The confluence of Industry 4.0 and construction occupational safety, health and well-being

Globally, the construction sector accounts for more than100,000 occupational fatalities annually. There is an urgent need to improve the poor occupational safety, health and well-being (OSHW) outlook of the construction sector. The advent of the fourth industry revolution (i.e., Industry 4.0) presents opportunities to leverage modern technologies to improve the poor OSHW performance of the construction industry. Embracing such technologies could, however, also induce unintended adverse OSHW consequences for construction workers. While there are pieces of literature that look at the application of specific Industry 4.0 technologies to address construction OSHW issues, there is no comprehensive compendium of text that looks at the confluence of construction OSHW and the holistic coverage of the broad range of Industry 4.0 technologies. Seeking to address this gap, this handbook, which is the first of its kind, focuses on the confluence of Industry 4.0 and construction OSHW. This introductory chapter highlights the poor status of OSHW in the construction sector. The chapter presents an overview of the potentials of Industry 4.0 technologies in addressing OSHW issues as well as their associated challenges. The chapter then closes with a summary of the chapters in the book.