Chapter 9 Emerging technologies for construction health and safety

Health and safety in construction remains a hot topic for researchers and there are numerous avenues being explored in an attempt to enhance safety within the industry. The use of emerging technologies and information and communication technology tools plays a key role in this research. Building information modelling (BIM) is also a key area of investigation and exploration at the moment and there is increasing focus on how this can be utilised. Furthermore, as the industry understanding of how BIM can be embraced to enhance the construction process becomes more defined, so too is the realisation of how health and safety can be embedded within the BIM process. Challenges still remain, not least with the increased prominence of the use of Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) neutral file format, as an approach to share BIM data throughout the entire process. At present there is limited scope in the underlying ‘DNA’ of the IFC file format to include health and safety information and this requires attention to integrate data fully into the BIM process as it evolves and moves forward in development.