Automating health and safety regulation in construction by using BIM: a systematic review of capabilities and limitations

Purpose Construction sites inherently involve numerous hazards, and construction safety has consistently been a significant concern for the industry. Various countries have established health and safety frameworks for the construction industry, enforced by regulatory bodies such as OSHA (USA) and HSE (UK). Traditional manual and experience-based inspection methods are proved to be inefficient. Recent research has focused on automating compliance through building information modelling (BIM), which enables the simulation of hazardous scenarios, such as fall risk and fire outbreaks, and supports risk identification across project life-cycle phases. This research presents a systematic literature review of BIM-based automated health and safety compliance across multiple safety domains, including fall protection, scaffolding, fire safety, evacuation planning and excavation hazards. Design/methodology/approach A total of 30 studies were ultimately reviewed, which were sourced from Scopus and ScienceDirect databases and covered multiple construction safety areas such as fall protection from heights, scaffolding, safe evacuation, fire safety and excavation operations. Findings The findings indicate that BIM is effective in supporting compliance in areas such as “Fall Protection and Guardrails”, “Scaffolding”, “Fire Safety and Emergency Response Planning”, “Site Access and Egress” and “Excavation and Trenching Safety”. However, it currently lacks the capacity to address “Behavioural and Human Factors”, “Interpersonal Communication and Training” and “Emergency Response and Crisis Management”. Originality/value This study compares the existing BIM-based health and safety studies with OSHA regulations, conducting a structured comparison in five key safety areas. Additionally, it offers a unique contribution by distinguishing which safety compliance aspects can be achieved through BIM automation and which still require manual input, thereby clearly delineating the capabilities and limitations of BIM in regulatory automation. It would provide construction professionals with a clear understanding of the current use of BIM in automated health and safety compliance to support improved safety management and reduce on-site accidents.