• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.131-140
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• 2012

Though there might exist not a few differences between cyclic works and atypical works, many researchers have applied the same assessment techniques that used for repetitive works, which may result introduce bias in their conclusions. This research aimed to verify whether there exist non-negligible work characteristics and/or dissimilarity among works with different work nature and whether one of the most prevalent assessment techniques for assessing ergonomic hazards of musculoskeletal disorders, REBA, can be applied to atypical works. For a general hospital, an automobile repair shop, and two auto-part assembly plants which manufactures quite different parts, a questionnaire survey and field investigation and ergonomic assessment were carried out and analyzed statistically with reference to the 3rd Quantification technique. The results showed that there exist remarkable difference between physical factors in cyclic works and atypical non-cyclic works. As for repetitive work, body posture was significant factors affecting on musculoskeletal disorders while atypical works seemed to have none which implied that the necessity of taking psychosocial factors into account for assessment of hazards. Complain rate in repetitive works was highest shoulder, back, and neck or wrist in sequence. However, there existed no consistent trend in complain rate in atypical works. And, though weight of manufacturing objects was a common factor that can partly explain musculoskeletal complain, time duration was significant in atypical work whereas repeatability and body posture were significant in repetitive works. As being the results, to summarize, it could be said that application of conventional ergonomic assessment techniques regardless of repetitiveness would be fruitless, and that the necessity of a unique methodology focused on atypical non-cyclic works should not be neglected.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.79-84
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• 2014

Human error is one of the major contributors to the accidents. A lot of risk assessment techniques have been developed for prevention of accidents. Nevertheless, most of them were interested in physical factors, because quantitative evaluation of human errors was difficult quantitatively. According to lack of risk assessment techniques about human errors, most of industrial risk assessment for human errors were based on data of accident analysis. In order to develop an effective countermeasure to reduce the risk caused by human errors, a systematic analysis is needed. Generally, risk assessment system is composed of 5 step(classification of work activity, identification of hazards, risk estimation, evaluation and improvement). This study aimed to develop a risk identification technique for human errors that could mainly be applied to industrial fields. In this study, Ergo-HAZOP and Comprehensive Human Error Analysis Technique were used for developing the risk identification technique. In the proposed risk identification technique, Ergo-HAZOP was used for broad-brush risk identification. More critical risks were analysed by Comprehensive Human Error Analysis Technique. In order to verify applicability, the proposed risk identification technique was applied to the work of pile head cutting. As a consequence, extensive hazards were identified and fundamental countermeasures were established. It is expected that much attention would be paid to prevent accidents by human error in industrial fields since safety personnel can easily fint out hazards of human factors if utilizing the proposed risk identification technique.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.156-165
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• 2024

Objectives: This study aims to identify and analyze the exposure status of welding students in specialized high school welding labratories, compare it with the exposure to welding hazards of industrial workers, and seek to improve the educational environment for youth through domestic and international exposure standards. Methods: This study compares the level of exposure to hazardous factors in a welding laboratory of a vocational high school in Jeollanam-do and a welding process in a general industrial site by measuring the work environment. A 10-question survey was conducted to review the effects of welding hazards on the human body, carcinogenicity information, international (US, UK, France) exposure standards, general characteristics between the two groups, and awareness of occupational health. Results: Exposure to hazardous factors in both groups was below the standards set by MOEL. Specialized high school students were exposed to higher levels than workers, and some hazardous factors exceeded the standards when compared to international exposure standards. During the survey, students were less aware of the hazards of welding, safety and health education, and the need for work environment measurement than workers. Conclusions: For the respiratory protection of students in vocational high school welding labs, it is necessary to create a comfortable training environment. Exposure standards for harmful factors should be strictly applied, such as overseas standards, or exposure should be limited by setting a limit on the number of hours of welding practice per week. In addition, it is necessary to conduct safety and health education for welding students to raise their awareness of the importance of measuring the working environment and wearing appropriate protective equipment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.184-190
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• 2014

Decommissioning process of nuclear facilities consist of a sequence of problem solving activities, because there may exist not only working environments contaminated by radiological exposure but also industrial hazards such as fire, explosions, toxic materials, and electrical and physical hazards. Therefore, not a few countries in the world have been trying to develop appropriate counter techniques in order to guarantee safety and efficiency of the process. In spite of that, there still exists neither domestic nor international standard. Unfortunately, however, there are few workers who experienced decommissioning operations a lot in the past. As a solution, it is quite necessary to utilize experts' opinions for risk assessment in decommissioning process. As for an individual hazard factor, risk assessment techniques are getting known to industrial workers with advance of safety technology, but the way how to integrate those results is not yet. This paper aimed to find out an appropriate technique to integrate individual risk assessment results from the viewpoint of experts. Thus, on one hand the whole risk assessment activity for decommissioning operations was modeled as a sequence of individual risk assessment steps which can be classified into two activities, decontamination and dismantling, and on the other, a risk assessment structure was introduced. The whole model was inferred with Fuzzy theory and techniques, and a numerical example was appended for comprehension.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.305-316
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• 2021

Construction accidents occur due to a number of reasons-worker carelessness, non-adoption of safety equipment, and failure to comply with safety rules are some examples. Because much construction work is done outdoors, weather conditions can also be a factor in accidents. Past construction accident data are useful for accident prevention, but since construction accident data are often in a text format consisting of natural language, extracting construction hazards from construction accident data can take a lot of time and that entails extra cost. Therefore, in this study, we extracted construction hazards from 2,026 domestic construction accident reports using text mining and performed a seasonal analysis of construction hazards through frequency analysis and centrality analysis. Of the 254 construction hazards defined by Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, we extracted 51 risk factors from the construction accident data. The results showed that a significant hazard was "Formwork" in spring and autumn, "Scaffold" in summer, and "Crane" in winter. The proposed method would enable construction safety managers to prepare better safety measures against outdoor construction accidents according to weather, season, and climate.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.165-176
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• 2009

The risk management case is an organization's formal arrangement to ensure the safety of its work activity within risk management system. It allows an organization to demonstrate its capability in achieving its safety objectives and in meeting regulatory requirements. This paper presents how the safety assessments are described, prepared and maintained to meet the criteria specified by the upcoming safety regulations. We propose the elements of risk management system that include arrangements for the ongoing identification of hazards, assessment of risks and the implementation of necessary control measures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.119-126
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• 2015

The primary purpose of the general duty clause is to offer an extra measure of protection to employees in the workplace. Most standards implemented under OSHA are targeted at a specific hazard. The general duty clause, however allows inspectors to cite employers for exposing its employees to a recognized hazard that has not been specifically addressed in the regulations. Congress intended the general duty clause to be a limited means of advancing the purposes of the OSHAct. But OSHA has not always regarded the general duty clause as the limited means for protecting the safety and health of employees that Congress intented. OSHA attempted to expand the scope of the general duty clause, at times improperly, to make it a more flexible enforcement tool. OSHA's interpretation of each of the restrictions on the scope of the clause has changed over the years. In recent years the general duty clause has been utilized as a sometimes controversial mechanism for enforcement of safety guidelines that have not yet been specifically addressed by statute or regulation. The most notable example of this was application of the general duty clause to ergonomic hazards.

• Journal of the Korean Dietetic Association
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.318-331
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• 2010

The objectives of this study were to investigate the status of accidents and to assess hazards in institutional foodservices in the Changwon and Masan areas. A survey was conducted from February 1 to March 31, 2009 using questionnaires, and 142 dietitians participated. The dietitians' perception of accident risks in workplace averaged 3.11 points. Forty-five percent of the respondents responded that accidents had occurred more than once between 2006 and 2008. In addition, 28.2% of the respondents experienced employee absences or turnover due to accidents during Year 2008. 'Musculoskelectal injuries or disorders (65.5%)', 'slips or falls (64.8%)', 'burns (57.7%)', and 'cuts and punctures (48.6%)' were the predominant accidents in foodservice. 'Knives (76 points)', 'steam kettles (41 points)', 'vegetable cutters (34 points)' and 'turn kettles (26 points)' were the equipment with severe accidents, such as burns or cut injuries. Among foodservice processes, 'carpal tunnel syndrome while washing (2.83 points)', 'burned by frying oil (2.64 points)', 'cut by sharp tools (2.55 points)', 'musculoskelectal injury by moving heavy weight food materials (2.41 points)', and 'injury by slipping on wet workplace floors and trenches (2.19 points)' were the most frequently occurring accidents at foodservice sites. To prevent safety accidents, dietitians' perceptions of safety supervision should be improved, and therefore, it is necessary they receive safety education.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.160-168
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• 2014

Objectives: Chemical hazard evaluations are important for workers' health and working environments. Allyl chloride (CAS No. 107-05-1) is used in many industries, leading to concerns about the possibility of threats to the health of workers. Since only insufficient or controversial information is available about potential related hazards, an in vitro mammalian chromosomal aberration (CA) assay was conducted in order to gain additional information concerning any such hazards. Moreover, toxicological information from this study could be applied for workers' rights to know, and to prepare or update the Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for a number of industries. Methods and Results: The assay was performed using the Chinese hamster lung fibroblast cell (ATCC, CRL-1935), by the direct method (-S9) and by the metabolic activated method (+S9 mix). Using the direct method, the seven dosages in the 48-hour treatment group did not show that the frequency of CA is proportionate to the dosage. The frequency of CA is not proportionate to the dosage addition for a six-hour treatment using the metabolic activated method. Conclusions: From these findings, it was decided that this chemical does not induce chromosomal aberrations under the tested conditions.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.78-87
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• 2022

In the risk assessment of urban railway systems, a hazard log is created by identifying hazards from accident and failure data. Then, based on a risk matrix, evaluators analyze the frequency and severity of the occurrence of the hazards, conduct the risk assessment, and then establish safety measures for the risk factors prior to risk control. However, because subjective judgments based on the evaluators' experiences affect the risk assessment results, a more objective and automated risk assessment system must be established. In this study, we propose a risk assessment model in which an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), which is combined in artificial neural networks (ANN) and fuzzy inference system (FIS), is applied to the risk assessment of urban railway systems. The newly proposed model is more objective and automated, alleviating the limitations of risk assessments that use a risk matrix. In addition, the reliability of the model was verified by comparing the risk assessment results and risk control priorities between the newly proposed ANFIS-based risk assessment model and the risk assessment using a risk matrix. Results of the comparison indicate that a high level of accuracy was demonstrated in the risk assessment results of the proposed model, and uncertainty and subjectivity were mitigated in the risk control priority.