Safety and Health Cost Components for Scaffolding Works in Construction Projects

Construction industry are known as one of the hazardous industries, compares to other industries’ accidents, fall from height also consistently have the highest rates of construction accidents such as slipping, tripping and falling incidents. In working with height, a temporary platform is needed, such as the scaffolding which has been used as a technology in construction for centuries. Scaffolding is a temporary or movable structure made of wooden planks and metal poles, used by workmen while building, repairing, or cleaning the building, bridges and all other manmade structures. Among the factors listed as the causes of the accidents were due to inexistence or insufficient barrier, unsafe act by workers such as not wearing personal protective equipment (PPE), failure to conduct risk analysis on dismantling phase of the scaffold, incompetent erector, insufficient maintenance, training, and unsafe workplace condition. The objectives of this paper are to identify the safety and health planning and implementation for scaffolding installation and handling in construction and to identify the safety planning and implementation cost for scaffolding works in construction. The scope of this paper is focusing on the building construction projects that uses on scaffolding. To attain the objectives, interview conducted among the competent construction personnel for low rise and mid-rise building projects that located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Data were analysed by using the content analysis method. The finding from this study reveals that the safety and health planning and implementation for scaffolding installation, all of the projects comply to the procedures and safety regulations based on Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) which provides the legislative framework to secure the safety and health among workforce and to protect against risks especially during work on height, every projects have the similarities on managing the safety and health prior to the scaffold work. The planning and implementation cost for scaffolding works deemed to its projects size, the allocation of each element discussed are distributed based on their priority.