Let us rewind to the not so distant past. The year was 2011 when the UK Government’s Construction Strategy was published and states “Government will require fully collaborative 3D BIM (with all project and asset information, documentation and data being electronic) as a minimum by 2016”. At that point, the BIM adoption across the industry was imminent, given the benefits it will bring to all of us. Now, I am going to skip the monotonous task of naming and mentioning all the guidance issued along the way for BIM adoption and fast forward to the present time. Before you jump to any judgements, yes I admit it, I have pressed the Skip Intro button here. After all, we all do it for our favourite tv shows on Netflix. The sad thing about it is that a group of people that put together these creative introduction snapshots for what you are about to witness can only hope that the viewers will watch it with the same enthusiasm the 2nd, 3rd or 4th time if you are lucky. You may notice the same tendency in the construction industry, nothing to do with the TV shows, but a variety of projects.
With BIM adoption penetrating every construction sector, for some companies, things become business as usual. However, slowly and over time, people lose their enthusiasm and get consumed by the intricate parts of their project. On top of that, comes the evolving list of industry standards, to which a lot of industry professionals contribute. Working alongside some of those professionals, sure was a bonus, but I will be honest with you, that keeping up to date with these standards let alone understand them is daunting for many of us.
At some point, it becomes apparent that you are facing a new challenge of maintaining these standards throughout the projects lifecycle. Trying to address this issue with your team effectively, can be even more challenging. Subsequently, you face delays in project delivery, cost overruns and unforeseen construction site accidents. Now you might think if only you knew about these problems before they happened or had a magic button to resolve them all. Apart from the fact that noting mentioned above is even possible, not all is lost.
Manage project and Health & Safety Risks effectively
Earlier I have mentioned the Industry Professionals that share their personal experiences intending to establish a best practice guidance in the form of BSI or PAS standards. How about we take a look at one of those documents called PAS 1192-6:2018. Also, known as Specification for collaborative sharing and use of structured Health and Safety information using BIM. I have to say that is quite a name to read out at once. I will try and consolidate all 56 pages of it into a few comprehensive points. On top of that, I will explain to you how the latest development in SafetiBase lead by the Health & Safety Executive, the University of Manchester and Atkins will help you in finding that magic button to solving your problems.
Key points from the PAS 1192-6:2018
- Each participant must maintain a robust structured system in place in order to enable proactive risk management. Where the project is using BIM modelling then the context shall be conveyed by the 3D or 4D timeline information model and project program.
- Overview of risk information cycle is important for the collaborative use of H&S risk information.
- Follow four simple steps of Health & Safety and risk information cycle to start the process of risk mitigation:
– Identify
– Use
– Share
– Generalize - Context and Risk information attributes are key to sharing structured data with other project stakeholders.
- Risk Scale Matrix is an essential part of managing the severity and importance of risks, subsequently, it plays an important part in their management.
Now, there is a reason as to why I highlighted Generalize in bold text. The main reason for that is because it is one area of the risk information cycle that lacks interaction at times. Yet, it is the one that could benefit us utmost in the form of streamlining the innovation and creating a pool of knowledge share that maintains a good practice.
SafetiBase
Open Learning in SafetiBase v3
Since the initial release of SafetiBase which was funded by i3P & Innovate UK and lead by Atkins and Mott MacDonald, a number of exciting developments came about. We are now officially into SafetiBase version 3, so you might ask where are we heading with it next? The answer is simple and highlighted in the diagram above which illustrates the steps of the progressive development of H&S Information.
Yes, it is the open learning stream that covers every stage of the project delivery. The one true dataset that can unlock the potential of an incident-free construction environment. A pool of valuable information and lessons learnt across each project, company and industry made available to you in real-time. It may all sound distant to us, but we have taken the initial steps in creating that magic button we all need and called it Suggestions.
In essence, you are able to curate consistent risk mitigation, regardless of the file formats you are working in and adhere to PAS 1192-6 standards. This is an ambitions project that has become a close collaboration with the HSE, the University of Manchester and Atkins; funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation as part of the Discovering Safety Programme. The more collaborative we can make it, the more beneficial it will be for the industry as a whole. Stay tuned for further developments in SafetiBase and real-life examples of effective risk management. Until then, be safe and work collaboratively.
