Key actions by owners can dramatically improve the safety record of construction projects. A study of 59 projects found that 25 steps taken by owners meant almost six times fewer injuries per 1,000 employees. The study, one of the first to focus on owners and safety, was released along with other research studies by the Construction Industry Institute.

"The role that owners play in project safety has been ignored until now," said John J. Mathis, leader of the CII project team and manager of safety services for Bechtel Corp., at CII’s annual conference in Orlando, Fla., July 29-31. "We now have clear data that shows owners can play a major role." The team produced a "scorecard" that lets owners determine whether or not they have a strong involvement in safety.

The research involved personal interviews, usually with the owner’s representative who had responsibility for safety. Safety performance, measured by total recordable incident rate, was related to a range of practices of owners. TRIR is the total number of injuries per 200,000 work hours of exposure (the average number of hours worked by 100 workers in a year).

The project team found that owners influence safety by setting the number of days worked and shifts, selecting contractors and by putting safety requirements in contracts. They also exert influence by detailing requirements for contractor safety programs, staying on top of the project and keeping a representative who participated in site safety programs.

A. Dennis Cobb, regional safety consultant for DuPont Engineering, said that five specific contract requirements can reduce the recordable incident rate from 2.77 (when only one or two are used) to 1.22 (when all five are present). These contracts require at least one full-time safety professional, owner approval of safety professionals, specified minimum training for workers, a site-specific safety plan and submission of a safety policy signed by its CEO.

The TRIR for the industry as a whole was 7.28 in 2001, compared to 1.02 for CII members. The study had low incident rates overall because most projects studied were member projects. By implementing all 25 measures studied, recordable incidents fell from 46 to just 8 per 1,000 workers.

The institute also announced its Web-based value management tool kit. "Value management has been absent from CII’s best practices," said project team leader Katherine Fisher Bethany, value engineering manager for Overseas Buildings Operations at the Dept. of State. She clarified that "value" is a measure of how well the owner’s objectives are met, and that to make the list, value management tools had to be established, documented, have proven benefits and yet not be standard practices on every job.

The toolkit can be used to evaluate 44 optional value management processes–from peer review to lean construction to total quality management–to determine how beneficial they will be to a particular project or program. Value management objectives include factors such as security, regulatory compliance, operating cost- efficiency and risk containment.

Another Web-based tool is the new questionnaire developed for small projects benchmarking. CII’s benchmarking and metrics program collects project data, and there are now 222 small projects with a value of $5 million or less in the 1,112-project database. "Small projects are a big piece of the market we need to measure," said project team member Frank K. Suhan, a project consultant for Johnson Controls. He said Johnson Controls works on about 16,000 small projects a year.

CII Chairman John Zachry, president of Zachry Construction Co., also announced that Hans Van Winkle will become director of CII. Recently retired as deputy chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Van Winkle will manage research and development efforts of CII’s 98 owner and contractor members. CII is based at the University of Texas at Austin. Van Winkle said CII gives him an opportunity to "continue serving the public and to work with leading-edge companies committed to improving the industry." Outgoing CII Director Kenneth Eickmann will serve on the National Research Council’s study of the national aerospace initiative and continue work-ing with the Texas Homeland Defense Task Force.

The program drew more than 500 members and invited guests, but the same research projects will be presented again at a Sept. 21-23 public forum in Austin. For more information visit www.construction-institute.org/cpi2003.