Browsing by Author "Rowlinson, S"

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item: Conference-Full-text
Alcohol consumption patterns of construction workers in Hong Kong
(Ceylon Institute of Builders, 2017-06) Rowlinson, S; Shen, Y; Koh, TY; Sandanayake, YG; Ramachandra, T; Gunatilake, S
Alcohol consumption is prevalent among construction workers, and it may have negative implications for workers’ overall health, productivity, and safety performance. The alcohol-related risks are associated with drinking pattern and consumption volume. To understand the drinking pattern and help devise effective interventions to prevent drinking problem in construction workers in Hong Kong, the research team conducted a one-month drinking pattern survey with a convenience sample of construction workers on railway projects in Hong Kong, using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) as the primary instrument. With 1203 valid responses, the research team compared alcohol-related risk exposure among different categories of workers through Chi-squared tests. The results showed that 16.6% of respondents drink excessively, and 28% drink in a harmful way. Furthermore, male workers are prone to more severe alcohol-related risks than their female counterparts, Nepalese workers are exposed to more severe alcoholrelated risks than their Chinese counterparts, workers in four trades (i.e., mechanics, welders, shotfirers, and miners) are more likely to experience alcohol-related risks than others, and workers in the age group of 30-39 are subject to more severe alcohol-related risks. The findings can help regulatory bodies formulate industry-wide codes of practice and prompt management to give special attention to certain categories of workers.
item: Conference-Full-text
Development of a roadmap for occupational health, safety and wellbeing in the Hong Kong construction industry: an institutional analysis
Rowlinson, S
The industrial accident rate in Hong Kong has steadily declined over the past 20 years, but has plateaued over the past 5 years and worryingly the fatality rate has been flat for over 15 years. This clearly highlights a level of under reporting of accidents in that normally accidents and fatalities are in a roughly constant proportion to one another. This is corroborated by informal discussions with the insurance industry. Using an institutional analysis approach to the study, the research team has drawn the conclusion that institutional, contractual and policy factors adversely affect Hong Kong’s OHSW statistics. This paper highlights the fact that many of these factors are not under Hong Kong contractor’s control. However, there is always opportunity to improve performance and a series of potential initiatives are proposed that target industry-wide issues. An overarching issue for a company is the balance between the systems it operates and the culture within which it operates. A key issue in project-based organisations is to operate with rigid flexibility throughout the business. The goal is rigid conformance to safety standards but flexibility in how these standards are achieved. This characteristic is typical of high reliability organisations.
item: Conference-Full-text
Dimensions of Sustainable Construction: The Perspectives of Construction Stakeholders
(2015-08-20) Goh, CS; Rowlinson, S
The recent trend of sustainable development in the Hong Kong construction industry has drawn construction organisations’ attention to sustainability issues. However, the fragmented nature of construction industry has led to divergence in stakeholders’ understanding of sustainable construction, in addition to the traditionally debatable concepts of sustainable development. This paper explores and examines how different stakeholders perceive and treat sustainable construction. Twenty two interviews were carried out with stakeholders from various backgrounds including architects, engineers, surveyors, contractors, developers, facilities managers, environmentalists, suppliers, and sustainability consultants. The results show that there is still a disagreement on embracing the economic and social pillars in sustainable construction, whilst the environmental pillar is acknowledged by the majority. In addition to the triple bottom line, sustainable construction is also linked to culture and health and safety. Interestingly, this study found that construction stakeholders perceive sustainable construction as an ideal situation in which it is very hard to attain zero carbon and complete sustainability in real life development. In view of the absence of a clear definition and direction in applying sustainable construction, a gap can form in sustainable practices when incompatible goals are set by various parties due to their different interests. As a result, more effort should be made by providing a platform for the diverse interest groups of construction stakeholders to share ideas, communicate and distribute sustainability information.
item: Conference-Full-text
Dimensions of sustainable construction: the perspectives of construction stakeholders
(Ceylon Institute of Builders, 2015-06) Goh, CS; Rowlinson, S; Sandanayake, YG; Fernando, NG; Karunasena, GI
The recent trend of sustainable development in the Hong Kong construction industry has drawn construction organisations’ attention to sustainability issues. However, the fragmented nature of construction industry has led to divergence in stakeholders’ understanding of sustainable construction, in addition to the traditionally debatable concepts of sustainable development. This paper explores and examines how different stakeholders perceive and treat sustainable construction. Twenty two interviews were carried out with stakeholders from various backgrounds including architects, engineers, surveyors, contractors, developers, facilities managers, environmentalists, suppliers, and sustainability consultants. The results show that there is still a disagreement on embracing the economic and social pillars in sustainable construction, whilst the environmental pillar is acknowledged by the majority. In addition to the triple bottom line, sustainable construction is also linked to culture and health and safety. Interestingly, this study found that construction stakeholders perceive sustainable construction as an ideal situation in which it is very hard to attain zero carbon and complete sustainability in real life development. In view of the absence of a clear definition and direction in applying sustainable construction, a gap can form in sustainable practices when incompatible goals are set by various parties due to their different interests. As a result, more effort should be made by providing a platform for the diverse interest groups of construction stakeholders to share ideas, communicate and distribute sustainability information.
item: Conference-Full-text
IPD and BIM:making sense of chaos?
(Ceylon Institute of Builders, 2017-06) Rowlinson, S; Lu, W; Yong, KT; Zhang, D; Sandanayake, YG; Ramachandra, T; Gunatilake, S
Why is BIM not working? Where in the world do we really have IPD (integrated project delivery)? The U.K. has failed to achieve its Level 2 BIM goals. Hong Kong is striving to implement true collaborative contracting with pain share/gain share. Where really do the problems lie? In a recent online article Boutle (2017) stated “Not all of the UK government central departments are BIM Level 2 ready despite being almost a year into the mandate.” and followed up with “Supply chain drivers for adopting BIM are mainly to satisfy the end client, not to look at internal benefits of improved information management, smarter working and gaining efficiencies.” So, one of the BIM-leading nations that was heading the drive to implement BIM on all government projects by 2016 has missed its target by some considerable distance. It is obvious from the evidence and rhetoric that BIM is not well understood, well accepted nor of value to many in the supply chain. Therefore, it is not the panacea for increased industry efficiency and effectiveness that it was held up to be. Why not? What is really happening? We present a case study that explores current BIM implementation for MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire safety systems) coordination in Hong Kong. Data were collected by ethnographic participant observation over 4 months and one-on-one interviews from a social network perspective. We found that BIM implementation in Hong Kong is currently at a low “maturity” level with little transformation of existing procurement routines and with professionals still following their traditional roles within project teams. Collaborative contracting and IPD exist on very few projects. Plans to add highvalue professional expertise into project delivery through BIM-enabled IPD adoption are not working in Hong Kong’s construction industry. This is partly due to team members’ reluctance to change and the power conflicts (bolstered by arcane contract terms) between organisations in the teams thwarting collaboration. Professionals’ perceptions and attitudes towards BIM are embedded in the view they have of their social context. Power conflicts generated from hierarchical organizational structures and silo mentalities are a major challenge in implementing BIM-enabled IPD.
item: Conference-Full-text
A review of safety climate and risk-taking propensity in occupational health, safety and well-being in the construction industry
(Ceylon Institute of Builders, 2016-07) Rowlinson, S; Shen, Y; Koh, TY; Sandanayake, YG; Fernando, GI; Ramachandra, T
Studies which take safety climate as a safety monitoring tool are rarely reported. This study reports a benchmarking program to identify prominent safety management issues in three ongoing railway projects using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative aspect, the research team conducted a safety climate survey with three random samples, one sample from each ongoing project. A robust 11-factor structure of the safety climate questionnaire emerged after factor analysis. Most of the mean scores of safety climate indicators for subcontractors were below 3 (out of 4) and specific indicators were identified as in need of urgent attention. The main contractor’s direct labour scored similarly with subcontractors. Two main contractor management teams had to do more to take on the leadership role. The major weaknesses were the following indicators: work procedure for safety, safety compliance, safety priority over work pressure, safety cooperation and involvement, and appreciation of risk. In the qualitative aspect, the research team sought respondents’ comments on current safety management practice and suggestions as to further improvement in safety performance. Content analysis showed that conflicting safety rules and inadequate training were common in the three projects, and increased supervision was proposed as the way to improve safety performance.