Standard enhances golden thread and risk management

Traditionally, health and safety risk registers have sat in silos according to discipline or life-cycle stage of a construction project, disconnected from the digital information held for the completed asset. This poses numerous challenges for the various stakeholders, not just during construction itself but also throughout the asset's life.

For example, there may be health and safety risks associated with the construction of an asset that affect its operation and maintenance. During concrete pouring, say, there may have been insufficient curing or mix time.

This could lead to cracks appearing sooner than anticipated, increasing the frequency of necessary maintenance required by the operations and maintenance team.

Traditional paper record-keeping means this information is not reliably available for the operator to consult in a machine-readable format, requiring them to comb thousands of hard-copy files to find it.

This is where ISO 19650-6 Organization and digitization of information about buildings and civil engineering works, including building information modelling (BIM) — Information management using building information modelling, published earlier this year, comes in.

The new standard is part of the ISO 19650 suite, the core purpose of which is to provide all stakeholders with structured, accurate and consistent digital information on an asset, reducing waste and the need for rework.

A key benefit of this approach is to get the right information to the right stakeholder at the right time, enabling better decision making. 

For example, it allows teams from design and construction to identify, track and communicate residual risks to the operations and maintenance team that they need be aware of for their risk assessments during the use of the asset.

The standard sets out a process for managing the golden thread of information that clients, principal contractors, principal designers and accountable persons must maintain for all buildings but in particular higher-risk buildings, as required by the Building Safety Act 2022.

It also provides requirements and recommendations on establishing collaborative and agile ways of working with multiple stakeholders throughout the asset life cycle.

From a commercial and contractual perspective, ISO 19650-6 offers a structured approach to allocating responsibility for health and safety risks.

This clarifies the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of every stakeholder on the project – namely the appointing party, the lead and other appointed parties, as well as third parties – especially during tendering and procurement of contracts as well as the transition between life-cycle stages. It thus provides a holistic and efficient way of tracking risks.

ISO 19650-6 aims to foster collaboration between these stakeholders, empowering decision-makers to mitigate if not eliminate health and safety hazards during design, construction and operational stages, by providing a standardised framework for identifying, recording and sharing the risks.

1. adopting a common method for structuring health and safety information
2. recording the different types of health and safety risk using this schema
3. contextualising the risk by linking to  models, spreadsheets and text documents
4. taking action to eliminate, reduce, isolate or mitigate design and construction risks
5. sharing risk information through a common data environment (CDE), allowing risks to be visualised and contextualised.

A common method can be adopted by ensuring early engagement between all interested parties to define and implement a data schema for health and safety risks.

Next comes the standardisation of risk registers, and the recording of sufficient information to make the underlying data accessible and useable for subsequent decision-making.

Integration with information management processes is key to ensure that health and safety risks are linked with 3D models at design, construction and handover to support asset operation.

It also means the mitigation methods for risks such as working at height or electrocution are fully recorded and communicated to key stakeholders throughout the asset life cycle.

Last, the standardisation and consistent management of this information will streamline the production of the risk register during the handover stages of the project, in a format that is accessible and all relevant stakeholders can use, ideally shared through a CDE.

Taking an integrated approach to managing health and safety risk registers is essential to maintaining the golden thread through the asset's whole life cycle, creating opportunities to add value.

For example, the integration of the risk register with the construction schedule enables health and safety digital rehearsals – that is, simulations in a digital environment – before a major construction activity, increasing the certainty that work on the project will be safer from the outset.

During construction, integration with contextual and reality-capture data such as LiDAR or orthophotos – aerial or satellite images that are geometrically corrected – allows construction risks on site to be identified and eliminated early, enabling the programme to progress in a timely way.

At handover, there is then a standardised approach to registering potential risks, informed by the data.

This creates significant efficiencies and savings in the production of the health and safety file, as well as making the information easily accessible and useable for those operating the asset.

This results in timely mitigation or even elimination of health and safety hazards during design, construction and operations.

The standard encourages systematic thinking by integrating information modelling, which can support health and safety decision-making.

Incorporating the information management process set out in the ISO 19650 series for contracts can therefore foster consensus and adoption, which in turn informs better decision-making by project managers, reducing risks to safety and operation and eventually meaning projects are right and safe the first-time round.