Ali A. KarakhanUniversity of Baghdad · Department of Civil Eng.
Ali A. Karakhan
Doctor of Philosophy
About
53
Publications
59,473
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Introduction
Ali A. Karakhan has a PhD in Civil Engineering that he obtained from Oregon State University in 2020. Dr. Karakhan conducts research in the field of Construction Engineering and management focusing on issues related to safety and risk management, workforce development, technology adoption and integration, and sustainability development. Dr. Karakhan is a member of the CI Construction Safety Committee within the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Additional affiliations
March 2020 - June 2020
April 2012 - September 2013
Education
September 2014 - March 2020
Publications
Publications (53)
The work environment in construction is physically and mentally demanding. This demanding environment can place adverse risk on the construction workforce including emotional, physical, and financial challenges. To minimize such challenges, continued development and cultivation of the construction workforce is required. Continued development and cu...
W-SAT is a practical tool to assess the level of workforce sustainability in a particular construction company or an organization. The assessment reveals the level of sustainability of the workforce with respect to eight foundational attributes (nurturing, diversity, equity, health & wellbeing, connectivity, value, community, and maturity).
Structural prejudices and unconscious biases within the construction industry have negatively impacted the construction workforce. Workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion are major concerns in the construction industry. The goal of the present study is to enable the assessment of workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion in the construction ind...
The COVID-19 outbreak has significantly impacted the construction industry. The pandemic can exacerbate an already dire safety and health situation in the industry and negatively impact construction employees and employers. The present study investigates the safety and health measures implemented by construction firms in the United States (US), the...
Researchers believe that improving technology adoption and application in the construction industry, especially for occupational safety and health (OSH) management, would improve workplace conditions, and lead to improved performance outcomes and fewer injuries. This
article explores ways to utilize emerging technology for OSH management in the co...
Ensuring the safety of construction sites is a pivotal aspect in the field of construction engineering and management. Frontline supervisors, acting as a central link between upper management, safety personnel, and field workers, play a vital role in this regard. Despite their significance, their role remains largely unexplored and underinvestigate...
The construction industry is essential for the economic prosperity of any nation. However, the construction workforce encounters numerous challenges stemming from various factors, including the dynamic and cyclical nature of construction operations. These challenges have led to undesired outcomes such as shortage of skilled employees and increased...
Construction Hazard Prevention through Design (CHPtD) is widely recognized as a key approach for preventing injuries in construction workplaces. It prioritizes the safety of construction workers by explicitly tackling potential hazards during the design development phase. This involves proactively incorporating design features aimed at minimizing t...
The aim of this research is to enhance Oil and Gas (O&G) construction risk assessment using Fuzzy-based Failure Model Effect Analysis (FMEA) through the lens of O&G project managers in the U.S. A mixed-method approach was adopted for data collection, analysis, and processing, including semi-structured interviews with project managers to identify th...
Green practices and lean construction are perceived by owners as effective methods to achieve high sustainability standards and efficient production workflow. However, the integration of lean with sustainable construction has not yet received adequate attention. Green technologies and sustainable construction practices are relatively new applicatio...
The objective of this research work is to evaluate the quality of central concrete plant of Al-Rasheed Company by using Six Sigma approach which is a measure of quality that strives for near elimination of defects using the statistical methods to improve outputs that are critical to customers. The fundamental objective of Six Sigma methodology is t...
![Desired qualifications for safety personnel (Data from [19]).](publication/370646384/figure/tbl1/AS:11431281157226811@1683733844917/Desired-qualifications-for-safety-personnel-Data-from-19_Q320.jpg)
Construction is a hazardous industry with a high number of injuries. Prior research found that many industry injuries can be prevented by implementing an effective safety plan if prepared and maintained by qualified safety personnel. However, there are no specific guidelines on how to select qualified construction safety personnel and what criteria...
Construction is among the most hazardous industries, with an annual fatality rate of over 1000 workers in the United States. Researchers and practitioners have proclaimed that implementing effective safety management plans can prevent most construction accidents. Safety personnel, who oversee the design, implementation, and enhancement of safety ma...
Due to the dynamic and recurring nature of the construction operations, employee turnover rates remain relatively high. This high employee turnover rate presents challenges to the industry, the economy, and the entire society at whole. As well, this high turnover rate leads to significant shortage of skilled laborers given the reduced interests of...
Introduction:
The concept of addressing and minimizing construction site safety risks in the early phase of a project has generated research interest, especially since the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) launched its national Prevention through Design (PtD) initiative in July 2007. In the last decade, several studies...
Construction is one of the most hazardous and stressful occupations throughout the world. The dynamic, complex, and high-risk nature of construction operations place significant burden on the construction workforce. This significant burden of construction operations can compromise the health and wellbeing of the construction workforce. The objectiv...
Worker health and safety remains to be of high concern throughout the construction industry. Multiple innovative methods and practices have been developed in order to enhance worker health and safety in the construction industry. Green construction is one of the innovations that is expected to enhance worker health and safety. The aim of this resea...
Implementing a safety program is an essential step toward improving safety performance. The research aims to develop OPS model for building projects through investigating the direct and indirect impact of safety critical success factors on OPS mediated by safety program elements. To achieving the research aims, First, Interviews were carried out wi...
Incident investigations aim to provide meaningful information that can assist in the prevention of future reoccurrence es and aid policymakers in identifying inadequate safety standards and systems. There are few, if any, studies that have assessed the public investigation effort and its contribution to improving overall site safety in the United S...
This article discusses the concept of sustainability in construction and presents a comprehensive and inclusive framework that addresses not only the environmental and economic aspects of sustainability, but also the concept of social equity in sustainable construction.
Safety risk perception is an important determinant of risk-taking behavior in construction. The amount of risk-taking an individual chooses to take with respect to safety influences the overall safety outcome of an activity. Risk perception can be influenced by a shared culture, where previous studies contend that individuals working for the same c...
The construction industry is known for its conservative approach toward adopting new, emerging technologies. This conservative approach for adopting technology is caused by multiple factors including the lack of adequate resources to guide construction practitioners in the process of evaluating whether a construction firm should adopt a certain tec...
The adoption and implementation of innovative solutions is an effective means to improve construction safety performance. The use of technology as a preventive tool for stemming the observed disproportionate rate of worker injuries and fatalities in the construction industry as compared with other industrial sectors has gained substantial attention...
The need to enhance worker safety in construction has become topical in recent times
due to the high rates of fatalities and injuries in the construction industry. To abate this
scourge, different control methods including the use of technologies have been
adopted to improve workplace safety performance in construction. However, not all of
the tech...
A variety of technologies have been implemented in the construction industry at an increasing rate. With the ongoing development of assistive remote sensing and information technologies, as well as computer vision techniques, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have a great potential to influence construction performance positively in terms of safety,...
Minimal research has focused on the social dimension of sustainability in the built environment especially as it relates to the construction workforce. As a result, there are few to no tools available to industry stakeholders to holistically assess and improve the social sustainability of the construction workforce. Given the high employee turnover...
Despite the use of traditional and novel approaches to improve construction safety management, safety performance in the construction industry is still considered poor, especially when compared with other US industries. Poor safety performance is responsible in part, for an observed decrease in work quality and employee productivity and an increase...
Purpose
Existing literature suggests that construction worker safety could be optimized using emerging technologies. However, the application of safety technologies in the construction industry is limited. One reason for the constrained adoption of safety technologies is the lack of empirical information for mitigating the risk of a failed adoption...
Reducing damages to underground utilities is one of the primary goals of construction stakeholders. The societal and economic impacts of such damages are substantial. To minimize potential damages to underground utilities, one-call notification programs have been created to coordinate efforts that aim to locate utilities before excavating. One-call...
In the United States, construction firms that employ more than ten employees are required to annually post a summary of job-related injuries and illnesses utilizing a form called OSHA 300-A. This form potentially is a significant source of information for construction and safety managers who strive to reduce work-related injuries in their workplace...
The objective of this article was to summarize the applications of technology for safety management. This article is expected to help improve technology adoption and diffusion in the construction industry especially with respect to safety, and provides ideas for potential technology applications in safety management. Increased technology adoption i...
Relative to other sectors, the construction workforce has experienced high turnover rates
and poor safety performance over the last few decades. The industry has also struggled to retain existing workers and recruit new ones to construction careers. Using the Delphi method, the authors interviewed industry professionals and academics to identify th...
Safety performance in the construction industry has reached alarming levels and continues to be a primary source of concern to industry stakeholders. The construction industry is considered more hazardous than other major industries such as manufacturing. In the other industries, safety performance has been substantially improved and generally fall...
Prior studies indicate that safety performance is one of the major determinants of overall organizational success and project performance outcomes. Nevertheless, safety performance in the construction industry is still unsatisfactory and a major source of concern to construction stakeholders. In other industries where safety performance has improve...
Workplace hazards, when combined with demanding task, organizational factors, work environments, personal factors, and external factors can produce unacceptable safety risks to field personnel and may lead to severe workplace injuries. Workplace accidents are undesirable; they can cause physical and psychological harm to workers, their families, an...
Evaluating safety maturity of construction contractors before awarding the contract is an effective strategy that many owners have started to implement. Given the importance of workplace safety, awarding the contract to safer contractors can enhance project performance outcomes in terms of safety, quality, cost, and schedule. Safety maturity is one...
Highway construction has consistently reported relatively high fatality rates largely because of the considerable exposure of workers to live traffic. To address this anomaly, traffic control planners are tasked with making decisions geared toward reducing hazardous situations caused by transiting vehicles and construction equipment. The growing ap...
Previous studies on designing for construction worker safety were founded in part on theory, derived primarily from the time-safety influence curve introduced by Szymberski in 1997, that the ability to mitigate construction safety risks is greater during early stages of facility development, as opposed to after the start of construction operations....
Previous research indicates that designing for construction worker safety (DfCWS) is an effective method to reduce worker exposure to construction hazards. DfCWS requires that designers play a particular role, and pay specific attention, with respect to worker safety when making design decisions about the permanent features of a facility. The prima...
The figure describes the differences between a hazard and safety risk and illustrates the transformation process that the hazard undergoes when combined with other workplace conditions before emerging as acceptable or unacceptable workplace safety risk.
Sustainable building design and construction is gaining rapid growth within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry as a substantial opportunity to improve the efficiency of building projects by incorporating efficient and effective materials, technologies , and strategies into the building process. However, these approaches...
Design plays a vital role in the building process. As the demand for design creativity and innovation continues to grow, high-performance designs have received significant attention in the built environment. In the ideal world, high-performance designs address customer demands with regard to the physical performance of the design while ensuring tec...
Sustainability is a balanced approach that puts equal focus on the environment, economy, and society. Research suggests that worker health and safety is an integral dimension of social sustainability. The present research contributes to the body of knowledge by assessing, quantifying, and classifying occupational health and safety (OHS) risk associ...
The construction industry is one of the most dangerous industries in the United States. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five work-related fatalities in the U.S. occur in construction. Safety managers are frequently faced with a dilemma when making safety decisions and typically surrounded by overwhelming boundaries that aff...
Sustainable construction has received significant attention over the last two decades. Sustainability in building design and construction is typically measured by the level of the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system certification given to the building. The aim of this article is t...
Design professionals can be held liable for construction safety even if they do not show authority, demonstrate control or are not contractually obligated to address safety. Implementing prevention through design (PTD) on construction projects could help eliminate hazards associated with construction activities. Implementing PTD not only reduces co...
The aims of this study is to measure the defect rate in the production of ready concrete mixture plant using Six Sigma methodology, and then analyze the root causes of such deviation. Six Sigma approach is a business strategy for operations improvement depending basically on the application of its sub-methodology DMAIC improvement cycle and statist...
Questions
Questions (2)
Both methods have limitations and their findings cannot be generalized across the larger population. While a case study research provides objective data, the findings from the case studies cannot be applied to other projects. Similarly, a survey-based research helps the investigator(s) collect valuable data from practitioners and professionals. However, data collected from a survey cannot be generalized across the larger population unless the survey participants are randomly selected, which is challenging particularly in construction research. Moreover, data collected using surveys is oftentimes subjective representing perceptions and feelings of the survey participants, rather than observable and measurable facts. The figure below provides some insights about the relationship between case study-based and survey-based research.
If you have other insights, information, or figures about the relationship or differences between survey-based and case study-based research, please share them in the comments below.
Dear scholars,
I was asked to explain the primary differences between developing a model and a framework to assess a certain quality (e.g., workforce diversity or employee engagement). My understanding is that a framework provides a high-level understanding of factors needed to assess a certain quality; while, developing a model is a more in-depth process that not only includes factors affecting the quality of interest, but also involves identifying indicators/metrics to quantitatively assess the factors affecting the quality of interest. A model developed to assess a certain quality should be thorough and provide a quantifiable assessment of the variables of interest. Although some folks use the terms “model” and “framework” interchangeably, this does not make it right, and they are certainly different in their depth and breadth. It should be noted that frameworks are sometimes called conceptual models.
Please feel free to correct me or provide additional information to help clarify the confusion.
