Chapter 1 Analysis of accident statistic in construction industry.

The construction industry undoubtedly plays a important role in the development process of a country contributing towards social and economic growth. A successful development leads the country to global and being  recognize as a well known country where the social and economic growth is beyond a non-develop country. Everything has its pros and cons, therefore, such huge achievements have also contribute more problems towards the safety issues in the construction industry. Statistics have proven that construction industry has crowned the reputation of being one of the highly hazardous industry due to its high fatality rates compare to other industry.

Figure 1. Number of fatal work injuries at United States, by industry sector, 2012.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics that have been carry out by Department of Labor in United States, approximately 4,383 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2012. Although the rate of fatal work injuries has drop from a revised count of 4.693 in 2011, the number of fatal work injuries in construction industry remains the most worrying and dangerous sector in the United States among the industry sectors.

Figure 2. Local occupational accidents statistics by industry until August 2013.

According to Department of Occupational Safety and Health(DOSH), although construction industry is not the highest rate of accidents, however the death that happened in construction industry is rank at second with the number of 36 death. Nonetheless, 9 victims were found out with the permanent disability due to the accidents caused in construction industry.

Figure 3. SOCSO annual report reported local construction accident cases from 1993 to 2003.

Social Security Organization(SOSCO) has been record the annual construction accident cases. The cases of accident occur at the construction site is surprisingly high every year. Although the number of accident cases decrease from year 1996 to 1997, however, during year 1998, the number of accident cases at construction site has been increase and it seems like the number has been remain at the same level for 4 years.

Figure 4. SOCSO annual report reported construction fatalities at local.

According to record done by SOSCO, although the construction industry is not the highest contributing industry towards the accident statistics in Malaysia, however, the figure of construction fatalities during year 2000 is very high rate. With such unpredictable figures collected by SOSCO in construction industry, both the governmental and non-governmental organization have keep their attention and concerns towards this issue.

According to the Public Investment Bank report, an average of 10 fatalities at construction sites has occurred at Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya in the past two years. However, the figures were cut half from year 2010 (refer Figure 5), where 20 deaths were recorded that year.  Although this may seem as a positive news that the construction industry has tighten the health and safety rules and regulation where it brings the result to minimize the possible danger that the construction workers may face, there is still will be a tragedy that cause by uncontrollable forces such as human error.

Figure 5. Fatal accidents in construction at Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya.

Figure 6. Causes of fatal accidents at Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya in year 2012.

Figure 6 shows that out of the 10 fatal accidents in construction at Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, 4 accidents were fall from height and 2 accidents were struck by objects while 1 accident each for the accident such as struck by falling objects, caught in between object, overexertion and others.

Figure 7. Statistics for construction industry by accident type, 2006-2008.

Unfortunately, falls is the most happen accident during the construction industry with the ratio of quarter of the chart, followed by overexertion and struck by objects. The carelessness of worker is the major cause of these accidents. Falls from high rise building is deadly while 23% of the construction industry accident is overexertion because construction work can be burdensome to both physical and mental energy.

Introduction

The intelligence and capability of human to able to design and build an architecture have been exist since prehistory. From Mesopotamia era where they use mud brick as their main building material, Egypt era where they modified the culture of Mesopotamia's mud brick into an adobe, Greece era where they start construct using stones, Roman era where the architectural revolution occurred as concrete was widely used, to the building technology nowadays where bricks, concrete and glasses are the common used materials. Throughout all these different eras, though building technology seems have developed tremendously from Mesopotamia era, however it seems that since Modern Architecture era, the development of the building technology has been stop and not develop furthermore.

One of the issues that occurs is that the construction industry has earned the reputation of being one of the highest hazardous industry in global. During the ancient eras, citizen is the labor that works in construction industry. Due to the lack of technologies, the citizens have to involve themselves in the architecture without the help of machineries which ended a lot of citizens were sacrifice during the process of building a building. Even nowadays with the help of all the technologies, the title of the highest hazardous industry is still crown to the construction industry. Besides being the most hazardous industry, a few studies also prove that construction industry is a wasting resources action and causing damage to the environment where it consumes more than 40% of raw materials in the environment in order to carry out the construction plan. The other issue will be the shortage of shelter for those who are forced to flee from their homes due to several reasons such as war, economic or natural disaster and shortage of affordable housing for low-income households in urban area.

In this high advancement technology era, Computer-Aided Design(CAD) software plays an important role in the design industry where it is use to enhance the productivity of designers and engineers and improve their design quality. In addition, CAD software also helps to improve the communications among the professionals in field through the documentation, nevertheless to create a database for manufacturing purposes. CAD software has become an compulsory tools for the designers and engineers in this era because of its benefits such as low product development costs and short design cycle. "Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering. When you finally get done and get to appreciate what you have done it is like a part of yourself that you've put together." - Bill Gates.

Technology has indeed bring a lot of advantages to human. However, due to the several issues that occur in construction industry, a new construction technology has been carry out and developed through these few years to minimize the problems. This new construction technology is none other than Contour Crafting or 3D printing. The nature of construction has remained intensely manual throughout the recorded history. Therefore, a new automation approach, Contour Crafting, has been develop by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, the professor of University of Southern California. Contour Crafting is a layered fabrication technology that aimed at automated construction of the whole structures as well as subcomponents. Besides Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis, Enrico Dini who is the inventor of D-Shape which is a large 3D printer that create stone-like objects through a layer by layer printing process, also aim to construct a full-scale buildings by using 3D printing technology.

Therefore, the aim of this dissertation is to discover the issues hiding in construction industry and explore the digital design and fabrication technology. Through this research, the intension of how is this fabrication technology benefit the publicity and construction industry will be carry out. Before that, an analysis of the accident statistic in construction industry will be carry out in order to have a better understanding in the construction industry. This dissertation has few objectives aside from the exploration of new construction technology and the benefits of practicing it in construction industry. The effectiveness and the impact of the Contour Crafting will also be identify through this dissertation. In order to achieve that, research methodology such as collecting information and data through websites and literature review of books are essential.