Journal of Health and Safety at Work

Standardization of Safety Checklists for Sport Fields in Schools

G. Zahirian

Introduction: Nowadays in all human societies, sport is considered as a human-training matter, which often occurs in sport fields. Many people, including students in schools, occasionally deal with these fields. Therefore, a standard tool is required to frequently inspection of sport fields. The aim of this study was to standardize checklists for sport fields in schools.

Material and Method: This study is a kind of tool and technique evaluation was done in Zanjan in 2013. The studied population included indoor and outdoor sport fields in governmental boys’ high schools in Zanjan city. The checklists’ items selected based on existing regulations, standards and relevant studies. Standardization of all tools was done applying the face and content validity and reliability tests.

Result: The primary checklist for outdoor sport fields in high schools, which considered by the expert panel, consisted of 75 items. Based on CVI (2 to 3.9) and CVR (.5 to .78), modifications were done and 6 more items were added. And the same process for the primary checklist for outdoor sports fields (85 items) was repeated. Based on CVI (2 to 3.9) and CVR (.5 to .78), items increased to 92.

Conclusion: The safety checklist for sport fields in schools are matched with the properties of them. The safety checklist developed in this study has an acceptable reliability and validity for useful applying in sport field inspections.

Assessing the heat stress of brick-manufacturing units’ workers based on WBGT index in Qom city

F. Golbabaie

Introduction: Heat stress is considered as a serious risk factor to the health and safety of workers in most working environments, especially in outdoor works and jobs that workers are exposed to heat due to the working process. This study aimed to evaluate heat stress among workers of brick-manufacturing units in Qom city based on WBGT index as well as the relationship between WBGT and physiological indicators.
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Material and Method: The present study was conducted in 40 brick-manufacturing units in Qom city. WBGT measurements were performed according to ISO7243 standard. Physiological responses of 184 workers (up to 5 people per unit) and also atmospheric parameters were measured. The physiological responses included oral temperature, skin temperature, and temperature for the carotid artery of the ear, heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 16.
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Result: Mean WBGT index for various brick-manufacturing jobs including firing, manual material handling, working with conveyors, molding, and tempering were 30.8 °C, 26.74 °C 26.58 °C and 24.25 °C, respectively and the average WBGT was estimated 27.98 °C. WBGT levels measured in all units exceeded the level provided in ISO7243 standard. The highest mean WBGT was belonged to kiln section (30.8 °C). The mean WBGT at three heights of head, abdomen and legs were not statistically different (using t-test). The correlation coefficients between mean WBGT and mean oral, skin and ears temperatures were 0.203, 0.319, and 0.490, respectively, with the highest correlation belonged to the carotid arteries of ears. Moreover, WBGT showed no significant association with the mean heart rate, systolic, and diastolic blood pressure (P-value>0.05). Indoor and outdoor WBGT index was significantly different (P-value<0.05).

Conclusion: The level of heat stress in all brick-manufacturing units was higher than the recommended limits, and the workers in kiln unit were more exposed to heat stress, in comparison with other units. Therefore, special countermeasures should be adopted to control heat stress for this occupational group.

Quantitative Assessment of Resilience in the operatives unitsof National Iranian Drilling Company (regional study: Khuzestan)

I. Mohammadfam

Introduction: Resilience engineering is a new approach in safety science. Its goal is to maintain organizational capacity in an acceptable level to help system in managing the crisis. Indeed, resilience engineering rely on systems abilities instead of weaknesses, and try to find indicators that help the system durability.

Material and Method: In this study,first, 6 resilience engineering factors were chosen and sent toexperts in the form of paired comparison sheets. On the other hand, a valid standard questionnaire distributed among drilling rigs operational workers for measuring the NIDC resilience level. Finally,the priority of corrective actionswas determinedaccording to the score of the two analyzedquestionnaires.

Results: The results of resilience engineering factors weighting showed that the management commitment has the highest value andthe second place belonged to the correct culture. The indicators’scores,based on the distributed questionnaires among workers, showed that all of the six factors had similar scoreswhich can be evaluated as fairly good. Finally, the results of prioritization of indicators ofresilience engineering, basedon the combination ofthe questionnaire and experts opinions showed that management commitment is the most effective resilience factor in the organization. .

Conclusion: Management commitment and the current culture are the most importantcontributing factorsin company resilience level. Experienced workforce was the best strengthof the company and the effect of financial issues on resilience and safety was the biggest problem ahead.

Fire and explosion risk assessment in a process unit using Dow’s Fire and Explosion Index

Z. S. Nezamodini

Introduction: In the process industries, especially industries with hydrocarbons uses, due to flammability and reactivity of materials, high temperature, operation pressure, volatility and evaporability of liquid, fire and explosion hazard always has a great significances.The purpose of this study was to assess the quantitative fire safety using DOW’s fire and explosion index, in an oil extraction industry.

Material and Method: The required information for conducting this research was obtained from process documents, DOW’s fire and explosion guideline,the measured operational parameters and also interviews and consultation with the supervisors and experts. Following, the study was conducted in three phases: 1) determination of DOW index, the radius and area of contact, 2) determination of loss control credit factor and finally 3) loss estimation.

Result: Fire and explosion index in the understudy process unit was calculated 243.68 and thus severity of risk was extremely high and unacceptable. Radius of exposure and loss control credit factor wasobtained62.38 meters and 0.69, respectively. Finally,the most probable loss was estimated about 2863500 dollars.

Conclusion: DOW’s fire and explosion index is a suitable technique to measure the fire risk of whole plant or a part of it. Thus, this criterion can be used to propose the changes or amount of protective equipment according to their effect in reducing the losses.

A study of MORT logical tree and Tripod Beta methods in event occurrence causality analysis using hierarchical model

M. H. Taghdisi

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to compare MORT and Tripod Beta methods, using a hierarchical model, in order to choose the best technique to analyze an event in an organization.

Material and Method: In this study, a critical event was selected and the causes of the event were identified, employing MORT and Tripod Beta capabilities. Following the identification of the event causes, the aforementioned techniques were weighted and compared considering selected criteria and AHP hierarchical method.

Result: Relative weights of the selected criteria were calculated. The ability to identify the event causes with the weight of 0.315 had the greatest weight. The event analysis cost (0.24), required time to analyze the event (0.146), technical experts (0.125), training for implementation (0.24), and availability of the analytical software (0.07) had obtained the subsequent weights, respectively.

Conclusion: Analytic hierarchy process is an efficient and practical method to prioritize the choices considering the study objectives and criteria. As scientific method, Analytic hierarchy process helps the experts in decision-making. Considering the selected criteria, findings in this study showed that Tripod Beta technique (with a weight of 0.563) is superior to MORT technique (with a weight of 0.437).

Evaluation of safety management in an Appliances manufacturing company

L. Heidari

Introduction: Prevention of accidents and work related diseases, are not allowed regardless of the safety of employees, customers, contractors and other persons. Assessment of individual safety management activities could reduce many losses. Present study aimed to evaluate the safety management of a household appliance manufacturing company.

Material and Method: This study has done in a household appliance manufacturing company in Damavand city. Two questionnaires were firstly designed based on the weighted scores. The questionnaire 1 consisted of 4 indicators: Safety of machinery, Electrical safety, Risk assessment and Fire safety. Questionnaire 2 consisted of 11 sub indicators. Both questionnaires were completed by 30 HSE experts and supervisors. Reliability of questionnaires was based on cronbachs alpha coefficient. the safety status of each unit was determined and scored using information acquired by the questionnaires. Lastly, the safety of the entire company was determined.

Result: Results showed that in safety management: the pressing and store house were in a good range of 66.66 and 60.12 points. Powder painting, enameling, laboratory were in a average range of 56.25, 55.92 and 54.15 points. Assembling and door storage were in a week range of 46.06 points.

Conclusion: The findings showed that the safety status in the studied appliances company is in average range with 55.45 points. Therefore, it is recommended that the safety indicators should be improved for the betterment of the safety management in the company.

Safety culture assessment and its relationship with the accidents in a dam construction project

E. Darvishi

Introduction: Safety culture is considered as the core of an organization’s safety management system. Safety culture is an organization ability to achieve higher standards of safety. The aim of this study was to investigate safety culture and its influencing factors and relation to the accident in a dam construction project.

Material and Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 130 workers at a dam construction project. A standardized questionnaire included 59 questions was used to determine the level of safety culture. The accidents occurred in the project during the year were collected based on demographic characteristics. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 19.

Result: The mean age of the subjects, their work experience and score of safety culture were 35.05, 7.5 Years and 183.2, respectively. Twenty seven accidents were recorded during the year in project. The most common cause of the accidents was indiscretions (33.3%). There was a statistically significant correlation between safety culture to occurred accidents and history of accident (P<0.05). The percentage of a positive safety culture of workers with an experience of accident (71.8%) was more than that of those with no experience of accident (45.1%). There was not a statistically significant correlation between safety culture and age, work experience, education, and marital status.

Conclusion: It seems that safety culture on the project is influenced by the experience of accident and also it was strongly significant with the occurred accidents. Consequently, in order to create a positive safety culture in the workplace many factors including safety education program, work experience and accidents analysis should be considered.

The effect of employees’ management commitment to safety and consciousness on unsafe performance: The mediating role of safety self-efficacy

T. Rahimi Pordanjani

Introduction: The present study aimed to test a model of the relationship between management commitment to safety and consciousness with unsafe performance,considering the mediating role of safety self-efficacy.

Material and Method: Research design was the correlation throughStructural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the sampleconsisted of 265 employees of an industrialcompany who were selected by stratifiedrandom sampling method. Participants of this study completedsafety climatescale, short form of NEO personality questionnaire,safety self-efficacy scale, and unsafe performance questionnaire.Reliability and validity of the questionnaires were reported as acceptable. Evaluation of the proposed model was done by SEM through AMOS-21and SPSS-19 software packages. In addition, Preacher and Hayes’ SPSS Macro program was used for testing the mediating role.

Result: The results showed that the proposedmodel fit the data properly.Management commitment to safety and consciousness had direct effect on unsafe performance and safety self-efficacy.Moreover, the mediating effect of safety self-efficacy in the relationship between management commitment to safety and consciousness with unsafe performancewas confirmed.

Conclusion: Overall, organizations canreduce unsafe performance and consequently occupational accidentsby increasing the management commitment to safety and employees’ consciousness and also training of employees and supervisors to reinforce their safety self-efficacy.