Exploring the Role of BIM in Construction Safety in Developing Countries: Toward Automated Hazard Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper contribution is high, the framework is well designed and the processes are described in detail.

Remark: The references are quite old, please add more references from the last five years.

Author Response

Thank you very much for pointing out this. The authors have tried to add more latest references in the article.

Reviewer 2 Report

The first BIM framework is published in the early 2000s, and since then, there have been hundreds of researchers working on different aspects of it.  The paper is well designed, but the base of the paper, creating a new framework for developing countries, is weak. The main problem with developing countries, as proven in many articles, they don't have a system in place. As depicted in Figure 6, you developed a framework that can not be applied to a company that does not have a system. Many developing countries do not even know what OSHA stands for, and creating a system that refers to a well-established agency like OSHA undermines the whole process.  The problem with BIM implementation in developing countries is not about the lack of a new framework. Regarding safety, the framework suggested here in Figure 6 again, which requires data collection culture and database usage fails in developing countries.  Again, it is a well-organized article, unfortunately very limited contribution. 

Author Response

Thank you for pointing out this aspect. We have tried to develop a system for organizations willing to undertake BIM in their construction practices. This holistic framework will aid the organizations in step by step approach towards applying and adopting BIM in their organizations and using it for safety management. However, what you point out is the bottleneck of our proposed system and we declare this as the limitation of this research in the conclusion section.

Reviewer 3 Report

The first impression when analyzing the abstract was that the article is another review of the literature on the implementation of BIM in developing countries.

But I was pleasantly surprised. The article is a solid study that addresses the prospects for using BIM to improve safety in construction.

The article is well written, qualitatively designed, the structure meets the classical requirements.

This article contains new aspects, but the authors must underline the major findings of their work, and explain how this study represents a progress comparatively with other papers. Please clearly explain the novelty. 

The manuscript is easy to understand by scientists form other area.

The key words permit found article in the current registers or indexes.

The review of the literature is sufficient to formulate the problem, the literature is mostly up-to-date.

The methods that the authors used in the study are chosen correctly and adequately to the tasks.

Figures and tables are of high quality and well presented, except fig. 6. I invite the Authors to describe in more detail the process shown in the figure.

Another recommendation would be to describe in more detail the practical implications and applicability of the study results, as well as the direction of future research.

 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for highlighting several important points. We have tried to more clearly explain the findings and novelty of this study [Line 633-637, 732-735, 763-765].

Further, we appreciate for critically pointing out the improvements in the paper.  We have tried to improve the content of this paper [Line 687-690, 712-715] The practical implications of this study are also explained in the paper [Line 762-771].