Determination of Subcontractor Selection Criteria from the View of Occupational Health and Safety in the Construction Industry

Abstract

Construction industry is characterized by labor-intensive workforces, subcontractor-based production, diverse activities, and related hazards. Given the commonality of contingent forms of contracting, the majority of construction work is carried out by subcontractors. Unlike main contractors, subcontractors are typically smaller or medium-sized companies. Their awareness, practice, and compliance with health and safety legislation can be problematic. Furthermore, establishing and implementing a safety management system for a specific project requires coordination and management of multiple subcontractors. In this paper, a model has been created for selecting the most suitable subcontractor through an evaluation of their occupational health and safety (OHS) management implementation. The selection criteria have been determined based on a literature review focused on OHS, followed by the development of a questionnaire that assesses the importance of the criteria with the support of five occupational safety experts. Three shopping mall projects were chosen for implementation based on expert evaluations using scores calculated through the Analytical Hierarchy Process. Importance rates for each criterion were calculated, allowing for the identification of the most significant subcontractor selection criteria. Fifteen on-site subcontractors were evaluated using the proposed method. The research suggests that in the absence of qualification-based selection criteria for subcontractors, unskilled personnel could be selected. Consequently, this could impede the safety oversight mechanism, the execution of OHS measures, as well as the mitigation and/or prevention of potential risks, while jeopardizing compliance with the applicable legislation throughout the project. Therefore, it is imperative to choose only competent subcontractors to guarantee the welfare of workers.