• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.52-56
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• 2011

Objectives: The occupational accident rate was officially reported to be 0.77 per 100 workers in 2001 and 0.70 in 2009. The stagnant decrease in accident rate raises a question about the effectiveness of prevention activity because there have been active prevention efforts in the past 10 years. It is also necessary to know the exact status of occupational injuries to direct a prevention strategy. Methods: The author re-analyzed occupational injury statistics to find the reason for stagnant decreases in occupational injuries. Compensated occupational injuries cases were used to calculate fatal and non-fatal injury rates. Injuries from commuting accidents and sports activities were excluded as well as occupational diseases. The number of workers was adjusted to that of full time equivalent employees. Results: The fatal injury rate excluding injuries associated with commuting accidents, sports activities, and occupational diseases decreased from 12.59 in 2001 to 8.20 in 2009. In 2007, 67.5% of accidents that involved being caught in objects, which are mostly caused by machines and equipment, occurred in the manufacturing industry; this type of incident has decreased since 2001. The fatal and non-fatal injury rates in the manufacturing industry have continuously decreased while the rates in the service industry have not changed from 2001 to 2009. Non-fatal injuries might not be reported in many cases. The number of insured workers was underestimated as long working hours were not adjusted for in the reporting system. Conclusion: The occupational fatal injury rate has decreased and the non-fatal injury rate might have decreased during the last 10 years, although the statistics show stagnancy. The decrease of the injury rate was countervailed by various factors. Hence, the current accident rate does not reflect the actual situation of accidents in Korea. Korea needs to develop an improved system to more accurately calculate occupational fatal and non-fatal injury rates.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.131-153
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to identify the accidents happened in the college dental laboratory technique classes and to realize the level of safety education for the dental laboratory technique major students. The research data were collected from a self-administered survey distributed to the conveniently selected college students whose majors were dental laboratory technology in Suwon, Daejeon, Daegu, Kimcheon, and Icsan. The study participants were 422 freshmen, sophomore and junior students in the selected cities. All collected survey responses were encoded and analyzed in SPSS 12.0. The findings were as follows. 1. The students who had any accidents in their laboratory classes were 36% and the other 64% answered 'no.' 2. Most injuries which the participants had were not significant. 3. The medical treatment periods of most injury cases were less than one week; however, approximately 20% of the self-reported injury cases reported that their treatment periods were longer than one week. 4. The body parts frequently injured from accidents were hands with 84.7% and arms, eyes, face, head, and legs in order. 5. Concerning the materials involved in the laboratory classes, most accidents happened when working with wax in 59.9%, with plaster in 52.3%, with wire in 39.8%, with alcohol in 34.6%, and casting iron in 22.2% in order. 6. The accident-prone laboratory methods were polishing with 53.5%, pickling or sanding with 17.4%, and casting or burning with 5.8% in order. 7. Most students wore their laboratory gowns well; however, few students wore mask before dust-involved jobs. Furthermore, only 57.1% students answered their laboratory fans worked during the polishing job. 8. Approximately 54% participant students answered that they took laboratory safety education when necessary only from the class instructors. 9. The 76.1% students responded that they needed laboratory safety education at least 1-2 times every semester. 10. The survey participants answered that the primary factors for injury prevention in their laboratory were taking safety education, wearing safety equipments, and providing safety-focused facilities. Concludingly, comprehensive evaluation and monitoring for potential risk factors from both the human side and the environment side should be continually provided to minimize the college laboratory accidents.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.56-67
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• 2018

With the introduction of the maritime safety supervisor system in Korea following the passenger vessel Sewol accident, the safety control system for coastal vessels has been reinforced. A maritime safety supervisor performs marine accident prevention activities by offering periodical or occasional guidance and supervision. When a deficiency is found during guidance or supervision sessions, an order for improvement is issued to rectify the problem by such measures as supplementation or replacement of vessel facilities, improvement of work hours and working conditions for employees, educational and training programs for executives and employees, or the improvement of other affairs relating to maritime safety control. However the present order for navigation suspension by a maritime safety supervisor is limited solely to supplementation or replacement. For this reason, orders for navigation suspension against other facilities is impossible, even if a serious deficiency that could lead to a marine accident such as poor cargo loading conditions or unqualified crew is identified. Therefore, the order for vessel navigation suspension to secure seaworthiness should be expanded to include cargo loading/unloading operations, certificates and documentation, maritime safety management systems, and human elements including emergency drills and working conditions, in addition to the supplementation or replacement of vessel facilities that exists.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.133-142
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence safety rule violation at work. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 337 participants from nine manufacturing plants. The results of the content analysis revealed the following six categories: Individual characteristics, safety commitment, safety support and resources, safety competence and communication, production pressure, and problems with rules. Among the 14 factors in the six categories above, indirect accident experience in the individual characteristics category and no action for complying with laws in the problems with rules category had not been identified in previous studies. However, some factors, such as age, peer pressure, pay type, the lowering of risk, a masculine way of working, and supervisor position were not found in this study. The implications and limitations are discussed.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05a
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• pp.837-842
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• 2007

Since construction materials have been towards larger and heavier, the rate of accident associated with installation works of heavy construction materials is increasing. Installation works of heavy construction materials lead to frequent accidents, increasing the WMSDs(Work-Related Musculo-Skeletal Disorders) in construction site. In case of installation work of heavy glass ceiling, the rate of accidents such as falling and collision is increasing as well. This paper describes a ergonomic design of working platform(deck) in a glass ceiling installation robot. As well as, a design of working process is considered to accomplish an efficient installation work. As a result of the design, an installation work of heavy glass ceiling by the robot will be expected safety assurance and retrenchment of the construction cost and period.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.757-763
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• 2023

Major industrial accidents in which workers die due to fires or explosions while working at chemical substance handling workplaces continue to occur. Among the major industrial accidents that occurred between 2005 and 2021, the accident status by work situation and equipment was analyzed. Through analysis, it was confirmed that storage, reaction, and piping facilities were the main causes of the accident, and a self-checklist for each facility was developed. Verification was conducted through the supply and use groups to evaluate the suitability of the use, duties, and items of the self-checklist. The user group showed higher satisfaction than the supplier group for all three suitability of use, job, and item. In particular, since the inspection items of the self-checklist were organized around the cause of the accident derived through the analysis of actual accident cases, the satisfaction level was high in all groups. It is expected that the self-checklist developed through this study will be useful not only for large companies but also for small and medium-sized chemical industries that lack professional manpower.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.91-99
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• 2014

This study highlights the theme of human error of train drivers, conducting empirical analysis on the relationship between organizational culture, safety climates, safety behavior, and accident. The empirical test results based on questionnaires received from 223 train drivers working at A subway firm indicated that relationship conflict and psychological reward as the elements of organizational culture variables showed a significant positive effect on CEO philosophy, communication, and boss's leadership. And only boss's leadership showed a positive influence on safety behavior, which in turn showed a significant negative relationship with accidents.

• Korean Journal of Occupational Health Nursing
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.39-46
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• 2014

Purpose: This study analyzed the relationship between working hours and the occurrence of industrial disasters based on manufacturing businesses that are members of Federation of Korean Trade Unions.Methods: Repliers were managers of the safety & health department in the union, and 215 surveys out of 300 businesses that agreed to participate in the research were analyzed. Results: 94 out of 300 companies, which counted for 43.7%, replied to have experienced industrial disasters. 56 of those (59.6%) had less than 52 working hours per week, and 38 companies (40.4%) had more than 52 working hours per week. 109 companies, which counted for 50.7%, did not have an incident of industrial disaster. Companies with an average of more than 52 hours of working hours per week were shown to have a 2.29 times (95% CI 1.08~4.87) higher possibility of having industrial disasters than those with less than 52 hours of working hours. Conclusion: As the study showed that industrial disasters were more likely to occur in businesses with working hours longer than 52 hours, ways to reduce working hours need to be developed and various safety measures need to be taken to prevent industrial disasters in case workers are undergoing long working hours.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.160-165
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• 2012

The process of panel line in the shipyard produce the panel of outside planking which is located the side and bottom of a ship. The stiffeners or plates are welded onto the plates in this process. In this study, the panel line was performed to work process analysis and was analyzed into the IDEF0(Integration Definition) model that is functional modeling methodology. Also the panel line was analyzed to find out the risk factor and expected accident/safety guide from each process. And then this outputs were applied to the IDEF0 model. The mobile application which is designed by ooCBD(Object-oriented Component Based Development) method is able to use the output data of the process analysis in the panel line. This mobile application could be used by employees and safety managers without regard for working location and time.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.45-54
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• 2014

The average injury rate in sawmilling industry for the last 5 years is 4.99%, which means that more than 200 injuries have occurred in that industry every year. Because the first step in risk assessment is the hazard identification, it is very important to know how to define the hazard and nature of harm. We analyzed 643 accident records of three years(2010-2012) and carried out site survey for the same cases. As a result, the most common types of work at the time of injury in sawmilling industry were removing jammed wood 81(12.8%), wood carrying task 52(8.1%), wood cutting 49(7.6%), travelling table log band saw 41(6.4%), maintenance 37(5.8%) etc. In addition, there were statistically significant differences in some analysis factors such as injured body parts, employment size, and handling material among different working places. Therefore, it is concluded that differentiated prevention efforts are necessary in each workplace.