This article presents the developed methodology of classifying and evaluating the causes of accidents involving construction scaffolding. This methodology allows the causes of accidents to be identified, classified into generic groups, and also allows the importance of individual causes in their generic groups to be assessed. For the classification of causes, the Technical–Organizational–Human (TOH) method was used. Its assumption is the division of causes into technical (T), organizational (O), and human (H) ones. Pareto-Lorenz analysis and ABC classification were used to identify the most important causes. The developed methodology was used to analyze and assess the causes of accidents that involve construction scaffolding using the data of accidents that occurred in Poland as an example. The use of the proposed methodology in different countries will enable the results of the conducted studies and analysis to be compared, and conclusions that would be of a great importance in accident prevention to be drawn.

The value, care, and customs of workers are essential in terms of occupational health and safety. The abuse of alcohol is widely regarded as a serious threat to the lives, health, and safety of employees. The aim of the research was to identify the main problems that are associated with alcohol abuse and consumption at work among employees in the construction industry, with particular emphasis on workstations where work is carried out on construction scaffoldings. Data for the analysis were obtained from two different sources. The first one was post-accident documentation on occupational accidents. The second one was surveys collected during the research project. This study confirmed that excessive and disproportionate alcohol consumption can be the cause of an accident, and consequently death at workplaces with scaffolding. Of 219 accident reports, 17.4% indicated alcohol as a contributing factor. Analysis of accident documentations shows that in cases where alcohol was indicated as a contributing factor in an accident, the alcohol was consumed during the workday. The results obtained on the basis of the conducted research were able to constitute a justification for the directions of preventive actions carried out in order to reduce the number of occupational accidents in the construction industry caused by alcohol.

Knowledge is one of the most important resources of an enterprise. Skillful knowledge management can bring significant benefits including labour productivity growth, an increase in quality of provided services and also a strengthening of the competitive position of an enterprise. This paper presents an IT model of a Knowledge Map which supports knowledge management in a construction enterprise. The model was developed on the basis of the results of surveys and analyses carried out in small and medium sized construction enterprises in Poland. The process approach in management was included in the proposed model and it involves analysis of an enterprise activity as a set of processes. The model contains processes occurring at enterprise level and also in the widely considered investment process in the construction industry. This assumption made the proposed Knowledge Map universal and able to be applied in construction enterprises operating in both the design and executive field.

Working at height, and especially on construction scaffolding, is one of the most accident-prone situations on a construction site. The article attempts to assess the state of threat of working on scaffolding on the basis of the proposed coefficients concerning the possibility of an occupational accident occurring. The article presents the analysis of 10 parameters, which were classified into three groups of factors that cause accidents: technical, organizational, and human factors. In order to assess the state of threat of working on scaffolding, partial hazard factors and a simplified and accurate factor of the state of threat of working were proposed. The coefficients were determined on the basis of the data collected from post-accidental control reports on occupational accidents occurring on scaffolding in the construction industry that took place in Poland in five voivodeships in the years 2008–2017, and also on the basis of the obtained results of research on 120 scaffoldings conducted in the years 2016–2018. Based on the determined factors, it was possible to determine the probability of an undesirable event, in other words, an occupational accident. In addition, the developed test method proposed numerical scales for assessing the state of threat of working on scaffolding. The form proposed in the article for assessing the state of threat of working on scaffolding, which was developed using a spreadsheet, can provide support for people managing work at workstations involving scaffolding, for example, construction directors, construction engineers, work managers, or construction managers.

Defining the basic determinants of the level of reliability with regards to the use of residential buildings and determining the function of the intensity of their characteristic defects are important issues concerning renovation strategy. The distribution of the exploitation time of residential buildings, the function of their reliability, and the distribution of the defect intensity of examined buildings are interdependent terms. Therefore, it can be assumed that the defect intensity of an object will be higher with an increase in its exploitation time. However, it is neither an increase reflecting the length of the building’s service life nor the value directly proportional to its age. The article presents a model and method of testing the defects and reliability of a representative group of traditional downtown residential buildings, which were erected in Wroclaw, Poland at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A basic conclusion was drawn regarding the mechanism of damage of residential buildings: for the period of using the facility, in which the time of correct operation until failure has an exponential distribution, the average remaining time of failure-free operation is unchanged at any time. It was confirmed that the tested residential buildings, after a certain period of failure-free operation, fulfil their functions, just like new buildings. The optimal moment of renovation occurs after the end of the second period of operation, before the period of rapid wear. The study of the course of the damage intensity function over time reflects the wear process of a residential building in a representative sample of downtown residential buildings that were erected using traditional methods. Defining the average duration of the correct failure-free operation of an object by the reliability function, which determines the probability with which the correct operation time of an object will be longer than its age, has a practical application in the exploitation of a residential building and its components.

The research presented in the article, which includes methods, models, and conclusions, contains synthetic and analytical model solutions concerning the problems of the technical maintenance and wear of residential buildings with a traditional construction. The cause and effect relationships between the occurrence of damage in the elements of tenement houses (treated as proof of their maintenance conditions), and the size of the technical wear of these elements were determined using a representative and purposefully selected sample of 102 residential buildings erected during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Wroclaw’s “Downtown” district. Quantitative damage analysis, which was carried out using empirical (visual) methods of assessing the technical condition of a building, indicates the type and size of damage to the building’s elements that are characteristic for the relevant maintenance conditions. Research concerning the cause–effect relationships (“damage–technical wear”) in observed states allows for a numerical approach to the impact of building maintenance conditions on the degree of the technical wear of its components. The maintenance and exploitation conditions determine the degree of the technical wear of the elements of an old residential building. The exploitation condition of these buildings is manifested by damage to elements caused by water and moisture penetration, which is especially important for poorly maintained buildings. The article shows that the age of the elements of an old residential building with a traditional construction is of secondary importance in the process of the intensity of losing its serviceability value. It was calculated that no more than 30% of the damage of building components is explained by the passage of time, and it is therefore not age that determines the course of the technical wear of the elements of the analyzed tenement houses.