Quality and safety in construction: creating a no-harm environment

There have been limited studies that have examined the relationship between quality and safety performance. In addressing this issue, this paper examines a project-lifecycle safety, quality, and environment (SQE) strategy, which was supported by a behavioral and accountability initiative, and its effect on reducing the number of safety incidents in an AU$375 million program alliance that delivered 129 water infrastructure projects over a 5-year period. While the SQE program proved to be effective, the alliance also recognized that rework had become an issue and thus developed a rework prevention program as part of their continuous improvement process. Thus, this paper describes the nature of these programs and provides statistical analysis to demonstrate their combined effectiveness in reducing safety incidents. It is suggested that the alliance’s approach and experiences in simultaneously addressing quality and safety provide learning opportunities for those organizations that are seeking to ameliorate the performance of the projects that they are charged with delivering.