Frank Boukamp

Ontology-Based Representation and Reasoning Framework for Supporting Job Hazard Analysis

Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) is a process of identifying potential hazards for each step of an activity and proposing safety rules to prevent potential incidents related to these hazards. In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommends performing JHA for construction activities to highlight and react to potential hazards. JHA commonly requires having brainstorming sessions to identify steps and associated hazards within construction activities. A companys personnel involved in JHAs relies on their experience - and often also on the companys internal knowledge represented in the form of safety rules. However, the complexity and time consuming nature of JHA prevent safety personnel from adjusting JHAs quickly when changes in the construction methods and the schedule are made. This paper presents a framework aiming to improve access to a companys JHA knowledge. The framework uses ontologies for structuring knowledge about activities, job steps and hazards. It also includes an ontological reasoning mechanism for identifying safety rules applicable to given activities. The framework has been validated through several test cases using real JHA documents. The results of the validations are discussed in this paper and conclusions for future research are drawn.

Ontology-based approach to context representation and reasoning for managing context-sensitive construction information

Construction industry is an information-intensive industry and heavily relies on documents, including physical and virtual documentation and models, to exchange context-sensitive information among different project participants. Many research efforts have been made to help manage construction information; however, few of them considered the context-sensitive nature of the information. In this paper, the authors propose a new approach to facilitate the management of context-sensitive construction information which is stored in different textual documents. The approach addresses the context-sensitive nature of construction information by representing contexts in ontologies and using contexts as indices of the information. The approach also presents a reasoning mechanism that leverages the semantically rich features of ontologies to reason about contexts in order to evaluate their applicabilities. Two case studies were conducted and the results showed the proposed approach can effectively retrieve, classify and manage construction information. Lastly, the authors discuss the limitations of the proposed approach as well as future research directions.

Ontology-Based Semantic Modeling of Safety Management Knowledge

Construction safety related knowledge and project specific information are scattered and fragmented. Despite technological advancements of information and knowledge management in the building and construction industry, a link between safety management and information models is still missing. The objective of this study is to investigate a new approach to organize, store and re-use construction safety knowledge. A construction safety ontology is proposed to formalize the safety management knowledge, which consists of three main domain ontology models, including Construction Product Model, Construction Process Model and Construction Safety Model. The interaction between safety ontology and Building Information Modeling (BIM) is also explored. A prototype application of ontology-based job hazard analysis and visualization is implemented to further illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of the developed ontology. The developed construction safety ontology is expected to enable more effective inquiry of safety knowledge, which is the first step towards automated safety planning using BIM.

Designing a game for occupational health and safety in the construction industry

Safety in the construction industry is important because people continue to be injured on construction sites. To address this, the Australian construction industry and its regulator, the Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner, have required that anyone who intends to work on a construction site must complete an Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) construction induction process.n One quite complex section of the construction induction training deals with the identification of hazards and the management of hazards through controls to prevent workers from injury. There is a multitude of worksite hazards and many OH&S controls.n A key challenge for OH&S training is to engage learners. Serious Games are a promising vehicle to engage learners and enhance their retention of important concepts. This paper reports on the design decisions and the development of an informative and entertaining game, which is intended to motivate users to learn about workplace hazards. The game is also intended to help users retain their knowledge of workplace hazards and their management, and to assist with knowledge transfer into the real world.

Ontology-based, semi-automatic framework for storing and retrieving on-site construction problem information - An RFID-based case study

Construction projects are information-intensive. Quick information retrieval and correct information capturing on construction sites is important to support project management. This paper presents the prototype of a semi-automatic framework for storing and retrieving on-site construction problem information using context information. Created problem records are indexed with context concepts taken from developed Web Ontology Language (OWL)-based ontologies, which enable semantic searches through problem records. However, since selecting appropriate concepts from large sets of concepts defined in the ontologies can be cumbersome, the prototype offers capturing context concept information automatically through the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). A Java-based reasoning mechanism has been developed to support the user by inferring other applicable and related concepts based on the automatically identified and selected ones. The framework is describedin this paper, including findings obtained from a case study and challenges identified.

Trouble tower game demo

The Construction Industry has one of the highest rates of injury and fatality in Australia and across the world. A key challenge for OH&S training is to engage learners. Construction students tend to be experiential learners and class room teaching is often not engaging for them. In this project we developed a computer game aimed to motivate students to learn about construction sites hazards and their management via application of OH&S controls. The exhibition showcases the game.