PMIS 369: PMIS for Managing, Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting Construction Projects Hazard Observations

One of the best practices for monitoring, evaluating and reporting projects’ compliance with health, safety and environment (HSE) requirements is conducting a weekly site walk downs (SSWD) which will be attended by the project owner’s authorized representative and the contractor. The purpose of the weekly site walk downs is to report all hazard observations by describing the hazard, the cause of the hazard, and the possible consequences. For example, the hazard observation could be “Tool cables were found running on the floor causing trips hazard. This can potentially cause cuts and bruises in arms."

For each reported hazard observation and to better describe the hazard, there will be a number of attributes that have predefined values to select from. For example, the hazard category should be chosen from a predefined list that will include specific value for each safety, health and environment hazard category as shown in the table below. In addition, the hazard location will describe the location in which the observation was made. The location values list should be identical to the location lists used in other project management processes like daily reports, snag list, safety incidents among others.

If any of the reported hazards constitutes a violation to the project’s Life Saving Rules (LSR), the project owner’s authorized representative shall identify the rule being violated. Those rules could include for example Protect yourself against a fall when working at height, conduct atmospheric gas testing when required, do not stand or walk under a suspended load, carry a personal gas detector and emergency escape breathing apparatus when entering an H2S zone, Obtain authorization before entering a confined space, verify hazardous energy isolation before working on equipment, Work only with a valid Permit to Work, obtain authorization before overriding safety critical equipment, wear a seat belt and do not exceed the speed limit.

For each reported hazard observation, the project owner’s authorized representative along with the contractor shall discuss the observations and identify the root cause of the hazard. A corrective action shall be decided as to eliminate the risk of the hazard on the short and long term to avoid repetition. To ensure accountability in correcting those hazards, each observation and associated corrective action must be assigned to a specific project team member for action. A due date for reach corrective action shall be decided and agreed on as the success criteria will be based on the actual duration taken to correct the reported hazard.

Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb will enable the organization to automate managing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting projects’ compliance with health, safety and environment (HSE) requirements. PMWeb default meeting minutes will be used to implement the weekly site walk downs (SSWD) process. Of course, achieving compliance with HSE requirements would also need to use the other default PMWeb safety incident module. In addition, PMWeb custom form builder can be used to create other needed forms such as site access permit, hot access permit, confined area permit, HSE audit checklists among many others.

Similar to all other types of meetings that will take place during the project’s life cycle, weekly site-walk-downs need to be scheduled to ensure that the concerned project team members are available for the site walk down. PMWeb project calendar will be used to identify the date and time that those site-walk-downs are scheduled to be held.

PMWeb lists will be used to create the predefined lists for hazard categories, project locations, life saving rules and other lists that could be needed when reporting the hazard observations. Those lists can be populated with new values when it is needed but it is important to standardize those lists across the complete projects’ portfolio to enable multi-project HSE analysis, monitoring, evaluating and reporting.

Creating the Site Safety Walk Down

When the project first starts, the site safety walk around meeting minute will be populated with the data that will become common for all future site safety walk around that will be conducted during the project life cycle. Those would include the meeting subject, meeting type, project phase, WBS level and participants that need to be part of each site safety walk around among others. The “create next” button will be used to create the next week site safety walk around thus ensuring the complete history of all hazard observations reported during those site safety walk downs.

The details tab will be used to capture the details of all hazard observations including the detailed description of the hazard, category, location, LSR violation, assigned responsibility to rectify, due date to be rectified, project schedule activity it might impact, status, date it was actually rectified and any other attribute value needed to better manager, monitor, evaluate and report on hazard observations. Pictures or videos of each hazard observation can be attached to the reported observation.

Similar to other PMWeb records, a workflow can be assigned to site safety walk down to formally submit, review and approve the reported observations. Another possible option would be to generate a transmittal that has the workflow steps to submit, review and approve the site safety walk down meeting minutes.

The Site Safety Walk Down

The output form for the site safety walk down meeting minutes can be designed in any desired form and format to meet the organization’s as well as the project reporting requirements. PMWeb BI report writer is highly configurable and will be used to create the desired SSWD output form.

Tracking Status of Hazard Observations

PMWeb report writer allows creating reports to track the status of all reported hazard observations that were recorded in the site safety walk down. For each reported observation, the report will display the details of when it was first recorded and when it was closed. The report could include filters to limit the reported data to a specific hazard category, location or project team member for which the hazard observations were assigned to. The reported hazard observations could be limited to a single project or to the complete or part of organization’s projects’ portfolio.

The data capture in the weekly site safety walk downs will be also used to create an executive dashboard that will summarize the overall status of all hazard observations as well as violations for life saving rules. The charts included in the SSWD dashboard can also become part of the project’s overall HSE performance status dashboard.