Adoption of Building Information Modelling Innovations to Reduce Occupational Accidents in the Australian Construction Industry

Safety performance records of the construction industry are unenviable, as the number of injuries and fatalities around the globe continue to plague the industry. The adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the construction projects has opened up gateways for the safer execution of the projects. While several studies in the recent years concentrated on developing BIM applications as promising solutions to improve safety performance, there is a need for understanding the nature of the accidents and critical success factors (CSF) to leverage these applications. This study first analyses 109 fatal accident cases across Australia to understand the nature of the construction accidents through a rigorous accident model. Then six interview sessions were held by highly-experienced industry experts to identify the BIM applications in preventing causes of the accident and the CSFs for the adoption of these applications in the industry. This study contributes to the body of knowledge through developing a road map for the construction industry to improve the safety performance of the industry using BIM