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By Sathy Rajendran, Brian Clarke and Richard Andrews he role of construction safety professionals has significantly expanded over the past decade. The industry employs thousands of safety professionals, most of whom work for contractors (general or subcontractors). Prior to the 1980s, only a few progressive owners held employees and construction contractors who worked in their facilities to a higher level of safety performance than OSHA standards. Then came a real push for safety performance excellence as insurance carriers demanded that contractors provide their own full-time safety field supervision. In addition to the considerable efforts by safety-conscious owners, contractors, OSHA, insurers and other organizations, safety professionals have played a prominent role in the industry's safety improvement over the past 30 years. The traditional approach to construction safety has been to 1) develop and implement company safety programs; 2) work with regulatory agencies to develop and implement safety rules and regulation; 3) encourage professional de-

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IN BRIEF

•This article examines the feasihility of integrating safety and quality management, the parallels between safety and quality management responsihilities, and the interrelationship between construction safety and quality. •It also explores the role of safety professionals in field construction quality management and reviews what a construction safety professional needs to know to manage a field quality control program. •Safety professionals can enhance their value in the workplace by managing their company's field construction quality control program.

Sathy Rajendran, Ph.D., M.S., CSP, LEED AP, CRIS, is an assis tant professor in the safety and health management program within the Industrial and Engineering Technology Department at Central Washington University. Prior to this, he was a construction safety manager with Hoffman Construction Co. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University, and a B.E. in Civil Engineering from Anna University in India. Rajendran is a professional member of ASSE's Puget Sound Chapter. Brian Clarke, CSP, is managing partner of G.E.W. LLC Safety Solutions. Prior to this, he was corporate safety director for Hoffman Construction Co. and a senior loss control representative for Conti

mette Chapter, Clarke served on ASSE's Board of Directors from 1999 to 2003. Clarke holds a B.S. in Occupational Safety and Health from Central Washington University. Richard Andrews, P.E., is a senior construction consultant for Zurich Risk Engineering. He works vvnth risk managers to identify and implement insurance solutions and best field practices to reduce risk. Andrews has more than 38 years' experience in the construction industry. He is a professional member of ASSE's Puget Sound Chapter.

www.asse.org

NOVEMBER 2012

ProfessionalSafety 3 7

3 8 PrafessionalSafety

•sound, vibration, odor, vapor transmission and code compliance deficiencies (Zurich Corp., 2010). Approximately 75% of the claims involve water in some way (Zurich Corp., 2010). The causes of consfrucfion defecf claims are weü known, and their persistence confinues to frusfrate insurance carriers and confractors. According to one study, 54% of these claims are due to faulty workmanship or installafion (Zurich Corp., 2011). Based on the authors' experience, other reasons for the recent increase in construcfion defect claims are varied. •In the residential sector, developers are operating under limited liability companies that are dissolved upon project complefion, leaving no entity to respond to warranty and construction defect claims. •Homeowner associations are reacting as a group through lawyers rather than caüing for and requesfing repairs from the original contractors. •Contractors are not