Experts warn on low-bid procurement in construction industry

Experts warn on low-bid procurement in construction industry

2023-07-16

When small risks aren’t taken seriously, they can lead to a catastrophe. Here in Taiwan, construction accidents are frequent. At first glance, this appears to be a problem with the construction industry. But experts say blame should be shared by the government and the public. All too often, public works contracts are granted to the lowest bidder, leading to compromises in safety. The absence of a safety culture within Taiwan’s society is also a cause for concern.

Lin Li-ching
Writer
When you’re in a hurry, you start to ignore certain things. And when your budget is tight, you start to cut corners.

Essayist Lin Li-ching has worked in engineering for many years. He says it’s common for public works contracts to go to the lowest bidder. Projects are run on tight budgets with multiple layers of subcontractors. As a result, worker quality and safety are often the first to be compromised.

Lin Li-ching
Writer
Today all construction sites go for the lowest bids, and construction periods are limited. So I want to ask everyone, if you want it fast and you want it cheap, how good can the quality be? Ideally, if you were to be truly professional about it, you would contract out the safety infrastructure separately. The government should make access contingent upon safety, and find a separate contractor. That is to say, if the builders don’t set up proper safety measures, then they can’t even enter the construction site. That’s the correct, more progressive way to go about it. But we lack such a concept. We bundle up everything and give it to you, and we just want you to finish it.

To fix the problems caused by low-bid procurement, engineering associations have pushed the government to evaluate contractors based on value rather than cost. This method factors in the contractors’ qualifications and track record. But no law requires such vetting, and the practice has seen limited adoption.

Liang Shih-tung
New Taipei City Professional Civil Engineers Association head
Should the government enforce highest-value procurement for all contracts above a certain dollar amount? If it did, we would see an improvement in project management and vendor selection. It would prevent scenarios where a construction company with a poor record is still allowed to bid and to win bids, and then it sets up a disorganized construction site, leading to bad management and cutting corners to do things the cheapest way.

But the problem extends beyond construction and government. It’s rooted in Taiwan’s social fabric, where there’s a lack of what experts call “safety culture.”

Shan Hsin-yu
Civil engineering professor
Mom and dad might park illegally out front or make an illegal turn. Then when the crossing guard asks them not to do this, they pick a fight with the crossing guard. Children see this and they learn from it. That’s the cultural factor – it’s passed on from one generation to the next. It’s because of such adults that we have such children, who grow up to become such adults.

In daily life, we’ve all been known to compromise safety for convenience. How can we expect construction workers with the same mindset to put safety first?

Shan Hsin-yu
Civil engineering professor
We have seen too many cases – too many avoidable fires, traffic accidents, and even people who think they can hike up a mountain but then don’t prepare properly and go up alone. This can only be changed through education, and it can’t be changed immediately. It will take one generation passing it on to the next, 20 years or 30 years, before our society sees safety as a very important consideration that can’t be compromised on. Only then can it be applied to our professional lives.

Recent tragedies, such as the metro crash that claimed a professor’s life, highlight Taiwan’s glaring blind spot when it comes to safety.

輪迴的工安意外 PART 3

2023-07-16

細微風險不受重視，累積到最後就會形成大災難，台灣頻繁發生工安意外，乍看之下是營造業的問題，但在專家眼中，政府跟民眾都有責任。除了公共工程經常是最低價得標，往往最先被省略掉的就是安全，而社會缺乏安全文化，也是主因。

[[林立青作家]]
“你工期趕的時候，你就會慢慢忽略一些東西，預算不夠的時候，你就會開始省去這些東西”

在工程界打滾多年的作家林立青指出，公共工程經常是最低價得標，在預算低又層層轉包的情況下，往往最先被省略掉的就是工人的素質跟安全。

[[林立青作家]]
“所有的工地現在就是最低價標，然後限制工期，我問大家，又要快，又要便宜，你好的起來嗎。照理來說，我們如果走真正專業，你應該是安全設施另外發包，政府直接把安全和門禁綁在一起，發包給其他廠商，你今天沒有做好防護，你根本不能進工地，這才是正確新進一點的觀念，但我們沒有這觀念，我是全部都發給你去做，你做完就好”

為了改正最低標帶來的缺失，近年來工程會不斷鼓勵政府各單位改採最有利標，不只審核承包商資格，也要考量廠商過去的信譽，不過這樣的招標方式，並沒有強制規定施行，目前成效有限。

[[梁詩桐理事新北市土木技師公會]]
“這個部分政府要不要強制性的規定說，多少金額以上就必須要最有利標模式走，這樣子的話，對於工程管理跟廠商篩選有正面的幫助，就不會像現在就是說，這個營造廠，可能他以前有很多不良的紀錄，他也讓他來投標，他就得了標，但是他在工地的組織也不是很完整，所以就會造成很多管理不良，甚至有很多用最便宜的方式來做”

營造業、政府都有責任，而社會普遍缺乏安全文化，也是一大問題。

[[單信瑜副教授陽明交通大學土木工程系]]
“爸爸，媽媽就是在前面違規停車，違規的迴轉，甚至於導護老師請他不要這樣做的時候，還跟導護老師吵架，小朋友也都看在眼裡，所以我覺得這個部分的文化因素，是從大人開始一代傳遞到下一代，因為有這樣的大人才有這樣的小孩，這樣的小孩將來又變成是大人”

日常生活，你我都曾因為方便搶快妥協掉安全，又如何期待，那些跟我們有著相同意識的工人，進入工地後會重視「安全第一」。

[[單信瑜副教授陽明交通大學土木工程系]]
“我們看到太多的例子，不應該發生的火災，不應該發生的交通事故，甚至覺得自己有能力去登山的人，他沒有準備好，他也一個人獨自去登山。這只能透過教育，不是馬上能改變，也許一代傳一代，二十年、三十年，才能夠真正在我們華人社會裡面，把安全當作是一個不應該被妥協掉的，一個很重要生活裡面的考量，才有辦法去落實到你職業生涯的這個部分”

中捷事故奪走大學教授的性命，也再次點出台灣社會對安全的眼盲。

Related News

Recurring construction accidents under scrutiny after crane crash

In early May, a jarring accident occurred on the Taichung Metro. A large crane tumbled from a construction site onto the track of the metro, causing an incoming train to collide into it. The crash left one dead and 10 others injured. The horrific scene shook the nation to its core.

Construction executives stood in a row, bowing in apology. But it was all too late for the life lost – Lin Shu-ya, a law professor at Providence University.

It happened on May 10. At a construction site next to the metro’s Green Line, a steel beam snapped while a tower crane was being dismantled. That sent the crane’s boom careening onto the track. An incoming train was unable to stop in time, and the crash killed one and injured 10 others.

Upon examining the scene and the nearby construction site, a critical question was raised: Why did this 40-meter-long, 3.3-ton crane boom come crashing down from the 31st story?

Ko Chih-tan
Taiwan Professional Civil Engineers Association chair
Tower cranes must be dismantled from the top, section by section. So during the process, aged material or carelessness in the dismantling process may have caused this outcome.

During building construction, tower cranes are often used to lift large loads. Engineers must first assemble the crane. The process is like building blocks – the crane goes up, section by section. Load lifting begins only after the crane is fully assembled. Once the work is done, the crane is dismantled piece by piece.

Lai Chien-hung
New Taipei City Professional Civil Engineers Association head
From the tower crane’s installation to its dismantling, each stage is extremely important. Any oversight can trigger a workplace accident or even a major construction accident.

Assembly is usually the riskiest part of using a tower crane, but the crane involved in the metro crash was being dismantled.

Lai Chien-hung
New Taipei City Professional Civil Engineers Association head
Assembly is the most difficult and the highest risk. Because as it goes up, section by section, there’s always a gap before another section is added, similar to playing with blocks. After overcoming this most challenging and high-risk phase, the builders may have approached the dismantling phase with the sense that the biggest challenge was already over. During disassembly, they may have had a more lax mindset.

Footage of the accident is alarming to watch, yet such incidents happen all too often.

On March 31, 2002, a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan. The Taipei Financial Center was under construction at the time. During the quake, a tower crane fell from the building’s 60th floor, killing five and injuring 19. Investigators found that apart from the earthquake, a cause of the tragedy was that the east-west crane boom had not been fortified with screws, causing the boom to break. Following the accident, construction of the Taipei Financial Center was suspended for three months, before resuming under a new name: Taipei 101.

2023-07-16

Behind Taroko tragedy and other construction accidents, a pattern of negligence

Taiwan is no stranger to deadly construction accidents. In 2021, a construction vehicle caused an express train to derail, claiming 49 lives and injuring more than 200 people. In April 2015, a steel girder fell over the worksite of the Taichung metro’s Green Line, taking the lives of four people and injuring another four. Experts say these accidents are part of a widespread pattern of negligence.

On the first day of the 2021 Tomb-Sweeping Festival holiday, a construction vehicle fell onto a section of train track in Hualien County. A high-speed Taroko Express train slammed into it, resulting in 49 deaths.

The train had been running on the railway’s Eastern Trunk Line, but the problem lay along the Western Trunk Line, where a tunnel slope maintenance project was underway.

Fingers were pointed all around in the wake of the accident. According to risk management expert Daniel Yao, the construction site was managed by three companies. Not one of them realized that the site was full of risks.

Daniel Yao
Risk management expert
This construction project was taking place right above an active railway, so that’s the first risk. The second is that there are two tunnels, meaning that if anything falls onto the tracks, the driver doesn’t have much time to react.

Slope maintenance on the open-cut tunnel began nearly two years prior. Workers from the three companies came and went, oblivious to the life-endangering risks of their project.

Shan Hsin-yu
Civil engineering professor
This accident occurred because a construction vehicle had slipped down a construction access road, it slipped down a slope. From the original worksite planning team, all the way down the line, no one saw this risk.

Construction accidents like this occur with an unsettling regularity.

On the afternoon of April 10, 2015, a 209-ton steel girder fell over a Taichung Metro construction site, killing four and leaving four injured. An investigation found that the contractor, Far Eastern Construction, had violated work hour regulations and flouted proper lifting procedures, leading to the tragic accident.

Nine months earlier, there were already signs of problems with the construction company.

In August 2014, Far Eastern Construction had improperly handled a crane, causing it to tip and crash into a residential building. The accident happened late at night, and no one was injured. In the months afterward, neither the contractor nor the government took steps to address the incident, which captured little public attention. A major accident struck the following year.

2023-07-16

Residents on edge as sinkholes strike near construction zones

In April of this year, a startling sight unfolded near a construction area in Hsinchu. A section of a road suddenly caved in, creating a sinkhole that swallowed up a nearby Tesla. Just half a month earlier, a similar incident occurred in Taipei a giant sinkhole appeared near a construction site, causing nearby homes to lean precariously and prompting the residents’ evacuation. These incidents are not isolated. Sinkholes are showing up all across urban Taiwan, damaging roads and threatening the safety and property of locals. But what’s causing this alarming rise in sinkholes? And is there a way to predict when and where the next one will occur?

Even in a casual conversation with neighbors, anxiety is visible on the face of Zhubei community leader Mao Zhenfu.

Mao Zhen-fu
Zhubei community leader
The businesspeople here are either tenants or property owners who live on the property themselves. The tenants suffer the most. Why? Because when the road is sealed, they can’t do business. Any one of these shop fronts cost NT$30,000 or NT$40,000 in rent each month.

Over the past nine months, the roads surrounding this Zhubei construction site have collapsed five times. One of those roads, Shengli 2nd Road, has been closed for more than half a year, leaving a long row of desolate shops.

This year in April, another sinkhole at the worksite devoured a Tesla.

Residents in Zhubei live in fear, and less than half a month later, another sinkhole appeared in Taipei’s Xinyi District, swallowing up scooters and bicycles.

Sinkholes have become an increasingly common phenomenon. One struck in Yonghe, New Taipei in 2020, in Changhua City in 2021, in Cianjin, Kaohsiung in 2022, and in Longjing, Taichung in 2023. What’s driving this unsettling phenomenon?

Ni Chun-fa
National Central University Graduate Institute of Applied Geology
Many of the sinkholes that we see are the result of human interference. It has to do with the mechanical balance between water and soil. Anything that causes an imbalance of water in the soil can lead to the rearrangement of soil particles, resulting in a collapse.

To get a sense of this water-soil imbalance, consider this scenario: A water pipe bursts under a road. Water comes rushing out, washing away the nearby soil and leading to the formation of voids in the soil layer. Once the road begins to cave, a sinkhole is created.

Ni Chun-fa
National Central University Graduate Institute of Applied Geology
Typically, building a high-rise involves deep excavation, which lowers the level of the groundwater. Particularly at the construction site itself, the groundwater level is very low. If the groundwater level is significantly lower than the level outside of the construction site, fine particles of soil can be washed away.

When a high-rise basement is excavated to a depth that’s lower than the groundwater level, water infiltration can hinder construction. To keep this from happening, wells are often set up to pump groundwater and lower the water level. The discrepancy between the water levels inside and outside the worksite causes water to flow out, toward the area with the lower level. This becomes a problem if the ground composition is a mix of gravel and sand. Flowing water can sweep away the sand, depriving the gravel of its supportive structure. The gravel then repositions itself, leading to the creation of voids.

But before a high-rise is built, wouldn’t a construction firm conduct a geological survey?

Tseng Ho-teng
New Taipei geological technicians association
In the early years, we’d heard of cases where geological surveys were falsified or even skipped entirely. But nowadays, we don’t hear about such things happening. Each worksite will conduct a geological survey at the very start. I believe that the survey requirement is fulfilled at this stage, and that after the survey is completed, there’s an efficient review mechanism.

Next, the geological report is turned over to professional technicians. They use it to design supports for the sides of an excavated basement, to prevent soil or water from collapsing. Three types of supports are commonly used in the industry: sheet piles, earth-retaining piles, and continuous walls.

Tseng Ho-teng
New Taipei geological technicians association
The continuous wall is the most expensive and it takes the longest time to set up. However, it’s the best at retaining soil and water. The next best thing is the earth-retaining pile. But there are gaps between each one, so of course groundwater can seep in, reducing its effectiveness. Then there’s the sheet pile. The crevices in sheet piles make it easy for groundwater to seep in.

Technicians will recommend which support to use, based on the geological conditions. With modern engineering designs, safety isn’t an issue. But even the highest-performing continuous walls can’t prevent sinkholes from forming.

Chan Jung-feng (July 2020)
Former head of New Taipei Public Works Department
The preliminary assessment is that water leaked from the seams of the wall.

No matter what form of construction is used, the appearance of muddy water at a construction site is a warning sign. Here in the basement of this Zhubei construction project, you can see muddy water where the sandbags are piled up.

Ni Chun-fa
National Central University Graduate Institute of Applied Geology
The leaking water – if it carries materials such as sand, you’ll be able to see color. Seeing color means that the water has started to bring out fine particles. That’s a very important message. Disasters caused by groundwater actually occur very slowly. There are opportunities to resolve them, there’s time.

Sinkholes are problems with warning signs, and there’s time to prevent their formation. So when they occur anyway, over and over again, is man solely to blame? Over in Zhubei, Hsinchu, locals now find it hard to trust developers.

Eight years ago, Casey moved to Zhubei with her husband, an engineer. They live near the construction site where multiple sinkholes have occurred. On the day a Tesla fell into a crater, she was not far away.

Casey
Zhubei resident
It felt like a stunt from a movie. You could see a car stuck inside, and it felt so unreal. I took a picture on my way back. The soil erosion inside – by that time, the car had been already been removed, and I discovered that all the soil inside was gone, the hole was super empty. When I saw it, I was shocked at first glance, and then later I felt scared.

The looming threat of sinkholes has caused anger and distress among the people of this neighborhood.

Each day, cracks expand in their sidewalks and flower planters.

Mao Zhen-fu
Zhubei community leader
Everybody is worried about their house collapsing. They worked so hard to buy a house. You’re lying to them if you tell them not to worry. Through a friend’s referral, I personally invited a structural engineer from Taipei to provide an explanation to our residents. Last Friday, through a neighbor, we brought in another structural engineer from Kaohsiung.

Repeated sinkholes have forced residents to seek out experts on their own. They don’t believe the narrative of construction companies. They’re also suspicious of the local government.

Chiu Hsien-chih
Lawmaker
What Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke does is, he goes to the site, he performs his outrage – that’s his SOP. After his performance of rage, construction stops, it stops for a while, and then it resumes. The reality is, there’s a relationship between construction companies and local governments. These politicians are too close-knit with builders, who provide political donations or campaign headquarters and things like that. This leads to the inability to assert public power over people you need to manage.

But what can these locals do to help themselves?

Assistant professor Lin Chen-hua pushes a ground-penetrating radar, a machine that costs nearly a million New Taiwan dollars. It offers a window to the world below ground.

Lin Chen-hua
Chung Hua University Dept. of Civil Engineering
It’s just like doing an X-ray scan of the human body. The depth of its detection is determined by the high and low frequencies of the antenna. In good geological conditions, low frequencies can detect up to 30 meters, no problem.

Based on the waves reflected from the ground, this radar can distinguish between different materials such as metal, plastic, and air. It can help residents judge whether the ground of their neighborhood is safe.

Experts can use these ripples to decode information from underground. Even a hole measuring 15 centimeters in diameter can be detected. Such a radar, if incorporated in the standard protocol of building construction, could eliminate many hazards and disputes.

Lin Chen-hua
Chung Hua University Dept. of Civil Engineering
Prior to excavation, you could do a survey. For example, regardless of the construction site, you must survey the neighboring properties. Do a test first, to get some baseline information. So in the process of excavation, if anything happens to the neighboring properties, another test can be done, to see the problem was caused by the soil.

To reduce the frequency of sinkholes over the long run, the central government needs to strengthen its regulation of the construction industry.

Chiu Hsien-chih
Lawmaker
We asked the Construction and Planning Agency to help local governments set up a standard for resuming work. After all, what are the criteria for resuming work? Secondly, there needs to be an SOP for follow-up safety monitoring. The website should let citizens know which builders are extremely terrible, with a record of frequent construction accidents and multiple fines from the construction agency.

Mr. Huang
Resident affected by Xinyi District sinkhole
They sent cement mixer trucks to do the grouting. They used 58 trucks.

With the arrival of each new building, one question invariably arises, “Will it be a good neighbor or a bad neighbor?” The answer is largely up to the government and the construction industry, and whether they can restore the people’s right to live in peace and without fear.

2023-07-16