One of the chief goals of the construction industry is to maintain a safe environment at construction sites, a goal best achieved by implementing Quality Management. Deming's Total Quality Management (TQM) tools serve as an excellent option when it comes to efficiently using available resources to improve construction management at the site. Various accidents in the construction sites, however, may still occur, leading to loss of lives, delays and increasing project cost. Thus, an effective safety management system should be enforced to mitigate these accidents so as to reduce delay, cost and most importantly, prevent harmful accidents. A combination of TQM and Total Safety Management (TSM) ranks as one of the best available practices that establish a safe environment at the construction sites. In this paper, a survey has been designed, conducted and analyzed in order to solicit feedback from 61 engineers working in various construction companies and organizations in the UAE. Two construction processes that necessitate safety management are studied: safety of tower cranes and temporary formwork. The interrelationship between safety, quality, and reliability is also discussed along with the various causes of failure. The results of the survey reveal that the majority of the survey participants had implemented routine safety and health procedures to avoid accidents. The number of accidents, however, was still inordinately high due to top management pressurizing middle managers into completing construction goals within a designated time period.
Sustainability is the main concern for current and future construction projects in the world. In any project, attaining sustainability requires the integrity of four main elements. These elements cover economical, societal, cultural, and environmental aspects to its successful implementation and integration in an anthropogenic framework. Concrete is one of the main building materials used in current construction activities around the world; therefore, many issues pertaining to concrete long term sustainability arise. This makes issues related to environmental evaluation and assessment for the ready-mix concrete production process of vital importance. The release of particulate matter (PM) including PM10 and PM2.5 could be considered the main air pollutant that is emitted from this industrial sector; where PM can be released from different stages of ready-mix concrete production process. Another concern arising from the ready-mix concrete operations which may affect the soil and ground water quality is the spills or leaks that may occur from the storage containers used for diesel, motor oil, and chemical admixture. In 2010, Environmental Agency-Abu Dhabi (EAD) collected data pertaining to the operations of 73 ready-mix concrete facilities in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The data showed that the average production rate of concrete is around 250,000 m 3 /year, which indicates that the concrete industry is a very active industry in the Emirate. Hence, EAD has established a set of plans and requirements to minimize the environmental impacts of concrete production on the environment and public health. The environmental impact of the concrete manufacturing can be reduced by conserving use of raw material ingredients, conserving energy consumption, and following Best Management Practices (BMPs) related to readymix concrete production. In this paper, a variety of BMPs are presented for ready-mix concrete manufacturing facilities in Abu Dhabi. These BMPs cover the following areas: raw materials handling and transport, process operation, housekeeping, waste management, emergency response, G. Kashwani et al. 334 and training record. EAD can then regulate the ready-mix concrete manufacturing sector in Abu Dhabi using these BMPs and the requirements of the issued permitting conditions in order to have a sustainable industrial sector.
Aluminum is the third most abundant element, after oxygen and silicon, and the most abundant metal in Earth's crust. It is widely used in buildings, construction, transport, packaging and general engineering due to its corrosion resistance, durability, insulation capability, structural strength and low-weight, making it the metal of the future. Aluminum is widely used in all UAE construction related projects; however, the sustainability and environmental performance of the aluminum production process is questionable. The production of this metal is associated with many environmental impacts which compromise the sustainable production of aluminum. Aluminum manufacturing is an energy intensive industry and a major contributor to Greenhouse Gases such as CO2, CFC, and PFC. This industry generates huge amounts of waste such as the Bauxite Residue from the Alumina Refinery process and the Spent Pot-Lining (SPL) from the Smelting process. One of the sustainable solutions is to create a sustainable metal whilst also making a positive net impact on the environment over the life cycle of aluminum products. This solution suits UAE because the aluminum industry is on upstream production, with less emphasis on the use of recycling and secondary aluminum production. As an effective tool to control environmental impacts and improve the environmental performance of any production industry, Environment Management System (EMS) is further studied with regards to the aluminum production process. This research investigates the efficiency of the EMS at UAE aluminum production industry to determine its ability to control the industry's impact, and to attain sustainability standards. The aim of this research is to evaluate the efficiency of the existing EMS and to identify the factors affecting implementation of EMS in the UAE aluminum production. The implementation of EMS in the UAE aluminium industry is heavily affected by regulatory compliance and enforcement gap, transparent leadership, accountability, and human factors.
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