Digital tools for prevention through design application: A systematic review.

Area of Science:

• Construction Safety
• Digital Innovation in Engineering
• Risk Management

Background:

• Prevention through Design (PtD) is a crucial safety initiative for eliminating construction risks during the design phase.
• Digital tools offer an innovative approach to automate risk identification, reducing reliance on designer experience.
• A significant gap exists in the availability of established digital safety tools for industry professionals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review existing research on digital tools for PtD.
• To identify current processes and limitations in the development and application of these tools.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature review following PRISMA guidelines.
• Scopus database search yielding 148 initial publications.
• Final selection of 13 publications for in-depth analysis.

Main Results:

• A limited number of digital safety tools for PtD have been developed and published.
• Analysis detailed the functionality of studied digital tools.
• Key limitations preventing widespread designer adoption were identified.

Conclusions:

• Despite 53.84% of methods being automatic, significant barriers persist.
• Inability to incorporate scheduling and incomplete databases challenge tool validity.
• Prevention through Design (PtD) remains an area with a notable research gap for future safety advancements.