An Exploratory Study of Meanings of Risk Control for Long Term and Acute Effect Occupational Health and Safety Risks in Small Business Construction Firms

A qualitative study of employers' and employees' meanings of occupational health and safety (OHS) risk control was conducted among a sample of small businesses engaged in the Australian construction industry. Two OHS risks relevant to the construction industry were selected for study. One risk (falls from height) represented an immediate consequence, whereas the other (occupational skin disease) represented a long-term health effect. Meanings of the sources and control for these risks were explored during in-depth interviews. Participants perceived the immediate effect, falls from height OHS risk, as being more important in their workplaces than the delayed effect, skin disease OHS risk. The risk of falls from height was perceived to be controllable but requiring a great deal of effort to prevent, whereas there was a fatalistic resignation to the risk of occupational skin disease. Meanings of risk control for both occupational skin disease and falls from height focused on individual rather than technological risk controls. Organizational barriers to the adoption of technological OHS risk controls in the construction industry were identified.     

Role of beliefs in accident and risk analysis and prevention

This paper mainly deals with an old psychological theme, i.e., the impact of comprehensive reference systems such as belief systems and culture on safety and accident prevention. It is hypothesized that an understanding of the beliefs people hold about risks and the causes of accidents, as well as their perceptions of risk targets and the need for safety, are important prerequisites for effectively managing risk and designing preventive measures. This viewpoint is posited to be highly crucial today, especially in this era of globalization where workers from different backgrounds are relocating, and increasingly complex technology is being exported. Illustrations are given for both developing and developed countries. Different factors are shown to cause bias in accident explanation and risk perception. Among these, people’s beliefs about their own ability to cope and also their culture are described as important factors. Both defensive explanations of accidents and illusory or biased risk perception are shown to influence safety assessments and to have important implications for defining the best preventive actions and for writing relevant preventive communications.     

Project risk identification and assessment simultaneously using multi-attribute group decision making technique

The identification and assessment of project risks among potential risks can be considered a multi-attribute group decision making (MAGDM) problem including both quantitative and qualitative criteria. We extend the concept of safety to risk identification and assessment; this is to emphasize that the focus should not only be on the time and cost criteria, but also on the health, safety and environment (HSE) criterion. Conventional approaches to risk identification and risk assessment separately tend to be less effective in dealing with the imprecise of the risk assessment individually. The aim of this paper is to present a new methodology for identifying and assessing risks simultaneously by applying MAGDM technique. This paper includes a new procedure for classifying potential risks which it is named potential risk breakdown structure (PRBS) based on project work breakdown structure (WBS). Nominal group technique (NGT) is utilized for gathering potential risks. Obtained results have been applied in gas refinery plant construction successfully.     

Environmental conditions for safety work – Theoretical foundations

This paper reviews literature on environmental conditions for safety work. By “environmental conditions for safety work”, we refer to conditions that influence the opportunities an organisation, organisational unit, group, or individual has to control the risk of major accidents and working environment risk. The purpose of the review was to document how international safety science literature uses “environmental conditions” or synonymous concepts, to help build a common conceptualisation of environmental conditions for safety work, and to link environmental conditions to safety work and risks.We did not find a uniform and systematic approach to environmental conditions for safety work in the literature. We therefore turned to a broader range of organisational research literature, where we found a diversity of complementary answers to our research question aimed at investigating the ways in which environmental conditions may constrain or facilitate safety work and thus influence risks. Due to the diversity of these theoretical resources, we have refrained from trying to reduce them to a single model.Our conceptualisation of environmental conditions includes definitions, the “sender–receiver” metaphor, and a selection of theoretical resources. The “sender–receiver” metaphor may be used as a starting point for exploring the ways in which some actors influence the environmental conditions of other actors, and how actors may resist, co-create or re-create the environmental conditions for their own safety work.     

工作安全分析在管理实践中的应用

管理者有责任确保员工的健康和安全,包括告之员工工作场所存在的危险,提供必要的设备以确保健康和安全,并建立适当的健康和安全规程。因此,管理者有义务在员工开展工作之前评估健康和安全风险,进一步完善消除或减轻这些风险。而工作安全分析job safety analysis（JSA）,就是提供了这样一种方法,是一种常用于评估与作业有关的基本风险分析工具,以确保风险得以有效的控制。JSA一般在控制房或作业现场进行。对于大型或复杂的任务,初始的JSA可以作在办公室以桌面练习的形式进行。其实施关键是JSA应由熟悉现场作业和设备的、有经验的人员进行。JSA分析方法的优点就是把工作中潜在危害的关键活动或重要步骤作为分析对象,发挥集体的智慧,采用定量的方法把风险描述出来,从而进一步实施风险预防和控制,同时又和现场作业票证管理相结合,在现场的实际工作中取得了良好的效果。     

Small enterprises – Accountants as occupational health and safety intermediaries

Small enterprises face serious occupational health and safety challenges. The occupational risks are high and resources to control the risks are low. There is an ongoing search for ways that authorities and professional bodies can efficiently reach out to small enterprises with preventive measures. It has been suggested in the literature that accountants could act as intermediaries on health and safety. A pilot project was carried out in Denmark to test this possibility. State-authorized accountants were invited to training seminars to give them the necessary health and safety knowledge to provide advice to small enterprises. 164 accountants participated in the seminars and 74 accountants replied to a follow up questionnaire about their experience of advising their small enterprise clients about health and safety. Most of the accountants had actually given health and safety advice and for most of them it was a positive experience. However, they also faced constraints due to the relatively minor role health and safety played in their agendas with their clients and their own limited knowledge about health and safety even after taking part in the training seminars. This study concludes that it is possible for accountants to act as health and safety intermediaries, but that institutional support for the training activities is important to secure a broader application of this approach.     

A new practical approach to risk management for underground mining project in Quebec

The mining industry worldwide is currently experiencing an economic boom that is contributing to economic recovery and social progress in many countries. For this to continue, the mining industry must meet several challenges associated with the start-up of new projects. In a highly complex and uncertain environment, rigorous management of risks remains indispensable in order to repel threats to the success of mining.In this article, a new practical approach to risk management in mining projects is presented. This approach is based on a novel concept called “hazard concentration” and on the multi-criteria analysis method known as the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The aim of the study is to extend the use of this approach to goldmines throughout Quebec. The work is part of a larger research project of which the aim is to propose a method suitable for managing practically all risks inherent in mining projects.This study shows the importance of taking occupational health and safety (OHS) into account in all operational activities of the mine. All project risks identified by the team can be evaluated. An adaptable database cataloguing about 250 potential hazards in an underground goldmine was constructed. In spite of limitations, the results obtained in this study are potentially applicable throughout the Quebec mining sector.     

HAZOP在煤矿通风系统安全风险分析中的应用

HAZOP是一种基于“引导词”的、由各专业人员组成的分析小组通过一系列的分析会议来完成的,对系统工艺或操作过程中存在可能导致风险的各种偏差的一种系统化识别的定性分析方法。为提高煤矿通风系统安全风险分析效果,将HAZOP分析方法应用于煤矿通风系统中。通过对煤矿通风系统进行分析,证实了HAZOP分析方法在煤矿通风系统应用的可能性和充分性。分析结果不仅反映出了导致煤矿通风安全风险（或通风安全事故）的人的不安全行为和物的不安全状态等现场因素,而且还评审出煤矿通风系统的设计和管理缺陷,为煤矿如何更好的管理通风系统提供了有力依据。     

危险品道路运输风险评价与优化选线的研究进展

危险品道路运输的风险评价与优化选线是对其进行安全管理与科学化决策的基础和重要依据,也是减少危险品运输事故概率与降低运输沿线影响人员风险的重要措施.通过对国内外危险品道路运输风险评价与优化选线研究以及相关技术与软件的发展状况进行详细评述,总结了常用的风险评价模型、选线标准以及优化选线方法,并给出了一些国家的个人风险和单位运输距离(通常为1 km)社会风险的可接受标准.最后,对我国的危险品道路运输安全管理提出了对策与建议.     

火电厂(汽轮机部分)职业安全健康风险评价与控制研究

依据职业安全健康管理(OSHM)的要求,在危险辨识的基础上对火力发电厂(汽轮机部分)的危险源进行分类及其相互作用、影响的分析,建立了职业安全健康管理模式及其问卷,针对现场的运行、维修和试验部分进行了详细的调查。应用工业风险评价的定性及量化分析方法,通过现场调研和分析,对各种危险性事件发生的可能性及其后果的严重度进行评价,从安全管理和安全工程两方面提出对不可接受的危险源的预控措施。危险源的有效预测和控制,对火电厂职业安全健康水平的提高将发挥积极作用。     

Incorporating organizational factors into probabilistic risk assessment of complex socio-technical systems: Principles and theoretical foundations

The current generation of Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA), particularly those for technical systems, does not include an explicit representation of the possible impacts of organization and management on the safety performance of equipment and personnel. There are a number of technical challenges in developing a predictive model of organizational safety performance. There is a need for a widely accepted and theoretically sound set of principles on which models of organizational influences could be developed and validated. As a result of a multidisciplinary effort, this paper explores the feasibility of developing such principles and proposes a set of principles for organizational safety risk analysis. Then, as a realization of the proposed modeling principles, a safety risk framework, named Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA), is developed. SoTeRiA formally integrates the technical system risk models with the social (safety culture and safety climate) and structural (safety practices) aspects of safety prediction models, and provides a theoretical basis for the integration. A systematic view of safety culture and safety climate leaves an important gap in modeling complex system safety risk, and SoTeRiA, describing the relationship between these two concepts, bridges this gap. The framework explicitly recognizes the relationship among constructs at multiple levels of analysis, and extends the PRA framework to include the effects of organizational factors in a more comprehensive and defensible way.     

Layer of Protection Analysis – Quantifying human performance in initiating events and independent protection layers

Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) is widely used within the process industries as a simplified method to address risks and determine the sufficiency of protection layers. LOPA brings a consistent approach with added objectivity and a greater degree of understanding of the scenarios and risks as compared to purely qualitative studies such as Process Hazard Analyses. LOPA can be used to address a wide range of risk issues and serves as a highly effective aid to decision making.Incorporation of human performance within LOPA is recognized as an important, though often challenging, aspect of the analysis. The human role in potential initiating events or within human independent protection layers is important throughout the process industries, and becomes even more critical for batch processing facilities and in non-routine operations. The human role is key to process safety and the control of risks, necessitating the inclusion and quantification of human actions in independent protection layers for most companies. Human activities as potential initiating events and human performance within independent protection layers are reviewed and methods for quantification outlined. An extension into Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is provided, including methods to develop Human Error Probabilities specific to the process safety culture and operations at a given plant site.     

城市地铁网络系统运行脆弱性分析

为提高城市地铁网络系统(UMNS)运行的抗风险能力,降低事故造成的经济、社会损失,对UMNS运行脆弱性进行研究。通过对UMNS的特点和事故案例统计分析,将UMNS的运行脆弱性分解为物理、结构和社会功能3类脆弱性,解析UMNS运行脆弱性在事故发生过程中的作用,定义UMNS的运行脆弱性为UMNS在运行阶段抵御来自系统故障、人为失误、社会干扰的能力中的缺陷。通过案例分析,解释运行脆弱性的发生机理,提出降低UMNS运行脆弱性的相关建议。研究表明:UMNS运行脆弱性对地铁事故的发生、蔓延和最终损失有关键性影响;物理和社会功能脆弱性在事故发生的初期影响较大,结构脆弱性对事故在网络中的蔓延有较大影响,社会功能脆弱性则影响着最终事故的损失大小。因此,降低UMNS运行脆弱性应从结构、网络和社会功能3个方面综合展开。     

伊拉克中资企业员工面临的爆炸风险分析与规避

为规避伊拉克项目中资企业员工面临的爆炸风险并确保项目生产平稳运行,同时对其他高风险项目中资企业员工爆炸风险规避提供指导,以191起典型伊拉克爆炸案为研究对象,对其中明确报道的袭击目标、爆炸场所、大致时段及袭击方式进行定量分析.认为伊拉克及其他高风险项目中资企业员工所面临的爆炸风险构成要素应为目标吸引力、袭击目标暴露频率及袭击目标脆弱性.在企业采用各项安全生产技术和落实安全管理措施的基础上,应重点实施员工出行审批,加强旅程安全管理来规避爆炸风险.     

Traffic behaviour among adolescents using mopeds and light motorcycles

INTRODUCTION: Motorcycling is recognized to be a relatively risky activity. Powered two wheelers (PTW) are classified as mopeds, light, and heavy motorcycles, the first two categories being denoted light PTWs. This paper reviews the scientific literature on accident risks and traffic behavior among users of light PTWs with the aim of clarifying the current state of knowledge. METHOD: Based on a risk analytical and an anthropological perspective on motorcycling, the paper discusses the significance of cultural and social factors as important aspects of safety. More targeted and effective safety measures, for example better training programs, are needed to prevent motorcycle accidents. This means developing a deeper understanding of the rider as an individual, and the individuals within different groups and settings. Why and how motorcyclists approach the road, its function as a social arena, the varieties of goals and values, and the motorcyclists' own perceptions of the behavior that ensures their "achievements" or "successes", are some of the issues. Today, this kind of knowledge is scarce and almost entirely absent from the scientific literature. RESULTS: We conclude that the massive quantities of data on numbers of accidents, the categorization of situations, the causal explanations related to speed, gender, age, lack of concentration so forth, can only be employed as support for safety measures as long as they are linked to social and cultural factors. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Risk informed decision making has become an integral part of authorities' and manufacturers' implementation of safety measures. This tendency is strengthened by the fact that the responsibility of product safety rests upon the manufacturers, cf. for example EU safety regulations. Therefore it is paramount that a thorough understanding of social and cultural factors related to the PTW driving is necessary for the industry to develop targeted and efficient safety measures.     

The effect of first aid training on Australian construction workers' occupational health and safety motivation and risk control behavior

METHOD: A 24-week experiment was conducted to assess how first aid training affects the motivation of small business construction industry employees in avoiding occupational injuries and illnesses and its effect on their occupational health and safety behavior. A simplified multiple baseline design across workplace settings was used to evaluate the effects of first aid training. Participants' motivation to control occupational safety and health risks was explored during in-depth interviews before and after receipt of first aid training. Objective measurement of occupational safety and health behavior was conducted by a researcher directly observing the workplace before and after participants received first aid training. RESULTS: The observations at participants' worksites suggested that, for the most part, the first aid training had a positive effect on the occupational safety and health behavior of participants. First aid training appeared to reduce participants' "self--other" bias, making them more aware that their own experience of occupational safety and health risks is not beyond their control but that their own behavior is an important factor in the avoidance of occupational injury and illness. First aid training also appeared to reduce participants' willingness to accept prevailing levels of occupational safety and health risk and increase the perceived probability that they would suffer a work-related injury or illness. Participants expressed greater concern about taking risks at work after receiving first aid training. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: It appears that first aid training enhances participants' motivation to avoid occupational injuries and illnesses and improves their risk control behavior. The implications of this are that first aid training can have a positive preventive effect and could complement traditional occupational health and safety training programs. As such, there may be benefit in providing first aid training to all employees rather than limiting this training to a small number of designated "first aiders."     

The weighted risk analysis

Safety and risk assessment are characterised by aspects, like subjectivity and objectivity. In this paper, relations between safety and risk are described. When a risk analysis is performed, it is important to realise that decision-making about risks is very complex, and not only technical aspects but also economical, environmental, comfort related, political, psychological and societal acceptance are aspects that play an important role. In order to balance safety measures with aspects, such as environmental, quality, and economical aspects, a weighted risk analysis methodology is proposed in this paper. This paper also provides a theoretical background regarding the scope of safety assessment in relation to the decision-making in complex urban development projects adjacent to or above transport routes of hazardous materials. In Western Europe, such projects are realised due to shortage of space. The weighted risk analysis is an interesting tool comparing different risks, such as investments, economical losses and the loss of human lives, in one-dimension (e.g., money), since both investments and risks could be expressed solely in money. Finally, the weighted risk analysis approach is applied in a case study of Bos and Lommer, Amsterdam.     

System safety principles: A multidisciplinary engineering perspective

System safety is of particular importance for many industries. Broadly speaking, it refers to the state or objective of striving to sustainably ensure accident prevention through actions on multiple safety levers (technical, organizational, and regulatory). While complementary to risk analysis, it is distinct in one important way: risk analysis is anticipatory rationality examining the possibility of adverse events (or accident scenarios), and the tools of risk analysis support and in some cases quantify various aspects of this analysis effort. The end-objective of risk analysis is to help identify and prioritize risks, inform risk management, and support risk communication. These tools however do not provide design or operational guidelines and principles for eliminating or mitigating risks. Such considerations fall within the purview of system safety.In this work, we propose a set of five safety principles, which are domain-independent, technologically agnostic, and broadly applicable across industries. While there is a proliferation of detailed safety measures (tactics) in specific areas and industries, a synthesis of high-level safety principles or strategies that are independent of any particular instantiation, and from which specific safety measures can be derived or related to, has pedagogical value and fulfills an important role in safety training and education. Such synthesis effort also supports creativity and technical ingenuity in the workforce for deriving specific safety measures, and for implementing these principles and handling specific local or new risks. Our set of safety principles includes: (1) the fail-safe principle; (2) the safety margins principle; (3) the un-graduated response principle (under which we subsume the traditional “inherently safe design” principle); (4) the defense-in-depth principle; and (5) the observability-in-depth principle. We carefully examine each principle and provide examples that illustrate their use and implementation. We relate these principles to the notions of hazard level, accident sequence, and conditional probabilities of further hazard escalation or advancement of an accident sequence. These principles are a useful addition to the intellectual toolkit of engineers, decision-makers, and anyone interested in safety issues, and they provide helpful guidelines during system design and risk management efforts.     

Subjective theories of organizing and learning from events

The present paper outlines potential shortcomings of analyzing events in high hazard systems. We argue that the efficiency of organizational learning within high hazard systems is at least partially undermined by the subjective theories of organizing held by their members. These subjective theories basically reflect an “engineering” understanding of “how a system and its components perform”, and are assumed to involve (social-) psychological blind spots when applied to the analysis of events. More specifically, we argue that they neglect individual motives and goals that critically drive work performance and social interactions in high hazard systems. First, we focus on the process of identifying the causes of failed organizing within the course of an event analysis. Our analysis reveals a mismatch between the basic functional assumptions of the event analyst on the motives of social actors involved in an event and on the other hand, the perspective held by the social actors themselves. Second, we discuss the process of correcting failed social system performance after events. Thereby we draw on blind spots that emerge from the direct application of technical safety principles (i.e., standardization and redundancy) to the organization of social systems. Finally, we propose some future research strategies for developing event analysis methods which are aimed at improving an organization’s learning potential.     

HSE管理中的风险分析方法——以中油国际委内瑞拉公司HSE管理经验为例

HSE管理的出发点应是预防为主。因此尽早识别风险、评估可能的风险是HSE管理的关键。风险分析最重要的是要承认：石油勘探开发活动不可能绝对安全，风险总是客观存在的。风险分析就是尽早识别、分析和评估可能的风险所在、大小和频率。风险管理就是在风险分析的基础上，采取有针对性地措施将风险消减到可接受的水平。本文在总结近年国内外HSE管理中风险分析方法的基础上，结合CNPC在委内瑞拉运行石油项目的经验，提出了一套风险分析的定性和定量方法，包括系统风险分析、节点风险分析、概率统计分析等。由于大力推广和应用这些方法，使CNPC在委内瑞拉运行石油项目9年来没有发生任何HSE大事故，被委内瑞拉国家石油公司誉为“国际石油投资者HSE工作的典范”。