Safety climate and productivity improvement of construction workplaces through the 6S system: mixed-method analysis of 5S and safety integration

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a framework for integrating essential safety practices (visualization, job safety analysis and plan–do–check–act) into 5S steps and validate it. First, 18 interviews with a snowball sample of construction workers, safety representatives, supervisors and site and project managers were conducted. A grounded theory method was utilized to code the interview data. The results revealed that the studied construction companies implement a systematic safety-based methodology to minimize construction work injuries. Second, to validate the proposed framework, a pre-test and post-test study was applied. The case and control groups (26 participants) answered a 6S questionnaire before the 6S system and 1 month after implementation. The results revealed that safety climate and productivity significantly increased for the case group but reduced for the control group during time.

KEYWORDS:

• 6S system
• 5S method
• grounded theory
• safety climate
• productivity
• lean construction

Acknowledgements

This project has been supported by the State of Washington, Department of Labor & Industries, Safety & Health Investment Projects in the USA. Any opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the state, the Department or the study participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by State of Washington, Department of Labor & Industries, Safety & Health Investment Projects [grant number: 2017ZH00349]; State of Washington, Department of Labor & Industries, Safety & Health Investment Projects [grant number: 2017ZH00349].