A Research Framework of Mitigating Construction Accidents in High-Rise Building Projects via Integrating Building Information Modeling with Emerging Digital Technologies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In general, the paper addresses a relevant topic, but I found the first part of the paper (introduction and literature review) better written and stout than the methodology, results and discussion, and this let miss the relevance at the end of the reading. The approach of evidencing three point of view: positive, negative and neutral, is really sorprendent, because it is really that not only BIM and innovative technologies can be fully helpful to optimize the process, but also the design solutions selected, and this research point it out with grounded theory.

For this, I suggest to provide a deep explaination of the methodology "3.1. Ground Theory Approach": ground theory approach, qualitative data analysis, coding and why this approach is useful and appropriate for your study. Few lines are not sufficient to have a replicable scientific approach (even if the three references - 87-88-89 - are good but not well used to support in the description of the research mehod). I suggest to improve this, maybe can be useful the following papers about the use of Grounded Theory Approach used for BIM exploration (even if they are not all applicable for safety management):

1) Munir M, Kiviniemi A, Jones SW, Finnegan S (2019). BIM business value generation theory: a grounded theory approach, ITcon Vol. 24, pg. 406-423, https://www.itcon.org/2019/21

2) Deng Y, Li J, Wu Q, Pei S, Xu N, Ni G. Using Network Theory to Explore BIM Application Barriers for BIM Sustainable Development in China. Sustainability. 2020; 12(8):3190. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12083190

3) Olugboyega, O., & Windapo, A. (2019). Building Information Modeling — Enabled Construction Safety Culture and Maturity Model : A Grounded Theory Approach. 5(April), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbuil.2019.00035

Interview Questions Design should comprehend the list of questions that authors created for the interview.

3.6. Data Analysis Tool, the same, it is required a deep explaination. the coding scheme is "such as open coding" or it is open coding? Please, verify if you use also axial coding and selecting coding because I see relationships among concepts in the framework. For this, I suggest to be clear in the research method.

 

4.4. BIM integration with simulation: authors say "For instance, Bluetooth low Energy (BLE) devices integrated with BIM can reduce the im- 342
pact of accidents in high-rise buildings", ok but how BLE integrates BIM and simulations, and why it can reduce accidents? This is not answered and a major level of detail about this sentence is really useful for underlying mitigative measures as authors want to do. 

4.5. BIM integration with photogrammetry, I do not understand how do you integrate here photogrammetry/drones with BIM. Maybe is more a compresence of a BIM model and drones

Overall, I suggest to improve the results section. Maybe the framework can be more useful to support results. I find the results difficult to follow and understand (a structuration is missing).

4.7. BIM integration with virtual environment: I suggest to delete the fact that AR and VR are two components of the artificial intelligence. They are "a
way to replace the perception of the surrounding world with a
computer-generated artificial three-dimensional (3D) environment.",as said in 101, and everywhere. AI is another concept.

4.8. BIM integration with Laser scanning approach: why you write here about QR and sensors when the paragraph is about Laser scanning? Laser scanning is a digital survey technique, QR codes are targets that can work as IoTs. I suggest to split the two concepts, because they are really different. Photogrammetry and laser scanning work more similarly, being reality data capture. 

 

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Editing/ Typos revisions required

Table 1. Overview of related works. - Ratajczak: Data exchange between Unity (?) environment and BIM technology

• please delete commas where they are not required
• 180: to identification (maybe to identify)
• 2.2. The Rationale and Research Gaps: maybe it is better a classification in a table rather than repetition of safety factors, it is not helpful to understand what the authors want to say.
• 5 partecipants to the pilot case for preliminary feedback, but authors described only 4 (271)

Figures with high resolution required (i.e. Fig. 3 - the framework)

Revise the number of figures progression and their reference within the text

I suggest to review the citation style and let the reference be hyperlink with the bibliography at the end of the paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Attached is a file with a detailed response to your comments on this article.
Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The research presented in the paper “aims to mitigate the accidental safety factors in high-rise building projects via integrating BIM with emerging digital technologies in construction industry such as photogrammetry, GPS, RFID, augmented reality, (AR), virtual reality (VR) and drone technology.”. However, this objective is not clearly explored in the research. The results of the work, contain the analysis of the data collected from semi-structured interviews and it is not clear how these results can mitigate the accidental safety factors in high-rise building.

The introduction and the literature review stress the gap in the existing research about this topic, i.e. the mitigation of the risk, but the proposed research does not provide any support in this direction.

In the methodology section, the flowchart of figure 1 mix different components in the same list. W.g. in the phase 3 the words “coding, open coding, word cloud analysis, Nvivo 11 software package”, are all listed in the same place mixing tools, methods, etc. hindering the readability of the graph.

Some minor English errors have been detected in the text, e.g. line 52 “a projects”, line 288 “interview could utilized”, etc.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Attached is a file with a detailed response to your comments on this article.
Best regards,

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the punctual answer to each suggestion and efforts to improve the paper.