1. Proceedings
  2. I3M
  3. 2022
  4. MAS
  5. 10.46354/i3m.2022.mas.011

Discrete-event simulation of construction safety inspections

  • a Abbey Dale Abellanosa ,
  • b Yu Wei, 
  • a Vahid Abbasianfar,
  • c Yasser Mohamed,
  • d Abbey Dale Abellanosa ,
  • e Hamidreza Golabchi,
  • f Estacio Pereira
  • a,b,c,d,e University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2R3, Canada
  • f University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada
Cite as
Abellanosa A.D., Wei Y., Abbasianfar V., Mohamed Y. , Golabchi H., and Pereira E., (2022).,Discrete-event simulation of construction safety inspections. Proceedings of the 21st International Conference on Modelling and Applied Simulation MAS 2022). , 011 . DOI: https://doi.org/10.46354/i3m.2022.mas.011

Abstract

Construction safety inspections are primarily intended to manage the risks of incidents and safeguard the health and safety of crews at sites. However, understanding how often safety officers can conduct safety inspections requires the quantification of their utilization rate and understanding how the frequency of inspections affects project duration is yet unknown. In this study, a simulation model is illustrated to capture the weekly routine of a safety officer and how that routine is incorporated into tunnel boring operations. Discrete-event simulation is used to model the events and interactions between the construction processes and resources in Simphony. The utilization rate of the safety officer is quantified by varying the frequency of planned (programmed) inspections to understand the relationship between the frequency of programmed inspections conducted by the safety officer and the incident rates and overall project duration. Results show that the frequency of programmed inspections dramatically affects the utilization rate of the safety officer and the project duration. The simulation strategy and the key findings demonstrated in this study serve as a foundation for decision support in the context of assessing safety resource allocation and its impact on incident rates and project duration.

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