The role of risk avoidance and locus of control in workers' near miss experiences: Implications for improving safety management systems

Near-miss accidents data analysis and knowledge dissemination in water construction projects in Oman

The strategic role of near-miss data in safety management is undeniably vital. This data provides early warnings of potential accidents, thus serving as a proactive tool for recognizing weak points in safety management and preventing disasters. Reinforcing this premise, an investigation was launched to delve into the classification and analysis of near-miss accident data, aiming to augment safety prevention knowledge in the Nama Water Services (NWS) Company. The study engaged in comprehensive activities, including gathering near-miss reports, engaging with HSE personnel, formulating a standardized near-miss data form, and analyzing the collected data. Additionally, it proposed a structured guideline for identifying, analyzing, and classifying near-miss incidents, hinging on various parameters like types of hazards, operations, time of occurrence, and project segments. The findings highlighted that the construction projects involving pipelines and reservoirs experienced the most incidents, predominantly occurring during weekday mornings and afternoons. Major hazards included falls from scaffolds, falls within trenches, and lax housekeeping. Most notably, the operations most frequently associated with near-miss incidents were excavation, lifting, and loading. A deep dive into the root causes revealed that poor supervision, inadequacies in the safe work system, insufficient control measures, and inadequate training were the primary culprits. Furthermore, the study indicated that workers and equipment bore the brunt of these incidents.

Framework for measuring resilience of safety management systems in Australian building repair and maintenance companies

INTRODUCTION

The complex and dynamic nature of building repair and maintenance (R&M) work tends to create safety risks for workers. Resilience engineering approach is identified as a complementary to conventional safety management techniques. Resilience of safety management systems is characterized by the capabilities to recover from, respond during, and prepare for unexpected situations. This research aims to conceptualize resilience of safety management systems in the building repair and maintenance context by introducing resilience engineering principles into the safety management system concept.

METHOD

Data were collected from 145 professionals in building repair and maintenance companies in Australia. The structural equation modeling technique was utilized to analyze the collected data.

RESULTS

The results confirmed three dimensions (i.e., people resilience, place resilience, and system resilience) with 32 measurement items for assessing resilience of safety management systems. The results revealed that safety performance of building R&M companies was significantly affected by the interactions between people resilience and place resilience and the interactions between place resilience and system resilience.

CONCLUSIONS

Theoretically, this study contributes to the safety management knowledge by theoretically and empirically supporting the development of concept, definition, and purpose of resilience for safety management systems.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

Practically, this research proposes a framework for assessing the level of resilience of safety management systems that is characterized by employees' capabilities, supportiveness of workplace, and supportiveness of management to recover from safety incidents, react during unexpected situations, and prepare for preventative actions before occurrence of undesirable events.

Usability, User Acceptance, and Health Outcomes of Arm-Support Exoskeleton Use in Automotive Assembly: An 18-month Field Study

OBJECTIVE

Examine arm-support exoskeleton (ASE) user experience over time, identify factors contributing to ASE intention-to-use, and explore whether ASE use may influence the number of medical visits.

METHODS

An 18-month, longitudinal study with ASE (n = 65) and control groups (n = 133) completed at nine automotive manufacturing facilities.

RESULTS

Responses to six usability questions were rather consistent over time. ASE use perceived effective in reducing physical demands on the shoulders, neck, and back. Perceived job performance, and overall fit and comfort, appeared to be key determinants for ASE intention-to-use. Based on medical visits among both groups, ASE use may decrease the likelihood of such visits.

CONCLUSIONS

These field results support the potential of ASEs as a beneficial ergonomic intervention, but also highlight needs for further research on ASE designs, factors driving intention-to-use, and health outcomes.

Improving Safety Management through Analysis of Near-Miss Reports—A Tanker Ship Case Study

A near-miss management system (NMMS) is a tool used for improving safety at sea if adequately implemented. Valuable knowledge to improve safety management might be gained by investigating and analysing reported events. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to report each observed near-miss event. Because tankers are generally considered dangerous, but at the same time safe due to stringent requirements, near-miss reports and NMMS policy were collected from one oil tanker ship. Data were pre-processed and analysed. Variables used during analysis were near-miss type, risk level, ship position, and onboard location of near-miss occurrence. Analysis of policy and reports revealed that most near misses occurred on the deck area, but higher-risk-level events were reported in the engine room and navigating bridge. Housekeeping, equipment failure, use of personal protective equipment (PPE), and process-/procedure-related events were most common and generally related to lower risk levels. The most frequent corrective actions recorded were implementing safe working practices and PPE. In addition, higher-risk-level events were related to less effective corrective actions. Based on the findings, suggestions for improvements include promoting safe behaviour and adequate PPE usage through additional training, ensuring proper housekeeping, regular maintenance of shipboard equipment and spare parts management, and toolbox meetings and risk assessments that include conclusions of near-miss investigations and analysis.

Exploring the Differences in Safety Climate Among Mining Sectors

Currently, the US mining industry is encouraged, but not required to adopt a formal health and safety management system. Previous research has shown that the adoption of such systems has been more difficult in some subsectors of the mining industry than others. Given the interdependencies between management systems and safety climate in addition to their predictive utility of incidents, it is important to assess differences in the perceptions of safety climate among mining subsectors in the USA. If significant differences exist, then mining subsectors may not necessarily be able to adopt a one-size approach to system implementation. To that end, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health assessed mineworkers' perceptions of several individual and organizational safety climate constructs. Participants consisted of 2945 mineworkers at coal, industrial mineral, and stone/sand/gravel mine sites throughout 18 states. Linear regressions were used to answer the research question. The results suggest that coal miners, in comparison to those miners in industrial mineral and stone/sand/gravel sectors, had significantly less favorable perceptions on each of the organizational climate constructs measured (i.e., organizational support, supervisor support and communication, coworker communication, engagement/involvement, and training) (p < 0.001 in all cases). Importantly, these results parse out organizational indicators to show that perceptions are not only lower in one area of organizational or supervisor support. Rather, engagement, training, and communication practices were all significantly lower among coal miners, prompting considerations for these significant differences and actions that can be taken to improve system practices.

Identify the Influence of Risk Attitude, Work Experience, and Safety Training on Hazard Recognition in Mining

Mineworkers face a challenging and dynamic work environment every workday. To maintain a safe workplace, mineworkers must be able to recognize worksite hazards while they perform their jobs. Though hazard recognition is a critical skill, recent research from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) indicates that mineworkers fail to identify a significant number of hazards. To further the understanding of mineworkers' hazard recognition ability and to begin to address hazard recognition performance, NIOSH researchers analyzed data collected during a laboratory research study to determine the effect of individual mineworker factors including risk attitude, work experience, and safety training on hazard recognition accuracy. The results of this study show that mineworker risk attitude and safety-specific work experience affect hazard recognition performance while hazard-specific safety training does not. These results suggest that some of these individual factors can be overcome through experience and training. Potential strategies that can be used to address these factors are also discussed.

Risk Assessment Methods in Mining Industry—A Systematic Review

Recently, there has been a growing interest in the mining industry in issues related to risk assessment and management, which is confirmed by a significant number of publications and reports devoted to these problems. However, theoretical and application studies have indicated that risk in mining should be analyzed not only in the human factor aspect, but also in strategic (environmental impact) and operational ones. However, there is a lack of research on systematic literature reviews and surveys of studies that would focus on these identified risk aspects simultaneously. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to develop a literature review in the area of analysis, assessment and risk management in the mining sector, published in the last decade and based on the concept of a human engineering system. Following this, a systematic search was performed with the use of Primo multi-search tool following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The main inclusion criteria were: (a) not older than 10 years, (b) article written in English, (c) publication type (scientific article, book, book chapter), (d) published in chosen electronic collections (Springer, Taylor and Francis, Elsevier, Science Direct, JSTOR). This resulted in the selection of the 94 most relevant papers in the area. First, the general bibliometric analysis was conducted. Later, the selected papers in this review were categorized into four groups and the critical review was developed. One of the main advantages of this study is that the results are obtained from different scientific sources/databases thanks to using a multi-search tool. Moreover, the authors identified the main research gaps in the area of the implementation of risk management in the mining industry.

Learning from Workers' Near-miss Reports to Improve Organizational Management

Near misses recorded and reported by workers can provide awareness to the potential causes of injury and prompt safety management initiatives. Although most companies require near-miss reporting, it is unclear what the value of these reports are, if any, and how they influence subsequent actions or controls to reduce on-the-job risks. Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) conducted a case study with an aggregates company in which near-miss reports were analyzed at each of their locations over an entire quarter during the summer of 2018. Within that quarter, workers recorded 249 near misses. Of those, 167 were valid near misses that occurred at work. Researchers coded the reports using a qualitative 5 × 5 risk matrix. Of the 167 near misses, 19% were deemed low risk, 25% moderate risk, 30% high risk, and 26% critical risk. Several patterns in the near-miss incidents were documented, including classification of incidents and common corrective actions referenced (i.e., elimination/substitution, engineering control or redesign, work process/procedures, and personal protective equipment). The analysis provides insight into ways that risk communication and management programs can be improved to reengage workers and their situational awareness on the job.