MACHINE ACCIDENTS AND PROJECT DELIVERY IN KWAZULU-NATAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Abstract

This article identified machine accidents, the number of days lost, cost impact and related accidents in the Construction Industry in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. Accidents in the construction industry cause severe challenges to the business. The critical parameters for assessing project deliveries are health and safety, cost, time and project quality. The events of accidents on construction premises sabotages these critical parameters of delivery. The main focus of this article was to determine the significance of lost days and the number of accidents on the cost per accident, using the accident data of KwaZulu-Natal from the year 2000 to 2020. Statistical tests were conducted to determine the significance of the lost days and the number of accidents (independent variables) on the cost per accident (dependent variable). Five statistical tests were used in the analysis of the data and tests were grouped into three classes; regression, correlation and paired sample tests. Regression is subdivided into ANOVA, correlation and model summary test. All five tests display the significance of testing variables. The results revealed that there was a significant relationship between the dependent and the independent variables. There was also a positive relationship between lost days and the average cost per accident. At the same time, there was a negative relationship between the number of accidents and the average cost per accident. The positive B value of lost days mean that it directly influenced the average cost per accident. This means that for every increase in days lost to accidents on the site, the costs increased and vice versa. The negative B of the number of days indicated that accidents did not directly influence the average cost per accident. Further, the machine accidents that most caused fatalities were: motorised equipment, truck, lorries, dumpers, building structures, roof work, scaffoldings and staging and wall projections. It is recommended that workers pay more attention to the sources of accidents while working on site.