Stakeholder-Based Risk Priority Assessment of Construction Accident Causes: A Comparative FMEA, RPN and t-Test Analysis

Abstract

This study presents a quantitative, stakeholder-based assessment of construction accident risks using Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Risk Priority Number (RPN), risk-rating comparison and t-test significance analysis. Primary survey data were obtained from 1,250 respondents equally distributed among five construction stakeholder groups—architects, design engineers, site engineers, site supervisors and construction workers (250 in each group) in Tamil Nadu, India. Twenty-three accident causes were classified into five cause domains—ergonomic, planning, physical, person and management—and assessed against eight accident categories: Falling from Height; Slips, Trips and Falls; Struck by Objects; Electrocution; Caught in Between; Faulty Tools; Collapses/Cave-ins; and Fire / Explosions. The overall mean risk-rating results identify Slips, Trips and fall (14.77) and Struck by Objects (14.23) as the two highest risks, followed by Falling from Height (13.00) and Caught in Between (12.17). Cause-wise t-tests reveal substantial stakeholder differences, with the largest reported values occurring for Fatigue–Caught in Between (t = 79.000), Material Quality–Collapses/Cave-ins (t = 24.000), Monotony–Falling from Height (t = 21.000), Vibration–Caught in Between (t = 19.000), Carelessness–Caught in Between (t = 18.779), Negligence–Electrocution (t = 18.779), and Work Assignments–Struck by Objects (t = 17.963). At the cause-category level, all five domains show statistically significant differences across the reported risks at α = .05. The findings demonstrate that construction safety is simultaneously technical, behavioural, environmental and managerial, and that multi-stakeholder risk assessment can reveal risk priorities that may be obscured by single-group evaluation.