International Journal of Civil Engineering

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40999-022-00754-9 (0123456789().,-volV)(0123456789().
,- volV)

RESEARCH PAPER

BIM-Based Safety Leading Indicators Measurement Tool

for Construction Sites
Mostafa Dadashi Haji1 • Behrouz Behnam1 • Mohammad Hassan Sebt1 • Abdollah Ardeshir1 •

Ali Katooziani2

Received: 18 March 2022 / Revised: 4 July 2022 / Accepted: 11 July 2022

 The Author(s) 2022

Abstract
Recognition of safety leading indicators is considered as an important part of safety management in construction projects to
prevent hazardous accidents occurrence. In the available literature, the lack of a comprehensive proactive approach for
assessing safety, based on active safety leading indicators is tangible. In this study, BIM and knowledge base are integrated
to develop a safety management framework, then, this framework is implemented in a case study to assess its performance.
Safety leading indicators are extracted from experts’ expertise, documents, and best practice, and then the relationships
among safety leading indicators, activities, and their attributes are established; these pieces of knowledge are stored in a
safety leading indicator knowledge base. To measure the impacts of these indicators on the project, a framework is
developed to integrate the knowledge base and building information modeling (BIM). The developed add-on generates a
heat-map to visualize the impacts of the safety leading indicators on a daily basis, and it also produces a textual result sheet.
To verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the developed tool a survey from professionals is conducted. This tool
provides a way to automatically assess the impacts of the safety leading indicators. Using its results, safety managers and
project participants can make important decisions to reduce hazards. The results also indicate that accidents occurring in
the construction site dropped by 38% after employing the presented framework.

Keywords Building information modeling (BIM)
Safety leading indicator
Knowledge base
Safety management
system
Construction safety

1 Introduction accident occurring in a construction site originates from

The construction industry has always been considered as
one of the most dangerous industries as it can be faced with
various hazardous factors [1, 2]. Each year, more than
60,000 fatal incidents occur in construction sites worldwide
[3]. Although many attempts have been made to improve
construction safety particularly in the last years, the con-
struction industry is still ranked among the highest risky
industries; much more attention is hence required to alle-
viate this issue [2]. Past studies have shown that each
& Behrouz Behnam
behrouz.behnam@uqconnect.edu.au
1
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Amirkabir
University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
2
School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
one or several drivers, which are recognizable prior to the
main accident [4–6]. This highlights the need for adopting
a reliable approach in construction safety management
systems and focusing on the origins of hazardous incidents.
It has been discussed in many research that there is a
correlation between the final incidents and the situation or
prior incidents which facilitate their happening [7, 8].
The concept of safety leading indicators has been
brought up as conditions, events, or measures that precede
an incident and have a predictive value regarding an
accident, incident, or unsafe conditions [9]. Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), experience
modification rating (EMR), recordable injury rates, days
away, and restricted work, or transfer (DART) are the
metrics that have been used traditionally for measuring the
safety performance [10]. These traditional metrics which
are known as lagging indicators mostly which rely on

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historical information from occurred accidents and incur-
red losses [11]. Utilizing leading indicators for measuring
safety performance provides a proactive approach in safety
management systems versus traditional passive approaches
[10]. While the trend of using leading indicators has shown
great potential for improving safety performance, some
barriers have hindered its adoption in safety management
systems, such as a tendency to use statistical sensible data
by safety managers, lack of efficient tools and knowledge,
and safety regulations in the construction industry which
prevent innovative solutions [12, 13].
Checklists are the initial attempts for building databases
of leading indicators that are often formed based on
empirical data or best practices [14]. As each project is
carried out through unique situations, checklists containing
leading indicators of safety hazards that are extracted from
documentations and previous studies together with the
knowledge of experts form a holistic and dynamic view
about the issue during the project lifecycle [15]. Although
these databases have an important role in the decision-
making process in safety management, novel tools need to
be utilized to improve the performance of such processes.
On the other hand, advances in Information Technology
(IT) during the last decade and its collaboration with safety
management systems have facilitated the experts’ judg-
ment. These technologies have provided risk assessment
meetings with higher productivity for project participants
[16].
Building information modeling (BIM) provides a digital
representation of the actual characteristics of elements in a
project, which is a proper platform for sharing information
among different stakeholders [17]. Moreover, BIM
enhances the collaboration and integration level through
projects. BIM has shown considerable advantages in pro-
jects’ lifecycle from early stages, such as project definition
and design, during construction and operation phases, and
until the demolition process at the end [18].
In previous studies, the relationship between safety
leading indicators and the safety performance of the pro-
jects has been evaluated [19]. Furthermore, knowledge
bases for safety leading indicators have been established
and allocated to projects in a holistic view, not to the
activities [20]. Moreover, the relationship between
upcoming activities and the recorded injury reports and
other safety factors have been investigated; this asserts the
relationship between passive safety leading indicators and
the activities of the projects [21]. Even though it can be
understood that establishing the relationship between pas-
sive leading indicators and activities is useful, pursuing the
same approach for active leading indicators has more
benefits.
The safety leading indicators have been evaluated in a
location-based manner using BIM [22]. Near-miss
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International Journal of Civil Engineering
detection tools and hazard identification tools have been
another way to visualize the effects of the safety leading
indicators [23]. However, a location-based visualization is
not enough; the time gap between the recognition of each
safety leading indicator and occurrence of the related safety
hazard has an important role to take preventive measures.
Moreover, some leading indicators even when occurr in a
specific place of the project may affect another place that
was not considered in previous works.
The effects of some of the specific types of safety
leading indicators have been evaluated and their impacts
have been validated [24]. Specific types of safety leading
indicators have been studied before or the safety leading
indicators related to specific types of activities [25]; this
highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to
assessing the influences of safety leading indicators on a
project and evaluating their impacts on the projects in a
way to recognize all of their effects on the project [26].
Moreover, monitoring and realizing the occurrence of
safety leading indicators is another step to prevent the
hazards from happening in a project [23]. Nonetheless, to
fully assess the impact of safety leading indicators in a
project, a safety leading indicator measurement tool is
needed to not only monitor and detect the safety leading
indicators but to predict the occurrence and disappearance
of them.
To fulfill these gaps in this study; (1) the relationship
between safety leading indicators and activities are con-
sidered by defining a set of attributes and assigning them to
each safety leading indicator and activity and establishing
the relationship between safety leading indicators and
activities by checking whether they have matching attri-
butes; (2) after detecting the safety leading indicators a
feature is defined for the safety leading indicators which
evaluates the effective period of safety leading indicators.
Moreover, the impact of the safety leading indicators on
places other than the locations in which the related activity
is taking place, is considered by defining a term which is
named the effective radius; (3) to assess all the safety
leading indicators affecting the project, a knowledge base
is built and the safety leading indicators are stored in it by
utilizing different sources of knowledge; (4) to assess the
safety leading indicators through project’s timespan and
considering the appearance and disappearance of leading
indicators a real-time approach is utilized so that each
safety leading indicators can be added or deleted using the
safety leading indicator measurement tool.
This study aims to develop a safety leading indicator
measurement tool considering the safety leading indicators.
This system utilizes the BIM of the project and extracted
safety leading indicators in the knowledge base to assess
the impact of safety leading indicators in a time- and
location-based manner. This system considers the
International Journal of Civil Engineering
relationship between safety leading indicators and activi-
ties of the project and determines that when and where each
safety leading indicator is going to occur and have an
impact. After calculating the cumulative impact of all
safety leading indicators of the project, it generates a heat
map through time to visualize their influence. This system
determines that in each location and time how likely it is
for a hazard to occur based on active safety leading
indicators.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Safety Leading Indicators
Many studies have tried to develop safety predicting
models to prevent hazards [27]. Moreover, the relationship
between safety climate and safety behaviors was consid-
ered [28]. Many other factors that have safety predictive
value also have been studied [29]. Near-miss detecting
models that detect the events that had the potential to lead
to injuries but they did not result in hazards [30], real-time
location tracking systems which are based on tracking
workers or equipment and alarming them proactively
before any hazards occur [31], have been used as means to
determine the hazards beforehand to prevent them.
Hierarchy of the controls is a reliable theory in the field
of safety in construction projects [32]; it ranks metrics that
are implemented addressing safety issues in a project over
a systematic manner. A typical ranking includes elimina-
tion, substitution, engineering controls, administrative
controls, and personal protective equipment (PPE). These
controls can be divided into two parts; higher ranks (re-
spectively, from the first to the third controls) which are
mainly implemented in the early stages of project lifecycle,
such as conceptual and detailed design, and lower ranks
(the last two controls) which are mostly related to later
stages, such as construction and operation. Although the
theories such as the Szymberski curve suggest that the
influence level of safety strategies is higher in the first
ranking part, the second part should not be ignored and
safety management systems should cover the total project
lifecycle [33]. In other words, the safety management
system’s performance will be more efficient when assess-
ments start at the early stages of a project and that it
continues, while a project is progressing by monitoring the
safety performance and using active safety leading indi-
cators is a way to improve the safety performance of the
projects from the early phases.
In general, the main purpose of using safety indicators in
monitoring safety levels in a construction project is to
provide information for managers to make decisions
regarding how and where to perform an action; actions
carried out based on safety indicators aim to avoid future
accidents. Grabowski et al. stated that recognizing indica-
tors before the occurrence of an accident potentially
improve projects’ safety [34].
Safety indicators in construction projects are divided
into two groups; leading indicators as proactive or pre-
dictive indicators [35] and lagging indicators which are
collected after the occurrence of accidents to assess con-
sequences [36]. It has been found particularly over the last
years that lagging indicators themselves do not provide
enough information and insight to avoid future risks
effectively and their required workability has been ques-
tioned [23, 34, 37, 38]. On the other hand, leading indi-
cators are highly reliable, because they enable managers to
find deficiencies, and correct them to prevent or mitigate
their future impacts [39]. Sinelnikov et al. mention that
leading indicators are project-oriented and are focused on a
site level, because they are process-specific and that con-
struction projects differ in terms of their size, location,
operations, organizational culture, etc. [12]. Wang et al.
mention the following characteristics for safety leading
indicators: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and
time-bound [40]. A combination of this fact and theories,
such as the hierarchy of controls, reveals that each safety
management system relying on leading indicators should
utilize previous information at the early stages of the pro-
ject and evolve during later stages of project progress,
while new leading indicators would appear.
Leading indicators can be classified as passive or active
[41]. Passive leading indicators are often set in higher
levels of the organization and content of strategies adopted
before the beginning of a project. Active leading indicators
are measured and adjusted dynamically both in pre-con-
struction and construction phases allowing real-time
implementation of risk mitigation practices [42].
Costin et al. classifies active safety leading indicators
into three main branches: (1) equipment strucks which are
produced by impacts between workers, objects and equi-
pement; (2) slips, trips, and falls from height which are
conditions that may lead to workers falling and injury and;
(3) physical stress by overexertions which are conditions
that cause injuries every year as they decrease workers
movability in construction sites [43]. Shen et al. inumarates
dangerous equipement and equipement proximity as the
main origins of excavation related hazazrds [44]. Cheng
et al. applied a real time location sensor to track worker
movements in construction phase and determined that
increasing in workers movement and conjestion leads to a
higher probability of accidents occurring [45].
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2.2 Information Technology and Safety
Management Systems
Information technologies are addressing rapidly the man-
agerial aspects of the construction industry [46]. For
example BIM has been used to evaluate the progress of
projects during their construction [47]. Visualization
technologies, such as 3D/4D Computer-Aided Design
(CAD), Virtual Design and Construction (VDC), and BIM,
have been widely used to enhance safety performance in
projects by facilitating safety communication and coordi-
nation between line managers and technical workers
[48, 49]. Moreover, database and automatic rule-based
checking technologies are utilized in safety management
systems [50].
Some scholars have developed add-ons based on plat-
forms provided by existing BIM tools. Shen and Marks
developed a framework for safety personnel to view near-
misses and their frequency to identify hazardous areas [51].
Yuan et al. also developed a tool to prevent the safety
hazards in the design phase; it helps to automatically
inspect safety risks based on existing safety regulations and
documents [33]. Lim et al. integrated the WBS of the
project and the BIM 4D model to reduce develop an
effective safety plan for projects [52]. Information tech-
nology has also facilitated safety management in con-
struction projects and has shown great potential in process
automation and efficiency improvement [53, 54].
Building information modeling has been integrated with
knowledge management methods to utilize and store the
information extracted from previous designs and projects
[55]. Lu et al. have integrated safety risk data and building
information modeling to propose a quantitative method to
assess the safety risks involved in a construction project
[56]. Moreover, Takim et al. have also developed a safety
risk detection method that utilizes knowledge management
methods and BIM to identify the risks that workers are
exposed to in projects[57].
2.3 Knowledge Management for Safety Leading
Indicators
Human knowledge must be imparted, to use in computer
systems. For doing this, Maravilhas and Martins divided
human knowledge into explicit and tacit ones [58]. Data
gathered from previous projects and literature are consid-
ered explicit knowledge, and knowledge of construction
site workers are considered implicit [59]. Kamara et al.
concluded that adoption of implicit knowledge is difficult
in construction projects due to their complexity and
uniqueness [60]. Hence, converting the active leading
indicators recognized by workers on-site to data that can be
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International Journal of Civil Engineering
used in a safety management system is complicated.
Acquiring, sharing, expressing, and delivering are steps
toward converting implicit knowledge into explicit [60].
Knowledge management has a different usage in each level
of the project’s positions. Moreover, the level of access to
information must be customized based on the hierarchy of
the organization. For instance, type of the information that
each construction manager, project manager, executive
manager and, etc. in the organization needs, varies based
on their position. Therefore, bulk information must be put
into knowledge management process, so it can be used
optimally [61]. In addition, although the need for con-
struction projects for acquiring safety knowledge is tangi-
ble, knowledge storage and transfer systems are inefficient
for both internal and external resources [62]. Therefore, an
efficient knowledge management method needs to be
developed for managing the implicit knowledge of on-site
workers related to safety leading indicators. Applying
implicit and explicit knowledge of leading indicators
through BIM platforms makes the share and reuse process
possible, based on a 3D model.
3 Research Methodology
3.1 Overview of the Research Framework
The study here is aimed at developing a safety leading
indicator measurement tool relying on safety active leading
indicators by integrating BIM and knowledge base
approaches. BIM model of construction project and
knowledge base of past and present leading indicators
formed the foundation of the proposed tool here. In addi-
tion, an add-on is developed to aid in integration and
facilitate the process of information exchange between the
main components of the proposed system.
In the first step, a safety leading indicator knowledge
base is built to encompass three parts: identification of
active safety leading indicators, recognition of attributes
related to leading indicators, and forming relationships
between them. It is worth noting that in this research, data
can be added to the knowledge base during the construction
phase. Hence, classification of data collected from different
perspectives is essential to reach the same format which
increases the efficiency in process of using information.
Then, the project’s 3D model is generated inside the BIM
environment, e.g., Autodesk Revit. This makes the infor-
mation exchange, extension, and integration possible
among different BIM-based software which is needed for
developing the presented system. Afterward, project
activities are identified. Furthermore, the model in Revit is
exported to Navisworks. In the next step, activities, and
their features and attributes are defined. Attributes indicate
International Journal of Civil Engineering

whether this activity is vulnerable to a certain event like a methods. To measure the effects of the safety leading
fire or heavyweight, or not. Moreover, the add-on extracts indicators, this establishment is necessary. This knowledge
model elements and assigns their relative activities. In this database when implemented in the safety leading indicator
step, the activities which affect each element through the measurement tool, can make the evaluation of the safety
period of the project, are assigned. In the fourth step, leading indicators’ effect possible. Building the informa-
identified safety leading indicators, and their features and tion database for safety leading indicators is described as
attributes are defined. Safety leading indicators’ attributes follows:
indicate whether a safety leading indicator is capable of
(1) Collecting the safety leading indicator knowledge.
causing a certain event or not.
As mentioned before, the experts’ expertise, docu-
In the final step, the defined safety leading indicators are
ments, and best practice provide ample safety
allocated to the activities. To achieve this goal the add-on
knowledge. This knowledge of safety leading indi-
checks whether the safety leading indicators and the
cators presents details about the indicators influenc-
activities have matching attributes, or not. In addition, the
ing the project and their attributes.
impact of safety leading indicators on each element is
(2) Determining the knowledge elements for safety
investigated in this step. As a result, a heat map is gener-
leading indicators. The work breakdown structure
ated which visualizes the effects of the safety leading
of the project is used to detect the under-progress
indicators on the project status in time and location.
elements and the activities assigned to them. Using
Through this heat map, critical times and locations are
attributes of the safety leading indicators and activ-
recognized. Thus, project staff can use this information to
ities, they can be linked together.
select strategies to prevent accidents. An overview of the
(3) Establishing the knowledge base for safety leading
research can be found in Fig. 1.
indicators; express and store the safety leading
indicators knowledge. To accumulate safety and
3.2 Knowledge Management
project information, Microsoft Access is used and the
information is categorized into tables and the rela-
A bulk of information can be attained by exploiting best
tionships among them.
practices, documents, and experts’ expertise. Microsoft
Access is used in this study to utilize and manage the
knowledge which was accumulated with the mentioned

Building knowledge base Generating the 3D BIM model

Safety leading indicators’

Safety leading indicators Establishing relationship Identifying project’s activities
attribute

Defining activities features and

attributes in the add-on

Defining safety leading indicators’ features

Assigning activities to elements
and attributes in the add-on

Assigning safety leading indicators to

activities

Generating a heat map through time

Fig. 1 Overview of the research methodology

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3.3 Development of Automatic Inspection Tool
Based on BIM
In the first step, a connection between schedule, safety
leading indicators, and the 3D model is acquired. To utilize
BIM capabilities, Visual Basic.net (VB.NET) as a pro-
gramming language is employed to make the connection
possible In Navisworks.
Revit is used to develop a 3D model of the project and
the results are then exported to Navisworks. Navisworks
allows the use of Application Programming Interface (API)
and the Microsoft Visual Studio to develop the safety
leading indicator measurement tool. All the 3D details are
included in the model; the time factor is also added to the
model with an add-on.
All BIM graphical and parametric data is extracted with
the add-on, and all the elements’ boundaries are defined.
Hence, the safety leading indicators are attached to their
relative elements and their radius of effect is specified in
the add-on.
By applying the impact of the safety leading indicators
of each activity on their relative elements through time,
two results are extracted: (1) a heat map which visualizes
the effects of safety leading indicators in time and any
location and (2) a textual result which indicates how safety
leading indicators impact the project regarding time and
space.
4 Establishment of a Safety Leading
Indicator Knowledge Base
Attaining, storing, and utilizing the knowledge related to
safety-leading indicators is the main purpose of creating a
knowledge base. To carry out the operation discussed in
Sect. 3.2, three processes (i.e., collect the safety leading
indicators knowledge, establish the corresponding rela-
tionships, express and store the safety leading indicators
knowledge) should be performed. The three processes are
described as follows:
4.1 Collecting the Safety Leading Indicators
Knowledge
The information regarding the activities and elements can
be extracted from project characteristics. To extract the
safety leading indicators, best practices, documents, and
experts’ expertise are utilized as the main sources of
knowledge. Methods used to elicit this information are
specified in the following paragraphs:
(1) Experts’ expertise: although this source of informa-
tion is implicit, it is one of the paramount sources
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International Journal of Civil Engineering
regarding safety leading indicators. The experience
that experts have accumulated over time can be
exploited. In this case, their opinions should be
questioned and then converted to knowledge.
(2) Document analysis: there are numerous studies that
include usable information about the safety leading
indicators. These indicators were assessed in other
researches and can have a consequence on the
current project. These documents should be analyzed
and the indicators should be extracted.
(3) Best practice analysis: in this research, the best
practice refers to the safety leading indicators that
have occurred in previous similar projects. These
indicators have affected similar projects and are
likely to happen in the current project. The benefit of
this approach is that the impacts and attributes of the
mentioned safety leading indicators have already
been assessed.
4.2 Establishing the Corresponding
Relationships
The safety knowledge base includes 4 main parts: (1)
activities (2) safety leading indicators (3) Their attributes
(4) the corresponding relationships between them. Activi-
ties and safety leading indicators should be connected. To
establish the relationship between them, their attributes are
utilized. Activities and safety leading indicators possess
attributes. The first step toward establishing the relation-
ship between safety leading indicators and activities is to
appoint their attributes. Activities’ attributes refer to being
vulnerable to a safety hazard. On the other hand, the
attribute of the safety leading indicator represents the
hazard that the safety leading indicator may cause. If a
safety leading indicator and an activity have matching
attributes then the correspondence accedes between them.
Hence, indicators affecting each activity can be detected.
4.3 Expression and Storage of the Safety
Leading Indicators Knowledge Base
To improve the utilization of the gathered data, it should be
stored in a knowledge base. Safety leading indicators
knowledge, activities, attributes, and their corresponding
relationships when stored and expressed can form a
knowledge base. The knowledge is categorized into four
sections (i.e., activity, attributes, activity-element, safety
leading indicator) and three relationships (activity-safety
leading indicator, activity-attributes, safety leading indi-
cator-attribute) that have the structure of ‘‘IF…, THEN…’’.
The storage method is described as follows; to store the
extracted knowledge a database management software is
International Journal of Civil Engineering

used. Microsoft Access has two types of storage forms: Table 2 Basic features of the safety leading indicator (SLI) table
‘‘tables’’ are used to store the information, and the other Field name The type of Instruction
form is used to establish the relationships between these data
tables by merging the data stored in the tables.
The ID of the SLI Numeric The identification number of
(1) Structure design of knowledge storage tables.
the SLI
Four knowledge categories (i.e., activity, attribute,
The content of the Textual The content description of the
activity-element, safety leading indicator) are accumulated SLI SLI
in storage tables. The features regarding each category are Location type of the Numeric The effective area of the SLI
illustrated in Tables 1, 2, 3 and 4. SLI type
(2) Designing the relationship of knowledge storage Impact Numeric The impact of the SLI
tables.
Usually, two types of relationships exist between
knowledge tables of the safety leading indicators: many-to-
many and one-to-many. A many-to-many is the relation- Table 3 Basic features of the attribute table
ship in which a wide variety of knowledge items in the first Field name The type of Instruction
table are related to a wide variety of knowledge items in data
the second table. Furthermore, a wide variety of knowledge
The ID of the Numeric The identification number of
items in the second table are also connected to a wide attribute the attribute
variety of knowledge items in the first table. On the other The content of the Textual The content description of the
hand, a one-to-many relationship is when one knowledge attribute attribute
item in the first table is related to a wide variety of The importance Numeric The level of importance of the
knowledge items in the second table, and a wide variety of factor attribute
knowledge items in the second table are connected to when
one knowledge item in the first table. In this study, to
demonstrate the relationship between knowledge storage
tables, the many-to-many relationship is used. The many- Table 4 Basic features of the element-activity table
to-many relation table is illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. Field name The type Instruction
To illustrate the relationship between two tables a third of data
table must be used to express the many-to-many relation- The ID of the Numeric Sequencing identification numbers
ship between them. In this study, the three kinds of rela- element-activity
tionships that exist between the tables are; activity-safety The ID of the Numeric The identification number of the
leading indicator, activity-attribute, and safety leading activity activity
indicator-attribute. These relationships must be stored in a The ID of the Numeric The identification number of the
relational table to show the connection between the activ- element element based on model
ities, safety leading indicators, and attribute tables.
Tables 5, 6 and 7 show the features of three relational data
tables for the safety leading indicator knowledge base
(Fig. 3).
Table 1 Basic features of the activity table
Field name The type of Instruction
data 5 BIM-Based Safety Leading Indicators
The ID of the Numeric The identification number of
Knowledge Base Application
activity the activity
The content of the Textual The content description of the Two kinds of tools can be developed to assess the impact of
activity activity indicators; the first is to develop a tool that uses industry
Duration of the Numeric The duration days of the foundation classes (IFC). In this kind of tool, an exterior
activity activity program is developed which utilizes IFC as input. Another
Cost Numeric The cost of the activity approach is to develop an add-on based on BIM. Since
Start date Numeric The date that the activity starts using IFC as input has its disadvantages, such as missing
Finish date Numeric The date that the activity data when used to transport information into the third
finishes program, developing an add-on can be more effective for
operators.

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 International Journal of Civil Engineering

Fig. 2 Many-to-many relational table used in this research

Table 5 Features of the relational data table about the rule of activity Table 7 Features of the relational data table about the rule of activity
attribute SLI
Field name The type of Instruction Field name The type of Instruction
data data

The ID of the activity- Numeric Sequencing identification The ID of the Numeric Sequencing identification
attribute numbers activity-SLI numbers
The ID of the attribute Numeric The identification number of The ID of the Numeric The identification number of
the attribute activity the activity
The ID of the activity Numeric The identification number of The ID of the SLI Numeric The identification number of
the activity the SLI
Time type of the Numeric The effective period of the SLI
SLI type
Date effect Numeric The date that the effect of the
Table 6 Features of the relational data table about the rule of SLI SLI occurs
attribute
Field name The type of Instruction
data
5.1 The Algorithm for Measuring the Impact
The ID of the SLI- Numeric Sequencing identification of the Safety Leading Indicators
attribute numbers
The ID of the Numeric The identification number of
The initial step in developing a program to measure the
attribute the attribute
impact of safety-leading indicators is to design an algo-
The ID of the SLI Numeric The identification number of
the SLI rithm fitting the purpose of the add-on. The proposed
algorithm to develop the add-on based on Navisworks
consists of three main parts, input, processing, and dis-
playing the results which are described in detail in
Figure 4 illustrates the safety leading indicator knowl- Sect. 5.2. In the input stage, the data including the data-
edge base used in the developed application to distinguish base, model, the relationship between the model and
the effects of the safety leading indicators on elements database, the relationship in the database itself, and the
through time. To develop the BIM model Revit is used; settings data are given to the add-on. In the processing
then the model is transported to Navisworks, where all the section, the data given in the previous stage is utilized to
project information is involved in the model according to identify each day’s safety leading indicators and also their
Sect. 3.3. In this section, the development of the add-on is relative elements. Finally, in this step, the cumulative
characterized. impact of the indicators is calculated and stored. In the final
stage, displaying the results, the calculated data in the

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International Journal of Civil Engineering

The activity table The attribute table

Activity ID Activity name Attribute ID Attribute name

East wall concrete

4 2 Collapse
casting
Reservoir wall Moving objects and
5 3
concrete casting vehicles

6 Reservoir ceiling 4 Electricity

7 Tank ceiling 5 Manual handling

The activity-attribute relational table

Activity-attribute ID Activity ID Attibute ID

11 4 5

12 5 1

14 6 1

17 7 5

Fig. 3 Method used to develop the many-to-many relational table

Microsoft Visual
Studio platform Visual Basic .NET
Technical
information

Color mapped
4D simulation
Hazard
Knowledge base Automated time-based location-
Results management
system based safety management system
process

Detailed results

Fig. 4 Implementation of the knowledge base in the developed program

previous stage is displayed as a heat map through time on a
daily basis which indicates the impact of safety leading
indicators appearing in a particular day by color, and each
day’s results can be extracted in text.
5.2 A Detailed Description of BIM Development
Three main parts of the algorithm are explained in this
section in detail:
(1) Input: in this stage developed BIM model, safety
leading indicators knowledge base, activities affecting each
element, attributes, safety leading indicators of each
activity, and the settings data are given to the add-on. The
setting input defines the boundaries of the heat map’s
color-changing range regarding the cumulative impact of
each element’s safety leading indicators in displaying the
results stage. This provides the operator a way to define the
regulations regarding the tolerability of safety leading
indicators’ impacts on elements according to the charac-
teristics of the project. Furthermore, the compatibility
threshold of the attributes is given to the program which
indicates the minimum number of attributes to establish the
relation between safety leading indicators and activities.
Moreover, the attributes are added to the program in this
section. Because time factors cannot be distinguished in
Navisworks, cost, start date, and finish date of the activities
are allocated using the project schedule. The established
safety leading indicators knowledge base is explained in

123

Sect. 4 and the relationships regarding the inputs are also
stored in the knowledge base. Their impact (to demonstrate
the impact five-point Likert scale is used), their effective
area, their effective period, and their occurrence date are
given to the program as input. Five-point Likert scale is
used as the impacts are not used to develop a numerical
model; therefore, there is not the need of using a method
with higher precision, such as nine-point Likert scale or
fuzzy methods. Five-point Likert scale is used to determine
that if the safety leading indicators can have an impact on
the project or not. Moreover, Wu et al. indicates that
although the number of objects that average human mind
can hold in their working memory is 7 ± 2, functions with
less than 7 variables are more understandable for hamun’s
mind and are easier to work with [63]. Therefore, for the
purpose of this research five-point Likert-scale is easier and
more effective to utilize. The effective area has three types:
the ones which have an impact on the assigned element,
indicators that have an impact on the assigned element and
the areas nearby the element with a given radius, and the
ones which affect the whole project. The effective period
of each safety leading indicator also has three types: from
the date, indicator effect occurs through the start of the
activity, from the start of the activity through the finish date
of the activity, and from the finish date of the activity
through the end of the project. Moreover, in this stage
attributes and their factor of importance are given to the
add-on, then, they are assigned to safety leading indicators
and activities. To establish the relationship between safety
leading indicators and activities two approaches are used:
first, the relationship can be established manually, second,
the program can assign them together using their attributes.
In the automatic approach, the program checks whether the
safety leading indicators and activities have attribute
compliance higher than the compatibility threshold using
the important importance factor of each attribute, which
multiplies the effect of the similar attribute when counting
the sharing attributes between safety leading indicators and
activities. The algorithm is shown in Fig. 5.
(2) Processing: to measure the impact of safety leading
indicators on each element, the data given to the add-on in
the input stage is used. In this stage, the first step is that the
program goes through all the activities one by one. Then,
the safety leading indicators assigned to each activity are
identified. In this step, the data given to the program in the
input stage is used to discover the area and period of safety
leading indicators effectiveness. Then, the impact of each
safety leading indicator on its relevant elements on each
day is stored. Furthermore, the program checks whether it
is the last activity or not. If yes, the program continues to
the final step; otherwise, the program proceeds to the next
activity. In the final step, the cumulative impact of every
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International Journal of Civil Engineering
safety leading indicator of each element on each day is
calculated. The algorithm is shown in Fig. 6.
(3) Displaying the results: in this stage, the impact of
safety-leading indicators is displayed. To visualize the
results, the heat map of the influenced elements is dis-
played day by day. The program starts to illustrate the heat
map from the day which is given to the program, for a
specific duration. On each day, the program assigns a color
to each element. Three colors are used to distinguish the
amount of impact influencing the elements. The yellow
color is used to identify the elements that are impacted less
than the lower limit given to the program in the settings.
The orange color is used to identify the elements that are
impacted between the higher and lower limit given to the
program. The red color is used to identify the elements that
are impacted more than the higher limit of the program. In
the next step, the program checks whether it is the last
element on that day or not. If yes, the program proceeds to
the displaying stage; otherwise, the program continues to
assign colors to the rest of the elements. After displaying
that day’s heat map the program checks whether it is the
last day of the project or not. If it is, the program asks for
another date to start displaying the results. If not, the
program delays the displayed heat map, so each day’s heat
map can be distinguished from the next day’s heat map,
then proceeds to the next day. To apply this delay, multi-
threading is used to execute multiple parts of Navisworks
at the same time. Multithreading prevents the program to
malfunction which is derived from the stop command
given to the Navisworks to demonstrate the delay. The
algorithm for this step is illustrated in Fig. 7.
6 Case Study
A case study is introduced here to determine the effects of
the safety leading indicators on a real project. A station in a
water transfer line from Mamloo dam to a water refinery
station located in the south of Tehran which is constructed
in mountainous area, is modeled under Navisworks envi-
ronment and safety leading indicators are extracted; see
Fig. 8. As this project contained similar stations that some
of them were already constructed, comparable safety
records existed from constructed stations and the perfor-
mance of the safety leading indicator measurement tool
which was used in constructing the other stations could be
evaluated using the existing records. Through this water
transfer line, there are 35 other similar stations. 12 of these
stations were already constructed before this safety leading
indicator measurement tool was used. During the con-
struction these stations 54 accidents were recorder which
included falling from height, crashing with on-site equip-
ment, crashing with falling objects, misfunctioning of
International Journal of Civil Engineering
BIM data Activity data
Linking activity to BIM
model
Processing
Fig. 5 Algorithm for the input stage
dangerous equipment and etc. 13 of these accidents lead to
injury and three of them lead to fatality. To evaluate the
performance of the developed safety leading indicator
measurement tool, it was used in the rest of the 23
unconstructed stations. To elaborate on how the safety
leading indicator measurement tool functions, the infor-
mation of utilization of this system on one of these stations
is presented in this section. This station has a concrete
structure and a 250 square meter area. Its construction was
started on the 1st of November and finished on the 30th of
December of 2020. Table 8 presents an overview of the
case studies characteristics and the safety statistics of the
12 already built stations.
The first step is to build the knowledge base regarding
the project specs. A database containing extracted safety
leading indicators, activities, their attributes, activities
affecting each element, and the relationships between
safety leading indicators, activities, and attributes are
established. To identify the safety leading indicators of this
project, a literature review is conducted based on the pro-
ject’s nature which includes excavation, piping and con-
crete pouring. Adding the leading indicators that had been
identified in constructed stations regarding the project’s
safety experts and documents, a long list is extracted which
consisted the three main sources of knowledge which was
mentioned in Sect. 4.1. After brain storming with project’s
staff a short list was created which can be found in
Table 13.
As explained in Sect. 4.3, a database is created to store
the safety leading indicators, activities involved in the
project, and their attributes. To create the knowledge base,
a list of safety-leading indicators should be extracted. The
knowledge base is given in Tables 12, 13, 14 and 15.
The method introduced in Sect. 4.2 should now be
implemented in this step and the relationship between
Leading
Attribute data Setting
indicator data
Linking activity to leading
indicator
activities, attributes, and safety leading indicators should
be established in a table in the knowledge base. Using this
relationship, the impact of each activity in its associating
area can be considered. The relational tables are presented
in Tables 16, 17 and 18.
After establishing the knowledge base, all the activities,
attributes, settings, safety leading indicators, and their
relationships are given to the program as input. The pur-
pose of using the add-on is to discover the date and the
elements that the impact of the safety leading indicators on
them is critical. By utilizing the algorithm explained in
Sect. 5, the cumulative impact of safety leading indicators
on each element and each day is calculated and the results
are displayed in a heat map, see Fig. 9.
7 Verification of the Developed Add-On
To validate this study, Yuan’s approach is used [33]. To
discover the effectiveness of the developed safety man-
agement tool a semi-structured questionnaire survey was
sent to the associative of the project and researchers.
Hallowell and Gambatese suggested a basis to select the
participants of the questionnaire, which is used in this study
[64].
Two parts were included in the questionnaire; the first
part which is necessary for experts to have an understating
of the study which contained all the details regarding the
presented case-study, the background of the research, the
implementation of the safety leading indicators knowledge
base, and BIM, the tool developed to measure the impact of
the safety leading indicators and how it is executed in the
project. The second part captured the respondent’s demo-
graphic information comprising of work experience, job
title, age, educational status, and the most paramount part
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 International Journal of Civil Engineering

questions were responded by the participants. Extracted

Going forward activity by statistical results of the survey are presented in Table 10.
activity
The results from the survey indicate that the average rate of
each of the five questions is above four meaning that
compared to traditional methods, the developed safety
Identifying the leading leading indicator tool is more effective. It can also be
indicator of each activity
inferred that the developed tool regarding the labor-saving
aspect has a favorable function (Table 10).

1 Which type 3
8 Results and Discussion
2
According to the results from the add-on, the critical
impact happens on the element of ID = (200614) from 1st
Date effect-Start date Start date-Finish date Finish date-Last date
December to 15th of December of 2020. After analyzing
the critical dates, it is detected that the safety leading
No
indicator of ID = (3) and the activity of ID = (1) have the
most impact on the results. This information can be used by
Identifying the elements
of each activity project participants to perform an action to prevent future
accidents by changing the start date and finish date of some
of the activities if it is possible or mitigating the safety
leading indicators that have a critical impact on the project.
Which type The results of the utilization of this system in construction
of the 23 unconstructed stations can be found in Table 11.
To compare the results, it must be mentioned that these
stations are similar in size, construction method and the
Impacting on activity
elements
Impacting on elements
with impact radius
Impacting on all
elements
condition of the construction site. Before utilizing the
safety leading indicator measurement tool, the number of
accidents that occurred in constructing of the 12 of these
stations was 54 and after that, 64 accidents happened in the
Is it the last activity?
rest of the 23 stations. After normalizing these numbers by
calculating the overall accidents happening per station, its
Yes
number decreased from 4.5 to 2.78. The number of injuries
Calculating the sum of
per station decreased from 1.08 to 0.56 and the fatalities
impact value of the per station decreased from 0.25 to 0 which indicates that
leading indicator for each
element on that the developed tool has an practical implication in con-
particular day
struction projects.
Fig. 6 Algorithm for the process stage Xu et al. have done a systematic review in 2021 about
safety leading indicators and they have highlighted that
was to through their experience, rate the effectiveness of safety leading indicators are measures to identify the
the developed tool using the five points Likert scale. 32 weakness and strenghths of the safety management systems
people responded to the questionnaire; their answers to the that are based on safety leading indicators. Moreover, they
first section are shown in Table 9. It can be interpreted that can determine situations that may lead to hazards and lead
all of the conditions mentioned by Hallowell and Gam- to proactive measures based on these situations [65]. In this
batese are met to ensure that they have enough expertise in study, critical safety leading indicators have been deter-
the field and, hence, the survey results are valid. A majority mined based on the projects charactrisitcs. These leading
of the respondents (more than 65%) have 7 or more years indicators can lead to hazards that actually had happened in
of work experience and that all hold a bachelor’s or a the assessed project. Weakest locations and times have
higher educational degree. Moreover, researchers scholars’ been determined using these indicators. Determining these
field of study is the safety of the construction projects. indicators helped to develop proactive measures in the
To ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the project. Moreover, using BIM visuailizes the effects of the
developed safety leading indicator measurement tool 5 safety leading indicators to facilitate the identifying of

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International Journal of Civil Engineering

Going forward day by

day

For each element

influenced by that day

Identifying impact value

of the leading indicators

The amount of impact

<Lower Border > Higher Border

Lower Border>
&
< Higher Border

Set element color green Set element color yellow Set element color red

No Is it the last element?

Yes

Selecting a specific day

Delay for display No Is it the end date? Yes
for display & report

Fig. 7 Algorithm for displaying the result stage

safety leading indicators that exist in the project and have
crucial effect on the project.
Regarding the theory of hierarchy of controls, the pre-
sents safety leading indicator measurement tool covers the
both higher and lower ranks controls. The first application
of this tool was in the early stages of the project, and its
merit is that it can generate a overview of the project’s
safety condition which leads to enhancing the effectiveness
of the adopeted safety strategies. The results of the utilizing
the safety leading indicator measurement tool indicate that
it is compatible with Szymberski curve. Moreover, the
lower level ranks in the hierarchy of controls are also
enhanced. The proactive manner in the presented tool
ameliorates the administrative controls and workers safety
while conducting the projects’ activities.
As the developed system is based on proactive safety
leading indicators, any safety leading indicator that is
found during the project’s construction phase must be
added to this system by safety managers. Yet, having this
process in the project management system had its own
challenges, such as lack of sufficient perception of
unconstructed parts of the project; therefore, it is recom-
mended to add other tools such as virtual reality to this
system to facilitate extracting the safety leading indicators
during the project and adding them to the safety leading
indicator measurement tool.

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 International Journal of Civil Engineering

Fig. 8 Navisworks model of the case study

Table 8 Overview of the case studies characteristics

Location Water transfer line Each station’s Structural system Number of Accident Injury Fatality
length area stations number number number

Tehran, 8 km 250 m2 Reinforced 12 54 13 3

Iran concrete

Fig. 9 Heat-map generated by the program

9 Conclusions extracting information from expert’s expertise, documents,

In this study, an add-on was developed to assess the impact
of safety leading indicators on construction projects by
integrating a safety leading indicator knowledge base and
BIM; this allows the safety managers and project partici-
pants to make important decisions to prevent accidents.
Safety leading indicators knowledge base was created by
and best practice. Furthermore, to develop the add-on,
Navisworks API and Visual Studio’s framework were used
to determine the impact of safety-leading indicators. To
verify the developed tool, a case study was considered,
which illustrated that it is effective and functional to assess
the impact of the safety leading indicators using the
knowledge base. These efforts can provide safety managers

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International Journal of Civil Engineering

Table 9 Demographic information of experts

Job title Project manager Designers, architects, and engineers Researcher scholar Safety manager Total

Number 7 9 13 3 32
Age Below 30 years 30–40 years 41–50 years Over 50 years Total
Number 12 8 7 5 32
Educational level College degree Bachelor degree Master degree Ph.D Total
Number 0 10 15 7 32
Work experience Below 5 years 5–10 years 11–15 years Over 15 years Total
Number 8 13 7 4 32

Table 10 Extracted statistical results of the survey

No. Question Min Max SD Avg

1 The SLI tool is more accurate than the traditional approach 3 5 0.66 4.16
2 The SLI tool is more time-efficient than the traditional approach 3 5 0.63 4.41
3 The SLI tool is more labor-saving than the traditional approach 3 5 0.59 4.58
4 The SLI tool could help improve the use of safety knowledge 2 5 0.72 4.03
5 The SLI tool has potentials to improve lifecycle safety management 3 5 0.67 4.25

Table 11 Utilization of the safety leading indicator measurement tool’s results

Location Water transfer line Station area Structural system Number of Accident Injury Fatality
length stations number number number

Tehran, 15 km 250 square Reinforced 23 64 13 0

Iran meters Concrete

and other project participants with a view of further inci-
dents. Hence, they will be able to take proactive measures
to prevent accidents. Finally, in the conducted survey the
developed tool’s effectiveness and efficiency were exam-
ined and confirmed. The results of this study could be put
in use by project managers, safety managers, designers, and
site managers; in the project level. A database could be
developed utilizing extracted information from each pro-
ject that the safety leading indicator measurement tool was
used in, and in the early stages of a new project, this
databse could be utilized to enhance the performance of the
developed tool.
The limitation of this study is that the knowledge base
should be more comprehensive. Thus, to have a better view of
the project, other resources should be studied. Furthermore,
some parts of this study still rely on manual efforts, as to
recognize the effective period of the safety leading indicators,
it should be given to the program manually. Moreover,
although this research considers the relation between safety
leading indicators and activities, their attributes were assumed
to be Boolean; each activity or safety leading indicator has the
attribute or does not, other types of attributes should be
considered to have more accurate results. Suggested future
studies are: expanding the safety leading indicators
knowledge base, using machine learning to facilitate the
identifying of safety leading indicators effective period, and
investigating other types of attributes of safety leading indi-
cators and activities.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and
its Member Institutions.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate
if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this
article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless
indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended
use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted
use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright
holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Appendix A
See Tables 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.

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 International Journal of Civil Engineering

Table 12 Activities Table 15 Element activity

ID Activity name Cost (Rial) Duration Start Finish ID Model element Activity ID Model element Activity
date date ID ID ID ID
1 North wall 500,000,000 15 01- 15- 1 200614 1 15 211025 5
concrete casting Dec- Dec-
20 20 2 213580 3 16 211038 5
2 South wall 500,000,000 15 05- 20- 3 200586 2 17 203051 7
concrete casting Dec- Dec- 4 200599 4 18 210053 6
20 20 5 205053 5 19 209537 6
3 West wall concrete 400,000,000 15 05- 20- 6 210703 5 20 211136 6
casting Dec- Dec-
7 205051 5 21 205936 8
20 20
8 205049 5 22 206001 8
4 East wall concrete 400,000,000 15 01- 15-
casting Dec- Dec- 9 209178 5 23 210903 8
20 20 10 204349 5 24 210963 8
5 Reservoir wall 800,000,000 10 15- 25- 11 211606 5 25 206066 8
concrete casting Dec- Dec- 12 211068 5 26 206100 8
20 20
13 204501 5 27 206212 8
6 Reservoir ceiling 700,000,000 6 25- 30-
14 204028 5 28 206169 8
Dec- Dec-
20 20
7 Tank ceiling 600,000,000 8 22- 28-
Dec- Dec-
20 20
8 Foundation 400,000,000 15 01- 15- Table 16 Activity attribute
Nov- Nov-
20 20 ID Activity ID Attribute ID ID Activity ID Attribute ID

1 1 1 11 4 5
2 1 3 12 5 1
3 1 4 13 5 5
Table 13 Safety leading indicators
4 1 5 14 6 1
ID SLI name Type Effective radius Impact 5 2 1 15 6 5
1 Dangerous Equipment 2 5 4 6 2 5 16 7 1
2 Equipment Proximity 1 0 3 7 3 1 17 7 5
3 Worker Movement 2 2 1 8 3 3 18 8 5
4 Slips 1 0 2 9 3 4 19 8 7
5 Leading Edge 1 0 3 10 4 2

Table 17 Safety leading indicator attribute

Table 14 Attributes
ID SLI ID Attribute ID ID SLI ID Attribute ID
Attribute Attribute name Attribute Attribute name
ID ID
1 1 3 6 3 5
1 Working at height 5 Manual 2 1 5 7 4 1
handling 3 2 4 8 4 2
2 Collapse 6 Harmful 4 2 7 9 4 5
materials 5 3 1 10 5 1
3 Moving objects and 7 Noise
vehicles
4 Electricity

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International Journal of Civil Engineering

Table 18 Activity safety leading indicator

ID Activity ID SLI ID Date effect Date type ID Activity ID SLI ID Date effect Date type

1 1 1 15-Nov-20 2 15 4 3 15-Nov-20 2
2 1 2 15-Nov-20 2 16 4 3 15-Nov-20 3
3 1 3 01-Nov-20 1 17 4 4 15-Nov-20 2
4 1 3 01-Nov-20 2 18 5 3 01-Dec-20 1
5 1 3 01-Nov-20 3 19 5 3 01-Dec-20 2
6 2 3 06-Nov-20 1 20 5 3 01-Dec-20 3
7 2 3 06-Nov-20 2 21 5 5 01-Dec-20 2
8 2 3 06-Nov-20 3 22 6 3 11-Dec-20 2
9 3 1 21-Nov-20 2 23 6 5 11-Dec-20 2
10 3 2 21-Nov-20 2 24 7 3 08-Dec-20 2
11 3 3 21-Nov-20 1 25 7 5 08-Dec-20 2
12 3 3 21-Nov-20 2 26 8 3 15-Oct-20 1
13 3 3 21-Nov-20 3 27 8 3 15-Oct-20 2
14 4 3 15-Nov-20 1 28 8 3 15-Oct-20 3

Data Availability Statement All data, models, and code generated or
used during the study appear in the submitted article.
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