• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2022.06a
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• pp.153-161
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• 2022

Among all industries, the construction industry still remains a traditional one with low productivity due to its labor-intensive and field-dependent production system, its supplier-oriented industrial structure, and the disruption of the information flow between participants. In addition, the construction industry in South Korea has recently been required to transform itself according to social trends such as aging, the reduction of skilled workers, and the shortening of working hours, and the disaster and death rates in the industry, which are more than twice as high as those in other industries, are making it more necessary to solve chronic safety problems. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to grasp the actual condition of safety management on construction sites in South Korea and analyze cases of K-smart technology utilization for preventing safety accidents on construction sites. The study investigated and analyzed the following. First, construction sites in South Korea were analyzed by type of safety accident, by type of construction, and by construction contract amount. Second, the current status of accidents on small-sized construction sites with a high fatal accident rate and cases of safety accidents on construction sites were investigated. The results of the study are expected to contribute to the dissemination and spread of smart safety technology for not only identifying major factors in safety accidents that occur on construction sites but also preventing workers from suffering accidents.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Structure & Construction
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2019

In the past, social insurance premiums, such as national pension and national health insurance, is contained within the costs of construction projects, have been lowered due to price competition of companies participating in the bidding. The government is implementing the "Ex-post settlement system" to improve the problem. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the concept of an Ex-post settlement system and background of its introduction and to identify problems in the management of the system. The problems of the Ex-post settlement system are: 1) avoiding the participation of construction workers, 2) the rigidity of the insurance premium settlement method in construction field, and 3) the cause of direct construction cost reduction. The ways to improve these problems are: 1) excluding social insurance premiums from construction project cost, 2) securing flexibility of the settlement method of insurance premiums in construction field, and 3) expanding the scope of persons eligible to participate in social insurance.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.83-93
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• 2010

Recently there has been a trend of hiring more foreign labors in the Korean construction sites after the introduction of the government policy for foreign workers since 2007, called Employment Permit System(EPS). With the trend in the sites, the skilled and unskilled foreign workers would have become a main resource in the construction site workforce. This study aims to analyzing the effectiveness and the reality of working status for the foreign workforce. In doing so, both mail questionnaire survey and face to face interview with site managers and foreign labors in 38 apartment construction sites around Seoul region have been performed. The results of survey has been compared to the former research, which has been done for foreign labors hired under the old government policy, called Industrial Trainee System. This study found that there still exist many problems in reality of utilizing foreign workers in the sites, and proposed various recommendations for the effective use of foreign labors in the Korean construction industry.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.555-561
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• 2015

The construction industry is a labor-oriented and quality, cost, and schedule performance is effected by technicians. However, the construction industry have faced a labor shortage problem. Therefore, technician graying and no new workers inflow cause labor shortage and decline of worker's skill level. The utilization of foreign technicians instead of domestic technicians has been increased in the construction industry. This paper performed questionnaire survey for 43 managers on 14 project fields to determine the current status and problems of construction technicians and to propose a improvement plan. As a result, most foreign technicians are carpenters and iron workers, but the skill levels are generally lower than domestics. The major problems for foreign technicians are communication and non-skilled. Then, labor productivity and accident rates of foreign technicians are higher than domestics. This paper proposes that skill training programs, language lessons, and multi-cultural programs are effective to improve foreign workers' problems.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.261-264
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• 2004

The study, by reviewing and analysing the system of occupational education and training, aims to provide some substantial informations for the activation of occupational education and training in the construction sector. The result shows that the current system doesn't substantially reflect the realities of employment structure in the sector, and thus, fails to respond to skilled-worker development. It is also observed that most of the occupational education and training institutions have difficulties in recruiting trainees due to daily construction workers' negative attitudes toward the current system. Therefore, it is necessary i) to improve occupational education and training system, ii) to tackle in-depth analysis of daily construction workers' reasons for the negative perceptions, and iii) to develop the responding alternatives.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.429-440
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• 2023

This research investigates the deployment of waterproofing technologies in construction, with a specific focus on augmenting worker safety, work environment, and solve the difficulty of securing skilled workers. Implementing liquid waterproofing cement equipment resulted in a remarkable increase in adhesion performance by around 20%, coupled with a twofold acceleration in operational speed. The application of primer spraying apparatus led to a two-fold improvement in both penetration and adhesion performance, concurrently boosting the work speed by approximately the same factor. With urethane spraying equipment, the workload could be reduced to a third for the same layer thickness, adhesion performance enhanced by approximately 1.4 times, and workability improved by about 1.4 to 1.5 times. These findings suggest that such technological interventions can potentially enhance work efficiency, improve the quality of output, and mitigate safety accidents that are commonplace in manual operations. Furthermore, these advancements present promising solutions to the ongoing challenges of sourcing highly-competent workers in the industry.

• Journal of the Korean Wood Science and Technology
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.607-616
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• 2019

On account of the lack of education of Brazilian worker, this paper analyzed the characteristics of those professionals working in the production sector of timber houses. A sectoral survey was carried out with respective entrepreneurs to investigate the available professionals (career and contract types), evaluate the demands of skilled workers, and indicate solutions to improve the quality of labor qualification. Similarly, over 65% of sampled producers presented both direct-hired and outsourced workforce. For such contract ways, Civil Engineers and Architects were the main careers. Carpenters, Civil Engineers and Architects experienced on timber were the main sectoral demands. Timber Engineers have good potentials of service for this sector. The creation of courses on timber products can emerge as a key alternative to train people.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.24-34
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• 2013

Since 2004, the government decided to gradually introduce Actual Cost Data into cost estimate for improving problems of below-cost tendering and to reflect fair market price through competition and carry contract efficiently. However, there are many concerns that Actual Cost Data has not reflected real market price, even that has contributed to reduce the government's budget. General construction firm's burden for labor cost is imputed to specialty contractors and eventually it becomes construction worker's burden. Therefore, realization of Actual Cost Data is very important factor to settle this system. To understand realization level and make short term forecast, this paper drew construction group of which labor cost constitutes more than 95% of direct cost, and compares their Actual Cost Data with relevant skilled workers's unit wage and predicts using time series analysis. The bid price which is not be reflected market price accelerates work environment changes and leads to directly affect such as late disbursement of wages, bankruptcy to workers. Therefore this paper is expected to be used to the preliminary data for solving the problem and establishing improvement of Actual Cost Data.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.262-269
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• 2019

This study was conducted to pave the way for the development and operation of education and training programs to nurture skilled North Korean construction workers. Such programs would help to meet the expanded demand for setting up infrastructure, which is the backbone of the two Koreas' economic cooperation and mutual development. To achieve this initiative, the targets and scopes of education and training were determined by classifying business types for education and training purposes by construction sector. Furthermore, each education and training course and their allocated time frames were analyzed. Issues related to inter-Korean economic cooperation in the border area were also analyzed to determine regional characteristics. Education and training programs were thus classified into three types of infrastructure units: society, industry, and life infrastructure units. Social infrastructure units are the common demand of the whole border area, including construction of roads, railways, and harbors, as well as inspection and maintenance. Industrial infrastructure units are programs for industrial facilities centering on the designated special economic zone in the western part of the border area. Life infrastructure units are programs for infrastructure facilities such as large, complex facilities and residential facilities for the eastern tourist belt side.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.967-977
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• 2018

The problems of lack of skilled worker and poor productivity at the construction site continue to be raised, and the introduction of construction automation as one of the solutions to this has been considered. The development of various types of equipment and systems has been carried out, especially for earthwork operations with multiple construction equipment. However, the level of commercialization of developed equipment or systems is very limited. Although the single-product type of earthwork equipment has been applied to the site, the integrated type of earthwork system is still in the field testing stage. Considering these constraints, the limited budget and research period, a strategy is needed to identify which technology areas and core technologies should be developed first. In this study, the technology areas and detailed core technologies that are essential for the development of earthwork systems at the level of commercialization are set and the priority of development is determined. In addition, the earthwork system that has been developed so far is analyzed and the detailed development direction is presented based on it. The findings can be used for a decision making to set the priority for core technologies that should be developed first in the limited budget and period.