China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Bowties for occupational risk management
Published in Maria Chiara Leva, Tom Kontogiannis, Marko Gerbec, Olga Aneziris, Total Safety and the Productivity Challenge, 2019
Olga Aneziris, Ioannis Papazoglou
Occupational risk assessment is a major part in Total Safety Management of installations as workers are exposed to many hazards in their daily working conditions. Quantification of occupational hazards can be performed by the bowtie method that was presented here. The bowtie model consists of three levels of events: (a) the Primary Safety Barriers (PSB) representing the immediate causes of the Centre Event (CE); (b) the Secondary Safety Barriers (SSB) representing events that influence the probability of the PBSs and (c) the Probability Influence Entities (PIE) that determine the probability of the SSBs. The last level of developed events (the PIEs) consists of events simple enough that their expected frequency can be quantified much easier than that of the complex composite event. Furthermore, their expected frequency can be influenced by simple straightforward actions. As a case study the risk assessment of the bowtie “in or on a vehicle which loses its control” has been presented and risk reducing measures have been proposed and assessed. The most important measure for fatality risk reduction is safe speed, followed by the good mechanical state of the vehicle.
The design of a matrix linking work situations to chemical health risk at the workplace
Published in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 2022
Abir Aachimi, Florian Marc, Nathalie Bonvallot, Frédéric Clerc
In France, as in other countries, occupational risk assessment is part of each employer's regulatory obligations (Safety and health at work EU-OSH - Directive 89/391/EEC). For each company, an inventory of the risks that could threaten an employee’s health has to be drawn up. Its aim is to prioritize the prevention actions that will be implemented. While both information about hazards and exposures and tools are widely available, as mentioned previously, there is a lack of information regarding chemical risk resulting from the combination of hazard and exposure. However, in each given work situation, this is the risk that employers must assess for the needs of prioritization. According to the sector, company, and activity, each work situation is unique and specific and it is difficult to model chemical risk using only the existing hazard and exposure databases. Therefore, our objective is to build a matrix based on real work situations existing in different sectors of activity in French industry. In this matrix, each work situation is associated with a chemical risk score, taking into account hazard and exposure. This matrix could be useful for companies to determine the level of risk of their work situations if they have any similar to those presented in the matrix, as it would allow them to easily define the preventive actions that must be implemented. Moreover, it could be used to compare and define the differences between a risk assessment performed by "experts" and another defined by a tool.