THESIS ABSTRACT

Abstract

The rapid growth of construction activities in Nepal has led to an increase in accidents and fatalities. Building construction is inherently risky due to the use of heavy equipment, power tools, and involvement of workers from various backgrounds. Safety management systems (SMS) helps to mitigate these risks and hazards, which is in early stage in Nepal as there was an inclusion of chapter on OSH in Labour Act 2017 and recent formulation of national OSH policy 2019 and in line with national law and policy, some of the construction company started following international standards like ISO 45001: 2018. The aim of the research is to identify the major critical factor for proper implementation of SMS, obstacles in implementing SMS and mitigating measures to reduce the obstacles in implementing SMS in the selected building construction projects within Kathmandu valley, Nepal. For this purpose, case study of 15 ongoing building construction projects was taken into account. For the study purpose, one hundred forty-five questionnaires were distributed out of which one hundred and twenty-four valid responses were received. Also, for analyzing the collected data SPSS software, Microsoft excel-2019, PCA and SMART PLS was used. The study reveals that the major critical factors for proper implementation of SMS in building construction projects were divided to five major critical factors. The study result concluded that “safety commitment factors” was the most significant critical factors among any other factors. Similarly, “project management” and “safety requirement and incentive factors” were found to be second and third major critical factors followed by “competency profile” and “employee’s participation factor” as the fourth and fifth most critical factors respectively for proper implementation of SMS in building construction projects. This research concentrates on exploring systematic partial least squares structural equation modeling to identify the major critical factors for proper implementation of SMS by showing direct relation with implementation of SMS. As per the MDM principle, the final evaluation result of level of impact of critical factor on SMS implementation for public and private building construction projects were found to be 0.495 and 0.489 respectively which vii was at the fourth (IV) level i.e. in the poor range for both public and private selected building projects. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) approach was used to identify obstacles in implementing SMS which were divided into five components. Results have shown that “poor safety culture " was the most significant obstacle. Similarly, “lack of resources”, “poor project management and leadership”, “Lack of knowledge and awareness” and “Inadequate government support” ranked as second, third, fourth, and fifth were accordingly major obstacles to implement SMS in the building construction project within Kathmandu valley, Nepal. In this research study, KII was performed for finding the mitigating measures to reduce obstacles in implementing SMS and was found as promoting safety culture, safety training and awareness, proper project safety planning, management and implementation, safety law and regulatory compliance. This study concludes that SMS are an essential tool in managing safety in the building construction industry, but their implementation requires careful planning, training, and resources. The findings of this research can help improve SMS practices in the similar projects.

Keywords

SEM, Critical factors, Occupational Health and Safety, Safety Management System, Building Construction Projects.