Improving safety performance and risk management through social network analysis -

Abstract

Safety is one of the most critical issues that construction project managers need to prioritize as negligence may lead to loss of lives. The Middle East region witnesses very low levels of safety management where companies are not seeking to improve their performance as much as hiding their deficiencies. This constitutes the core problem as the safety culture is absent. The research study aims at evaluating safety performance and risk management through focusing on the network of people forming the system. Improving safety interaction on projects helps boosting the safety management process. In this research, the safety of a large contracting company in the Middle East is evaluated through choosing three projects and comparing their respective networks for safety management and communication. Data showing communication patterns and individuals was collected on each project and the safety network was mapped on Gephi to highlight visual features of the network. Using Social Network Analysis, various metrics were computed revealing network characteristics and communication patterns. Network resilience was then measured using resilience metrics collected on the project and through agent-based simulation on NetLogo. Finally, it was shown that networks with better interaction and structure have a higher resilience to prevalent risks and hence perform better on safety related issues.