information Modeling) provides opportunity to address potential safety issues in the early planning stages, it is still labor-intensive and challenging to incorporate scaffolds into current manual jobsite safety analysis which is time-consuming and error-prone. Consequently, potential safety hazards related to scaffolds are identified and presented during the construction phase. The objective of this research is to integrate scaffolds into automated safety analysis using BIM. A safety checking system was created to simulate the movements of scaffolds along the paths of crews using the scaffolds. Algorithms in the system automatically identify safety hazards related to activities working on scaffolds. Then, the system was implemented in a commercially available BIM software program for case studies. The results show that the algorithms successfully identified safety hazards that were not noticed by project managers of the projects. The results were visualized in BIM to facilitate early safety communications. Keywords: BIM, safety, scaffolding, construction planning, temporary structure I. INTRODUCTION A. Safety hazards related to scaffolds According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), more than 20% of about 800 worker fatalities in the US private industry occurred in the construction industry (OSHA 2014). For those worker fatalities, accidents related to scaffolds are responsible for a large proportion of the causes. While falls from scaffolds are one of the common causes of the entire fall fatalities and injuries, other types of hazards, such as falling objects from scaffolds, electrocution, and spatial conflicts with construction activities, occur due to improper planning and management of scaffolds. According to OSHA, estimated 65% of the entire construction workers are using scaffolds frequently. Preventing accidents associated with scaffolds can protect US workers from 4,500 injuries and 50 deaths every year that is equivalent to spending of $90 million on lost workdays (OSHA 2003). There have been investigations into the direct causes of scaffolding-related hazards, such as improper scaffolding designs and misplaced guardrails and planking (Halperin and McCann 2004). Also, existing regulations provides the guidance to the minimum requirements for scaffolding designs, installation, and inspection. However, safety inspection checklist tools widely used by the current industry are not suitable to identify and present safety problems in early design and planning stages (Whitaker et al. 2003). Such direct causes of scaffolding accidents can be generated by ineffective safety analysis and management. B. Current practices of safety planning To establish a safe construction plan, potential safety hazards need to be identified in the early design and planning stages so that protective measures can prepared and construction plans can be modified. However, current construction safety planning is often conducted independently from the construction planning efforts (Bansal 2011). Due to this drawback, safety managers in many construction projects simply inspect already established construction plans instead of involving in the efforts of creating and modifying construction plans. Furthermore, job hazard analysis (JHA) is usually conducted relying solely on labor-intensive efforts of safety manager or superintendent. Due to dynamically changing construction project environment, safety analysis is mostly labor-intensive and error-prone. Especially, scaffolds are considered as one of the most wasteful and challenging among various types of temporary structures.