From construction site to design: The different accident prevention levels in the building industry

The construction industry is responsible for one of the highest incidences of work-related accidents in Brazil, as well as in various other countries. In spite of the dissemination of prevention programs and the proposals for developing safety design for the construction industry, construction sites remain dangerous and unhealthy places. Recently, safety has been proposed to be considered from the development phase of the design (Construction Hazards Prevention through Design), but with little effectiveness in practice. In addition to these more recent proposals, we will demonstrate that the integration between safety and production can proceed through anticipations occurring at several levels of the construction phase, not only in the design phase. Through narratives emerged through techniques of activity analysis at the construction site, it was possible to highlight and categorize 25 cases with implications for the production process development. The results show that this integration between production and safety is possible through anticipations occurring at several levels of the construction phase, from the design analysis conducted by the construction engineer to the implementation. This will allow the development of design situations for implementing safe work situations. The contribution and originality of this paper are based upon the presentation of a model in three levels of anticipation of problems during the construction phase and its effects on improving production and safety. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.