Identifier

etd-08222005-160304

Degree

Master of Science in Engineering Science (MSES)

Department

Engineering Science (Interdepartmental Program)

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Construction industry accounts for the largest number of occupational injuries and fatalities every year. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is an organization responsible for regulating and enforcing standards for various occupations to ensure safe working conditions including construction industry. As an OSHA requirement, every construction employer should employ a safety program that involves both training of the employees and frequent site inspections. OSHA has provided an online ‘construction eTool’ as a training tool which also aids in the development of safety inspection procedures. Traditionally, safety inspections are paper based and usually designed to address a specific work area or procedure. The inspection reports did not include any detailed visual data which may increase the cost of maintenance and data mining for problem areas. This project explains the possibility of using Tablet PC’s as tool for performing safety inspections at a construction site to identify occupational hazards. As a part of the project, a Tablet PC application, Hazard Prevention Tool (HPT), is developed that concentrates on the four prime hazard areas, Electrical, Falls, Struck By, and Trenching and Excavation, hazards. The application makes it possible to capture the image of the worksite and marking the problem areas on the image. After each site inspection, a report is generated which includes the worksite image with problem areas marked and possible solutions for each problem area based on the OSHA recommendations. A usability test is also conducted as a part of the project using three sample work sites.

Date

2005

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Yilmaz Hatipkarasulu

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.334

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