Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors

The Human-System Interaction (HSI) approach focuses on analysis, design, and evaluation of work systems for humans to interact with technical systems ergonomically designed for human use. An initial framework is developed for human factors and ergonomics (HFE) design requirements with regard to occupational safety and health (OSH). The framework refers to concept, criteria and intended user populations in work systems design. Some future work systems in industry 4.0 and cyber-physical systems call for emphasising human information processing with interchange of information variable and dynamic in quantity, quality and time. Taking into account new solutions and challenges in digital manufacturing, selected requirements, explanations, examples and references should inform manufacturers and health and safety experts at the shop floor level about HFE and OSH. Information presented at an internet platform, should assist in how to integrate these factors into construction of machinery or other technical installations, in workplace, equipment and software design and for practical use in HSI.

Social epidemiology “is a branch of epidemiology that focuses particularly on the effects of social-structural factors on states of health. Social epidemiology assumes that the distribution of advantages and disadvantages in a society reflects the distribution of health and disease. It proposes to identify societal characteristics that affect the pattern of disease and health distribution in a society and to understand its mechanisms” [1]. Social epidemiology studies the factors that affect the susceptibility of a population to disease. The authors of this paper believe that there are strong parallels between the susceptibility of populations to disease and the susceptibility of organizations to the occurrence and distribution of accidents. This paper will discuss some of those parallels and possible approaches to understanding and reducing an organization’s susceptibility to accidents.

A study was conducted in an automotive industry in order to analyse the impact of the ergonomic measures in the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) of the Company. The KPI selected was the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) used to estimate productivity and measured by availability, performance and quality. Due to dimension of this company an Ergonomic Workplace analysis was conducted comprising a generalist ergonomic study allowing the identification of the workstation that presented the worst ergonomic situation. After, specific ergonomic evaluation methods were applied identifying the tasks that compromised workers’ health. A list of measures to improve working conditions was proposed and implemented. In about a week, there was a 5% increase in performance and 91.7% of the ergonomic aspects previously evaluated by the workers improved, highlighting the overall satisfaction. General results showed that the implementation of the ergonomic measures contributed to improve company’s OEE. This research will contribute to raise awareness to the importance of the ergonomic aspects when designing and organizing workplaces in order to contribute to the economic and social objectives of the organization.

The frequent changes in the cultural, technological, social and environmental aspects of our society demonstrate the need for better crisis management and process safety. This improvement is not limited to industrial facilities, but should be extended to all organizations involved in crisis management. Knowing and understanding what actions to take during a disaster facilitates integrated management, which is crucial for successful operations. Prioritizing actions becomes challenging when multiple events occur. The time for action is short, requiring efficient communication between the parties involved and nimble decision making. This paper discusses a case study of the identification and analysis of human error during a disaster simulation and understanding the risks related to human decisions and actions in crisis management. Thus, the object of study is to evaluate the perception, decision, memory, competence, communication, emotional balance of the team and leader, in the treatment of emergency actions and contingency in disasters.

Reiterating the importance of having a human factor related safety reporting system for aviation maintenance to reduce human error and utilizing it to gain SMS compliance, the REPAIRER method of identifying and reporting human factors hazards in aviation maintenance is reintroduced. How and why the REPAIRER method system is of such importance in the implementation of aviation maintenance safety programs can be linked to the success and evolution of maintenance resource management and human factors programs which have been effective in reducing human error in aviation maintenance. These programs are rooted in effective communication methods, as well as the identification of human factor elements. To illustrate this point, the successes of maintenance resource management are discussed. Additionally, the incredible strides that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has taken to propel a human factors-centered safety program in aviation maintenance are brought to light with the FAA’s latest transition of MRM (Maintenance Resource Management) to MxHF (Maintenance Human Factors). This newly appointed program, which replaced a decades old FAA MRM program, highlights the significant changes in MRM, notably the emphasis on human factors. Given the significant shift from MRM to MxHF, the authors explore the implementation of the REPAIRER aviation maintenance reporting system under the new guidelines and demonstrate how it could fulfill many of the desired outcomes of both programs, while still gaining SMS compliance.

As a result of the identified safety threats in the construction, the research project have been developed in Poland entitled Scaffold Use Risk Assessment Model for Construction Process Safety SURAM—financed by National Centre for Research and Development –NCBIR- PBS3/A2/19/2015 in the period 2016–2018. This paper is focusing on human factor area and implementation of SMIs’ mobile Eye-tracker and further data analyzed by Be Gaze tool, also provided by SMI company to estimate worker visual concentration as an potential predictor of probability of developing dangerous situation leading to the occupational accident.

This work presents a novel method for the improvement of safety and health in ports. Traditional and consolidated approaches to this goal are based on questionnaires and training activities that Local Health Authorities and the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents offer to the personnel of the companies that work in the port. We propose to complement this method by means of quantitative and pervasive measuring of risks related to safety and health. For the former, we propose a system that measures the collision risk in relevant areas of the port by means of cameras. For the latter, workers wear inertial measurement units and EMG electrodes to estimate the biomechanical overload. The results of these three actions are then merged and presented to the selected companies to make corrective actions, in order to reduce the safety and health risks for the port workers.

In the last decade, a significant increase of robotic solutions’ implementation has been verified across several industrial contexts, including the furniture manufacturing industries. The current study aimed at assessing the risks within different workstations with human-robots interfacing at a large furniture manufacturing company. With this purpose, a questionnaire to collect the workers’ perceptions about risks was developed. For each workstation, the William Fine method was applied, in order to estimate the risk levels and to define the priority of intervention measures. The preliminary results demonstrate that even though some preventive measures are already implemented, the workers are still exposed to different risks (e.g. falls in height). Therefore, several preventive measures should be considered. The current study was also important to the design and implementation of a risk assessment methodology with the workers’ active participation, and the results can be a reference for studies focused on risk assessment in other companies.

BACKGROUND: In many developing countries, date palm farmers are still working in the cultivation of date palm trees using traditional tools such as the use of the belt to aid them in climbing and carrying out work on the date palm safely. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to: 1. Evaluate the current designs of the work belt. 2. Investigate how farmers feel about the newly designed belt. METHODS: The descriptive method is used.RESULTS: For the first research objective, there are many types of belts, but they share two things: the wide strap and the rope. For the second, the majority of farmers believe the new belt is more comfortable, safer and stronger than the previous belts.CONCLUSIONS: It is useful for farmers to gradually abandon the old belt and start using the newly designed belt.

This research subject is focused on the development of Low-Cost Assistive Technology, in Additive Manufacturing, for people with physical disabilities, aiming to improve the safety and health conditions at work. The objective of the study was to analyze assistive material for work activities and orthoses developed by the Group of Addictive and Tooling Manufacturing - NUFER. The possibility of implanting an Additive Manufacturing Laboratory is also evaluated, establishing a partnership between the Federal Technological University of Paraná and civil society, aiming to include people with disabilities in the work environment. This study is performed in the applied research field and it has as product creation methodology the proposal of NUFER of UTFPR - Brazil. The data indicates the social relevance of such a project, since it helps to promote inclusion in the work environment, providing more safety, health and productivity.

This study explored the knowledge of informal auto-mechanics welders on personal protective equipment (PPE) usage, and their levels of occupational hazards awareness associated with the welding activity. Guided by OSHA’s 2014 Hazards Assessment Checklist, and interviews, data was collected from three auto-mechanic shops engaged in welding activities in Volta Region of Ghana. Based on the analysis, it is established that the informal auto-mechanic welders generally lack knowledge on significant PPE requirement associated with the welding activities. they also lack awareness of occupational hazards associated with physical elements of the welding activities, even though they showed semblance of awareness in relation to others that are chemical-oriented. It is concluded that though the informal auto-mechanics engaged in welding activities have the requisite expertise and skills to perform their tasks, their knowledge of PPE usage and their awareness levels of occupational hazards associated with the welding activities seemed to be generally constrained.

In developing countries like Nigeria, it is generally reported that confined space accidents and injuries are still prevalent in the industries, which could be due to several factors including-poor efficiency at managing confined space work activities and enforcing required legislation/standards following safe work practice. A case study research was carried out using both exploratory designs for a quantitative approach, and explanatory design for qualitative approach bring the approach to a mixed method choice for evaluation using Confine Space Regulation, 1997, Questionnaire and Observation as an instrument for data collection for analyses.Summary of findings are; Safe Working Procedure Reviewed before the start of work, Poor Use of Communication Methods, Poor Supervision, Failure to Use Personal Protective Equipment, Ignoring Safe Work Practice. Recommendations were made for the improvement of organisations system to enhance a safe process following best practice guidance; with the aim of reducing the level of accidents and fatalities to workers working within a confined space.

The radiological units in Bogotá-Colombia present working conditions that put physical and mental health at risk.Exposure to ionizing radiation in low doses and dysfunctional work environments generate environments of high physical and psychological toxicity.The study carried out an analysis of work and health conditions for an approximation to the work reality. Determination of disrupters and psychosocial predictors for promotion and prevention programs. Study carried out in 20 radiological units with 229 employees and sample of 220. Signature of informed consent. Use of Instrument Battery for the Evaluation of Psychosocial Risk Factors. Levels of reliability in the questionnaires; intra-labor of 0.957 and stress 0.83.Main psychosocial toxic risk and precursor “imaginary of safety at work” in 95%. Disruptors, low salary level and no risk training. Protective factor the relationship with your family.

Nowadays kinds of research about safety of industrial system greatly improved the knowledge about this field. After 10 years’ research and experience about safety and investigation the related research in recent decades, the author found safety discipline worldwide mainly consists of three parts: safety system theory, safety methodology and the relationship between safety and other factors. All of them were studied deeply in its own area.However, some further problems need to be answered about this topic. For a company or organization, how safe is the safety system and is it safe enough? How much of our safety system we can see? How to balance safety and other factors as we know there won’t be definitely safe situation while we still should keep the whole thing safe enough? Is it possible to connect different theories in a simple way? The paper aimed to find a way to integrate achievements in this field and presented a new method to solve the problems mentioned above.At first, the theory clarified identification and the important figuration of safety. In mainstream works, Safety has different identification. The theory agreed that safety is the state and confidence without unexpected losses, not mentioned the cases with intent to do harm. The safety is a subjective concept but also can be quantitative in a sense. As an inter-discipline, the safety is born to rely on some other profession. That is why most of safety research has a specific background. These are premises of the theory.Secondly, the theory summarized main factors to indicate the important value of industry safety: safety redundancy. The value of safety redundancy can be calculated and insisted a group of equations. These equalized factors in mathematics constitute main bridges between diverse safety areas. The paper demonstrated and verified the rationality of equations furthermore.At last, the theory took electric power industry as examples to introduce these equations making the systems united and how to organize our safety management via united systems. Electric power industry is one of the most complex systems in the world. This system offers interrupt power supply, it’s too crucial to tolerance even power off for a little while. The fatal factor in this field is the safety and stability of the electric power grid. The industry includes design, plan, construction, maintenance, repairing, upgrading and so on, which placed to strict desire to numerous engineers in the industry. Not only they should assure the grid and the devices are under control, but also, they should keep safe when working in the field. So the application in electric power system also may benefit to other kinds of industry.

Safety culture remains an elusive concept, not only for scholars and practitioners but for the workers who actually have to deal with safety on a daily basis as well. The metaphor of football provides particular working groups a medium to explore the meaning of safety culture by drawing parallels with team roles, changing working conditions, the importance of production vs. safety and the creation of safety therein. Being a familiar team sport in many countries, the football metaphor can also function as a communication device within work teams to facilitate and promote a shared understanding of work and safety.

The establishment of a construction safety culture index is of specific significance as it offers an objective measurement of the status of safety culture on construction projects. Considering the dynamics and complexities in the construction industry, the safety culture on a project may differ from other projects. This paper formulates a safety culture index to quantify the level of safety culture on construction projects in developing countries using the fuzzy synthetic approach (fuzzy set theory). The safety culture index consists of six safety culture categories; these include management commitment, accountability, worker involvement, supervisory leadership, communication, safety education and training. Professionals in developing countries can use the safety culture index to objectively determine the status of safety culture in a more practical way. In addition, application of the safety culture index would be useful to efficiently and factually compare the relative safety culture levels of different projects for benchmarking purposes.

Safety climate is an important construct for determining construction safety. This study aims to examine the validity and reliability of a safety climate scale on the basis of its aggregate-level data characteristics, with the use of 5-, 7-, and 10-point Likert-type scales, and to investigate the influence of the number of response categories on the validity and reliability of a safety climate scale. A total of 104 construction workers participated in this study. Results showed that the mean, variance, and internal consistency reliability of the 5-, 7-, and 10-point Likert-type scales had no considerable difference. Among the three scales, the responses for the 7-point Likert scale tended to be normally distributed. Therefore, this study provides theoretical contributions to the literature on construction industry safety climate and suggests the use of the 7-point Likert scale in measuring safety climate in the construction industry.

Over the last 30 years, the rise in studies relating to safety behaviour in the construction industry demonstrates its importance to construction safety management. In improving safety behaviour, safety climate has been used to mould the perceptions workers form about their organisations. However, recent findings suggest that there is a lack of a comprehensive and well-accepted safety climate model to fully capture a true picture of safety behaviour. This sparks the need for further novel schemes and resolutions. This paper proposes a conceptual model by integrating human safety intervention to play a mediating role between group safety climate and workers safety behaviours. The conceptual model was developed based on the organisational climate and behavioural safety theories. The model could serve as the theoretical basis to provide a better understanding of workers safety behaviours. This insight will assist construction organisations to strategically focus their efforts to ensure the success of safety.

Several atmospheric hazards exist in confined spaces in several industries such as chemical, construction, transportation, municipal and agricultural sectors of the numerous potential hazards present in such confined spaces. This study will seek to identify gaps in the working procedures, attempt to explore answers on why accidents still occur in confined space work despite measures and standards put in place to ensure the safety of the work environment. The study aims to investigate the management of atmospheric hazards in confined space work, to ensure the safety of workers in the industry located in Nigeria.Results revealed that despite having knowledge of, and experiences in confined space work, poor testing procedure and improper monitoring, lack of adequate provision of confined space equipment during work activity, lack of adequate compliance is an issue of grave concern which answered the research question of why accidents still frequently occur in confined space work.

Smartphones remain one of primary devices of choice for communication for many people. For children ages 10–12 this is especially true. These devices are used daily and for some multiple hours each day. As more applications are made available, it becomes increasingly difficult for children to minimize their screen time. This study aims to assess whether there are differences in what parents believe about smartphone use and what the child reported. Thirty-two children, ages 10–12, and one parent per child completed a questionnaire regarding smartphone use. Findings show parents are unaware of the total hours of use and the impact of smartphones on the health of children. Such information is important as screen time is not limited to home but is also increasingly expanding in the classroom. As well, the age of first time users continues to decrease.

Construction industry is one of the top dangerous industry in Malaysia because there is a high risk of accident occurrence. Amongst of the accidents happen in the construction site, the workers are likely to exposed to the accidents such as fall from height. Although Malaysian government has taken a lot of effort to reduce the number of accidents by legislations, but the construction-related accidents are still at high number especially working at height. Due to concern of this problem, a working at height management system is developed to help the construction especially small medium enterprise contractors to help them to manage the compliance of legal requirements FMA 1976 and OSHA 1994. The legal requirement taken from these two legislations for working at height activity only. The validity of the working at height management system, real case study was used by using a building construction project and interview was conducted with a safety practitioner to validate the working at height legal requirements. As a result, the working at height legal requirements and the prototype were used by a safety practitioner from construction industry to cross-check for compliance and to validate them as well. The developed working at height management system is proven systematically help the end users to store their documentations and check compliance with working at height legal requirements from their inspection checklists. The implementation of this system can contribute to the awareness of complying with the regulations and enhance their safety and health practices.

The practices of risk management (RM) process are generally considered foundational and are commonly used for occupational health and safety (OSH) management at workplaces. However, some estimates propose that recent efforts to improve OSH have not had the desired effects. Previous research has recognized problems in the OSH-related RM in the workplace. A better understanding of how workplaces realize OSH-related RM is needed. This study examines the implementation of OSH-related RM based on the case studies of four companies. Interviews (n = 46) with personnel involved in RM, document analyses related to RM, and observations of risk assessments were carried out. The results show that the RM guidelines are mainly strictly applied. Nevertheless, the practices are also tailored. The elements of risk assessment are emphasized. More importance should be given to the risk treatment, monitoring, and review elements of the RM process to understand whether the planned controls are effective and efficient.

It is well established that workers being exposed to physical agents, such as vibration, noise and temperature can cause them different pathologies, such as musculoskeletal disorders, vascular and neurological problems, hearing loss, etc.In this regard, there are many productive sectors in which workers are exposed to such physical agents, among them is the olive sector, mainly during the process of hand harvest of olives. In Spain, the number of workers employed in this sector is quite high, since one third of all the olive oil world production is generated there and particularly the region of Andalusia (South Spain) is the world’s leading producer of olive oil. This paper presents the first phases of a study on the characterization of the physical agents to which the olive harvest Andalusian workers are exposed. In this study the exposure during the process of olive harvesting by hand-held machinery is analyzed.

This paper aimed to assess the risks related to upper limbs repetitive movements in work tasks in a poultry slaughterhouse. The study was carried out in a poultry abattoir in which 180,000 chickens were slaughtered daily, with 2,000 workers distributed in three shifts. To evaluate the risks related to upper limbs repetitive movements, 10% of the workers were evaluated using the OCRA checklist. The workers performed 79.8 ± 21.7 technical actions per minute (10 points on the OCRA checklist). The overall mean OCRA checklist score was 18.9 ± 4.2 (medium risk). The right upper limb score (18.5 ± 4.5 - medium risk) was not significantly different (p = 0.128) from the left upper limb (17.8 ± 4.5 - medium risk). Among the 35 tasks analyzed, two were classified as high risk (6%) and 33 presented medium risk (94%).

The pedestrian overpasses in Metro Manila, Philippines are often taken by commuters especially during rush hours to go to places. However, concerns about design, safety, and security of these overpasses are being raised. These problems become more prevalent at night because of the poor lighting conditions experienced in these overpasses. For these reasons, it was necessary to address the concerns of the pedestrians, to come up with an appropriate lighting standard, and to make design recommendations. Adequate lighting in pedestrian facilities are important for they give a sense of safety and security to the people traversing them. Moreover, good visibility prevents accidents in these areas especially at night. The Philippines, particularly Metro Manila, is not the safest place to experience commuting for various crimes related to theft and robbery are not uncommon. Moreover, pedestrian facilities such as pedestrian overpasses are deemed to have poor lighting at night - making these places unsafe to the eyes of the commuters.To address these issues, surveys regarding their perception and lighting preferences were gathered both online and on-site. The overpasses that were put into focus for the evaluation and data gathering for the on-site survey were three (3) of those in Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon City. These overpasses are frequented by commuters for they are surrounded by different establishments and institutions such as hospitals, churches, malls, and universities. From the data gathered, the results showed that these overpasses did not have proper lighting causing the commuters to lack visibility, security, and confidence.Within the parameters set by the researchers, a bulb with a luminous flux of 1,300 lx (measured 11 in. away from the light source) gave the best results in terms of security, visibility, and confidence. Moreover, even a relatively little increase in lighting intensity was acknowledged and felt by the commuters since these overpasses did not have any proper light source especially at the middle. Nonetheless, the need for lighting standardisation was addressed and possible steps for improvement of these vital facilities were recommended.

There is a growing concern on mining related safety and health issues and disabling accidents especially in areas still practicing compressor mining even if the law does not allow this type of mining activity. In areas where small-scale mining entities practice unregulated compressor mining, there is insufficient data on the number of deaths and accidents that occurred mainly attributed to under reporting. Compressor mining requires a diver staying inside the hole for at least four hours and depends only on a compressor for his supply of oxygen. The harvested mud with gold ores goes through sluicing and use of mercury to obtain gold. Findings from the assessment showed that the miners do not follow safety measures in mining. Likewise, miners lack the motivation to comply with safety standards mainly due to financial challenges as well as their attitude. The Government plays an important role in providing interventions needed to address these concerns.

The prevalence of personal sound equipment (i.e. earphones) are undeniable, due to the convenience it provides in certain conditions. However, in certain environments earphones could subject users to unintended consequences like hearing loss. In this experiment, the researchers sought to identify the effect of external noise level and the type of earphones on the perceived satisfactory volume level and sound quality of a user. These were assessed through a three-phase methodology namely; benchmarking, data collection, and data analysis. From a pool of 22 respondents, the results show that people do tend to increase their perceived satisfactory volume level depending on the noise level in the environment and on the type of earphones they were using.

Small-scale mining is one of the most unsafe human activities in the Philippines. This paper aims to measure the gap between the concept of safety among miners and the local government mining monitoring body. This study checked the difference in percentage of exposure of miners on hazards in mining sites based on their perception and the perception of officials of local government mining monitoring body specifically the Department of Environment and Natural Resources at the provincial (PENRO) and municipal (MENRO) levels and the local level disaster risk management (LLDRM). An assessment tool was developed and used in three mining sites. To compare their agreement on safety, the study used Cohen’s kappa, a statistical tool for assessing inter-rater reliability when observing categorical variables. There was a big difference in the knowledge of safety and safety standards for miners and monitoring officials.

This study aims to examine gender differences among engineering students in terms of risk-taking-related personality traits and risk perception. Thirteen scenarios based on actual fatality cases in the construction industry were used in the analysis. A total of 100 engineering undergraduates (male: 63, female: 37) were interviewed to identify their risk-taking-related personality traits and risk perception. Among ten personality traits, results show that being adventurous was the only personality trait positively correlated with risk-taking behaviour among female respondents. Two personality traits, namely, being adventurous and arrogant, were positively correlated with risk-taking behaviour among male respondents. The personality trait of calm was negatively correlated with risk-taking behaviour among male respondents. In terms of risk perception, females were slightly lower than males. These findings can be used as a reference for designing different safety training and awareness programs for male and female engineers and workers in the construction industry.

The main purpose of the article is to study the human factor in the technical systems and objects development, to develop a method of socio-economic design that ensures the safety of systems and objects and reduces the probability of accidents on them.The essence of the article lies in the fact that, according to the authors, the conditions for the safe operation of technical systems and objects should be created in the early stages of designing. At the same time, the safety function should be considered as the main function of the system/object being created, which determines their economic and structural characteristics. This position is proved in the article by analyzing the factors influencing the technical systems and objects creation. The proposed method of socio-economic design of technical systems and objects implies that determining their cost characteristics on the conceive step of their lifecycle is the most efficient if it is based on probabilistic approach. On the next steps of design process, such as concept design and detailed design, a designed construction’s price should be estimated basing on its informational (parametric) complexity indexes.

The issue of driving under the effect of alcohol is a matter of several studies in the field of road safety because today alcohol is widely diffused especially among very young people (age ranging between 18 and 25). Each year data provided by authorities are worrying, more than a third of the accidents registered in European countries are caused by alcohol. Italy is aligned with this trend; the ISS – National Institute of Health estimates that alcohol-related road accidents are equal to 30–35% of the total road accidents. Medical researches confirm that alcohol generates negative effects on driving, impairs the ability of perception, attention, processing and evaluation and it has negative effects on cognitive and motor skills. Therefore, the present research is developed in the field of a wider project research with the purpose to investigate and estimate the impact of alcohol on road safety to support awareness campaigns “Drink or Drive”. As demonstrated by findings of the previous study, alcohol has a significant impact on driving performances in terms of geometric, kinematic and dynamic measures. Trajectory, stopping and overtaking maneuvers were studied and a significant delay in reflexes, especially in stopping and overtaking maneuvers, that exposes drivers to high risk level, was calculated. In this research, the focus is on the drivers’ eye-movements that are recorded in the virtual reality driving experiment. To understand how much alcohol impairs attention and concentration in relation to the driving performances, these data are processed and two eye blinking measures (i.e. % blinking and blink rate) are analyzed A sample of 20 drivers were requested to drive the virtual reality-driving simulator situated in the LASS3 Virtual Reality Laboratory of University Research Centre for Road Safety. The route runs in extra-urban and urban areas, in order to study drivers’ behavior in different cases and subjecting drivers to different stimuli (i.e. pedestrian crossing, overtaking maneuver, sudden braking, etc.). The results are a comparison between the results of two conditions drunken and sober. Results show that alcohol affects attention and concentration increasing the absolute value of blinking and its rate. During the stopping and the overtaking maneuvers where driving measures show higher risk levels in drunkenness condition respect the to the sober one, eye measures show a reduction in blinking and frequency (in both conditions) on behalf of a more attention to the road.

The successful introduction of self-driving technology may depend on the ability of the vehicles’ human-machine interface to convey trust to the vehicle occupants. Using a driving simulator, in this experiment we aimed to evaluate drivers’ trust on an autonomous system, depending on the feedback the vehicle provided by an assistive cluster’s interface. Forty participants were divided into three groups regarding levels of feedback: (a) cluster without feedback (N = 13); (b) cluster with feedback regarding the surrounding vehicles (N = 14); (c) cluster with feedback regarding the surrounding vehicles and the vehicle’s own decisions (N = 13). For all groups, a visual search task was introduced as an indirect indicator of trust in the autonomous system. Results showed an inverse relation between available feedback and correct answers. The system was evaluated as trustable and safe by all groups. Overall, the results may contribute to design requirements for future vehicle HMIs, as they indicate that more information does not necessarily convey more trust.

The workplace has become a second home to many workers as they spend most of the day working in their various work environment while performing their job roles. It is therefore imperative as a duty of care for employers to ensure they provide a safe workplace for both employees and visitors. In the quest to provide safer working conditions, organizations have continually sort for strategies and successful models from other industries which they can emulate. This has led many organizations to study High Reliability Organizations as an incident prevention strategy. High reliability organizations (HROs) which include air traffic control, nuclear power generation stations and US Navy air carriers, are known to perform their operations in an uncertain and hazardous environment filled with the possibility of failing, and even when they fail they are able to recover quickly. HROs are known to perform nearly incident-free, with high safety and production performance. Research has shown that HROs are able to perform exceptionally well because of their cognitive mindset and collective mindfulness. Collective mindfulness is made up of five aspects present in all HRO which are; preoccupation with failure, reluctance to simplify, sensitivity to operations, commitment to resilience, and deference to expertise. This paper compares workplace incidents in Australia and the United States, using 2016–2018, incident data, extracted from WorkSafe Victoria, SafeWork New South Wales, Workplace Health and Safety Queensland, WorkSafe Western Australia, and the United States Department of Labour, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration websites. We identify falls and being struck by moving object or equipment as the leading cause of workplace accidents, while lack of supervision, non-compliance, training, and the absence of appropriate safety procedures were identified as contributing factors to most workplace accidents. The paper further proposes CM as an incident prevention strategy that can be integrated into organizational safety management systems to mitigate accidents and provide safer working environment.

The resilience engineering (RE) approach driven by Hollnagel, Woods and Leveson [1] focuses on the ability of organizations to cope with disturbances. The notion of “control of operations” is essential to the concept of resilience. Hollnagel [2, 3] proposes a regulatory model of the operational control function, broken down into four essential abilities: to anticipate, monitor, respond, and learn. Within the domain of occupational health and safety (OHS) management, the risk assessment method “DIARBENN” was developed through a French approach to contribute to the development of the four resilience abilities of an organization. This method places the analysis of operators’ activity at the center of the risk assessment process. The aim of this paper is to present the DIARBENN method as a tool that contributes to the development of organizational resilience in the context of OHS management.

Study objectives: The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effects caused by the sleep disorder in workers of service stations with rotating shift. Method: One hundred and two workers of Forty-five service stations of Valparaiso city participated in this study. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects prior to their participation, in the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to assess sleep. Results: From 102 participants, 52% were good sleepers. About 85% of the participants reported no history of sleep medication usage, almost 7% of the participants in this study report some degree of sleep problems. The mean sleep duration was 6.36 h and the mean score on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index was 6,05. Conclusion: The vast majority of the workers evaluated in rotating shifts present easy to sleep.

Since safety demands are an integral part of the process industry, process safety competence should be developed accordingly. When developing this competence during the vocational education and training (VET) of process operators, close collaboration between the students, VET providers, and workplaces is essential. The aim of this study was to examine the current needs regarding process safety education in the process industry with respect to VET. Interviews (n = 46) and a workshop were carried out with participating process industry, VET, and expert organizations. Competence requirements were categorized into (1) knowledge and skills, (2) values and attitudes, and (3) abilities and traits needed to achieve the required level of performance in the process industry. Developing these competencies can be helpful to VET organizations, as they enable students to adapt to workplaces’ process safety requirements. Moreover, the study results can be utilized in the development of the process safety competence of senior employees.

In Brazil, conventional construction sites processes prevail, where the workers develop outdoor activities and are exposed to environment variables, which, along with the personal variables – metabolic rate and clothing – may cause heat stress. This article evaluates the heat exposure that workers with outside activities on concrete slabs during the construction of buildings in the city of Campinas, state of São Paulo, in Southeastern Brazil. For the data collection, the analysis and exposure evaluation it was used the norms ISO 7243, ISO 8996, ISO 9920 and the Norma Regulamentadora Brasileira (NR5) that foresees the tolerated limits of heat exposure. It was analyzed the Wet Bulb Globe Thermometer Index (WBGT) along with the metabolic rate estimated of 40 exposed construction workers. The results show that, in every season of the year there is the necessity of heat exposure monitoring to avoid health damage to the construction workers’ health.