The Development of a Knowledge–Based Safety Advisor for the Demolition Industry and its User Interface

A prototype knowledge based safety advisor system has been built. Known as SADI (Safety Advisor for the Demolition Industry), the system gives advice to those involved in the management, planning, execution and control of demolition work. The knowledge underlying what is safe and what is unsafe is contained in legislative documents, and in the expertise of the engineers, planners and inspectors who carry out or monitor the demolition. In order to support the advice given to the user, the system must explain its reasoning when dealing with advice involving human expertise, and must show the user the relevant text when advice has come from legislative documents. The system includes extensive supporting facilities to provide help and explanations (often in the form of pictures and diagrams), and also provides links between the advisory system and a hypertext system to allow the viewing of the collection of documentation concerning demolition work. SADI creates an Advice Notes document, to which the user refers when writing the Method Statement for the contract, or when planning for Health and Safety Engineering Control. The market for SADI is large. There are approximately 200 medium to large registered demolition contractors in the UK. In Europe there are over 2000, and throughout the USA a similar number. The annual turnover of these companies is over 250 million pounds in the UK, and over 3000 million pounds in each of Europe and the USA. The possible savings in accident costs to the industry are also large. The Health and Safety Executive (who are advisors to this project) estimate that, on typical demolition sites, accidents are expected to cost over 8.5% of the tender price.