Identifying Safety Technology Opportunities to Mitigate Safety-Related Issues on Construction Sites

Abstract

Although safety technology has recently been shown to prevent occupational incidents, a systematic approach to identifying technological opportunities is still lacking. Incident report documents, containing large volumes of narrative text, are considered valuable resources for predetermining incident factors. Additionally, patent data, as a form of big data from technological sources, is widely utilized to explore potential technology solutions. In this context, this study aims to identify technology opportunities by integrating two types of textual big data: incident documents and patent documents. Text mining and self-organizingmaps are employed to discover applicable technologies for incident prevention, grouping them into five categories, as follows: machine tool work, high-place work, vehicle-related facilities, hydraulic machines, and miscellaneous tools. A gap analysis between incidents and patents is also conducted to assess feasibility and develop a technology strategy. The findings, derived from both types of big data, provide technology solutions that are essential for improving workplace safety and that can be used by business owners and safety managers.