A LEAN APPROACH TO H&S MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS FOR MICRO AND SMALL CONSTRUCTION FIRMS

A site accident legally punished as manslaughter or unintentional injury committed in breach of regulations can involve the firm elimination from the market. Nowadays, in Italy, a construction company which adopts a management system takes the benefit to discharge itself from that administrative liability by applying laws issued on this topic (Laws 231/2001 and 81/2008). Nevertheless, the application of Health and Safety Management Systems (H&S-MS) is not common for micro and small (M/S) firms, because of its time and cost of implementation related to the company dimension: typically 3-4 workers. Furthermore H&S-MS adopted by M/S construction firms are often ???home made??? and poor. The ongoing presented research aims to study and develop a M/S firm tailored system consistent with OHSAS 18001 and UNI INAIL Italian guide lines. The paper deals with the road map adopted to develop a specific standardized model in order to create a customized management system suitable for each firm. The research has involved some M/S firms, whose H&S organization was investigated in order to point out its weakness and, thus, to work out a simplified management system able to overcome their technical and professional suitability assessment carried out by general contractor and/or direct clients during the tendering phase. From these investigations a set of requirements and simplified procedures has been defined in order to help M/S subcontractor to develop a standard and flexible H&S-MS to be implemented into its proper organization. The outcome, in some cases, has leaded General Contractors to swap firms without/with a H&S-MS.