A Review of the Application of Building Information Modeling (BIM) in Mitigating Building Construction Accidents in Kenya

Abstract

Around the world, collaborators in the construction industry have endeavoured to mitigate accidents by imposing numerous safety precautionary measures such as safety warning signs, fire drills and employment of personal protective equipment, for instance, hard hats, safety boots and safety harnesses. Concurrently to the existing precautionary safety measures, information visualization techniques such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) have been delved into to advance the current safety management practices. However, the level of BIM uptake in developing countries such as Kenya is low even though the innovation possesses the ability to shape the construction industry to become a substantially more aggressive, secure, and high-yielding industry. This can be partly attributed to the limited nature of research on the capability of BIM in construction safety management. If firms and professionals in the construction industry are unaware of the advantages of transitioning to the new norms, they are less disposed to embrace the transformation. Hence, the need to examine the fundamental areas of BIM application in mitigating building construction accidents. Accordingly, this study recommends that, awareness of BIM through workshops and conferences should be created as well as BIM training incorporated in the curriculum of tertiary institutions.