Page 128 - Forensic Structural Engineering Handbook

CONSTRUCTION SAFETY CODES, STANDARDS, AND REGULATIONS 3.13

• Provide inserts for railings instead of field drilling.
• Locate column splices at standing heights from floors.
• Design for construction loads.
• Check for slenderness of columns during construction.

OSHA PROCEDURES AND PRACTICES

Construction Inspections

Construction sites are inspected by OSHA under the broad categories of programmed and
unprogrammed inspections. The programmed inspections are based on randomly selected
construction sites, while the unprogrammed inspections result from reported incidents at
the construction sites, complaints received by OSHA from employees, referrals made to
OSHA, cases of imminent danger, etc.
Federal OSHA believes that the prime time to inspect a construction site occurs when it
is between 30 and 60 percent complete. This is the stage at which the construction is most
intense and the maximum number of employees and contractors are at the site. Federal
OSHA targets the construction sites under the programmed inspections by a targeting sys-
tem operated by the University of Tennessee’s Construction Resource Analysis (CRA)
Group using the information generated by F.W. Dodge Inc. in regard to all types of con-
struction projects over $50,000, including new construction, additions, and alterations.
Sites are selected from a broad range of construction projects—commercial, residential
(excluding single-family homes), manufacturing, transportation, industrial, leisure, and
public buildings including heavy construction such as nuclear power plants and cogenera-
tion. The CRA then randomly selects on a statistical basis sites which are between 30 and
60 percent completed, and the CRA provides the names to the OSHA area offices for
inspection. The selection by CRA is done blindly, that is, without knowing the names of
project owners or the names of the contractors.
For states under federal jurisdiction, approximately 23,000 construction inspections
were made in fiscal year 2008. These federal inspections resulted in 40,000 violations of
OSHA standards. The total penalty imposed upon the employers was approximately
$44 million. Of the total violations, 83 percent were classified as serious, 4 percent as repeat,
0.5 percent as willful, and the rest as other than serious. State OSHA agencies conducted
approximately 26,000 construction inspections. The combined construction inspections
(federal and state OSHA) in the fiscal year 2008 totaled approximately 49,000. The nature
and type of construction inspections are as follows:

Safety inspections 46,000
Health inspections 3,000
Total inspections in construction in FY 2008 49,000
Unprogrammed inspections 14,000
Programmed inspections 35,000

OSHA inspections consist of the following three stages:

1. Opening conference with the employer
2. Site inspection including interviews with employees and employers
3. Closing conference with the employer