Salāmat-i kār-i Īrān (May 2020)
Identification and Ranking of Factors Affecting HSE Performance by Fuzzy Dimensional Combined Approach and Interpretive Structural Modeling
Abstract
Background: Field and Objective: In today’s world, there are different building performance assessment standards, which mostly adopt an environmental approach to buildings. Standards are the common language of countries and the world. By providing a common language, a standard can guarantee health and safety for the entire consumers, products, and services. The global village determines a wide range of rights and responsibilities for citizens, including the areas of safety, health, environment, and saving energy. In the building industry, different performance assessment methods are practiced in the world to promote the culture of a healthy life, including the ranking systems BEAM, LEED, and BREEAM. Assessment of building performance is a complex issue because it has to meet several criteria and it is necessary to establish consistency and consistency between these criteria. These include energy consumption, acoustic performance, thermal comfort, indoor air quality and many other issues. Building performance is a critical aspect of organizational activity that is influenced by building maintenance policies and practices. Today, the measurement of building HSE performance assessment criteria is becoming an essential exercise due to legal processes and rules and individuals’ increased knowledge of the safety, health, environment, energy consumption, welfare, and elegance of buildings. Building performance assessment criteria may be employed to assess the effects of different management activities in this area, consequently providing a good mechanism to supervise the building’s performance to move toward HSE. One of the most important issues in the performance appraisal process is the impact of evaluatorschr('39') personal judgment on performance appraisal results. Research by some researchers has addressed the impact of appraisal judgments on the appraisal process and has identified this as one of the most important challenges of performance appraisal processes. The use of multi-criteria decision making models can be very effective in this regard. One of the best practices that can be addressed in this regard is DEMATEL, in which it considers the intrinsic relationships between factors affecting performance indicators. Structural models can be used to determine relationships between evaluation criteria. Interpretive structural modeling approach has been used to increase data analytics capability and reduce system complexity. ISM is an interactive learning process introduced by Warfield in 1973. Interpretive structural models are able to determine the relationship between indices that are interdependent individually or in groups, and to analyze the relationship between indices by analyzing criteria at several different levels. This study aims to identify and rank factors impacting buildings’ HSE performance via the Fuzzy DEMATEL Approach and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISL). Methodology: This study is applicable in terms of objectives and descriptive-casual in terms of methodology. Using available resources and eight experts’ views, 24 factors were identified in four areas: 1) structure, 2) architecture, 3) mechanical, and 4) electrical. Then, they were scored by the experts on the 9-point Likert scale. Those with a mean score above 5 were selected. The experts’ selection criteria were classified into four groups. Then, their relationships and ranks were determined by using DEMATEL and ISM methods. Moreover, the relationships’ strengths and the criteria’s effectiveness and susceptibility were explored via the Fuzzy DEMATEL technique. The ISM and FDEMATEL results were used for two purposes: first, to confirm and verify the results of both methods and second, to improve the obtained results. In this study, the prioritization derived from the FDEMATEL method confirmed and improved the ISM prioritization. By combining the two methods, a conceptual model of building HSE performance assessment can be defined. The reason for using both interpretive structural modeling and DEMATEL is that the interpretive structural modeling method only determines the level of impact of the overlapping factors. And it helps to identify the internal relationships between the factors. In other words, interpretive structural modeling is a good technique for analyzing the influence of one factor on other factors and can help to prioritize and determine the level of factors in a system. Whereas, the DEMATEL method has the ability to quantify the intensity of the interactions among the factors and to show how effective the factors are with each other. Penetration-Dependency Analysis (MICMAC) Impact-dependency power analysis is used to analyze the driving forces and the dependent forces of the variables. The sum of the values in the final access matrix for each element indicates the extent of penetration and the column sum will indicate the degree of dependence. Due to their dependence on conductor factors, they are considered followers. Based on the power of influence and dependency, four groups of identifiable elements will be: 1- Autonomous Attributes: Factors that have weak influence and dependence. 2- Dependent Attributes: Factors that have low penetration power but are highly dependent. 3- Linkage Attributes: Factors that have high influence and dependence. 4- Driver Attributes: Factors that have strong influence but weak dependence. Findings: The FDEMATEL findings suggested that the structure’s safety, electrical safety, and saving energy in the mechanical area were the most effective factors, respectively, while architectural environment protection, saving architectural energy, and architectural elegance were the least important impacting factors. At the same time, ISM findings indicated that mechanical elegance and electrical welfare in the dependent group were factors with low influence but high dependence, while mechanical environment protection, saving electrical energy, and mechanical health in the independent group were factors with a strong influence but weak dependence. Based on the power of influence and dependency, four groups of identifiable elements will be: 1-Structural health factors, environmental protection of structures, energy conservation of structures, architectural health, electrical health, electrical environment and electrical beauty in the autonomous group: factors that have weak influence and dependence. 2- Mechanical aesthetic factors and electrical welfare in the dependent group: factors that have low penetration power but are highly dependent. 3- Structural safety factors, structural well-being, structural beauty, architectural safety, architectural environmental protection, architectural energy saving, architectural well-being, architectural beauty, mechanical safety, mechanical energy saving, mechanical well-being and electrical safety in Interconnected Group: Factors that have high influence and dependence. 4- Environmental protection, electrical energy saving, and mechanical health factors in the independent group: Factors that have strong penetration power but poor dependency. Conclusion: There are different performance assessment standards in the building industries of countries in the world to improve health, including the BEAM, LEED, and BREEAM ranking systems. These standards are mostly concerned with environmental problems and energy consumption and none of them consider building performance assessment with safety, health, environment protection, saving energy, and elegance. Performance criteria ranking with the consideration of conditions governing the studied area enables material producers and suppliers in the building industry construct buildings according to the views on the area to enhance comfort feeling in them. Furthermore, the consideration of safety and health criteria in the material provision, construction, and use processes of buildings may increase the health and safety levels of the construction industry, which is referred to as one of the most dangerous industries. The combination of the HSE criteria with energy, comfort, and elegance is one of the most important practices in the performance assessment of the building industry, which was considered in this study. The determination of their relationships, as well as the effectiveness and susceptibility of each criterion and its sub criteria, can be very essential in building performance control and management, which was considered by this study.
