EP2567352A1

EP2567352A1 - Method for controlling safety in workplaces and system for performing the same

Info

Publication number: EP2567352A1
Application number: EP11723207A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Roberto Ferro
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2010-05-07
Filing date: 2011-05-05
Publication date: 2013-03-13
Also published as: WO2011138759A1; IT1400210B1; ITGE20100046A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for controlling safety in workplaces. As it is know, safety in factories, building yards, offices and in work environments in general is regulated by several laws and regulations, whose knowledge requires expertise and skills that are not always available. In order to overcome such situation, the invention teaches to control some parameters by means of indices, which can be studied and processed even by computerized means. By this method safety, that up to now has been mainly an abstract concept, and/or a concept analyzed and evaluated by systems taken and adapted from other sectors such as the economic one, now becomes a concrete result that can be applied in the industrial sector, even by means of electronic processing means, that arises and is made particularly for the field of safety and health at work.

Description

Title:

"Method for controlling safety in workplaces and system for performing the same"

DESCRIPTION

In its most general aspect, the present invention relates to the safety control in workplaces, particularly in industries, building yards, offices and in all those environments where there can be risks to the safety of people or objects.

As it is known, safety in workplaces is a basic principle, protected by several laws and regulations that are in turn directed to give instructions to designated personnel within companies in order to carry out the necessary measures, whose implementation is not always clear and easy.

It follows that it is quite hard to control safety, since it requires very wide knowledge by the workers of a company and that therefore have already other works to do, with a short time to spend for this important objective.

The control depends mainly by people performing it, by their skills and experience, thus it is inevitably subjected to personal evaluations therefore it varies too much from case to case.

The technical problem at the base of the present invention is to overcome this situation. It aims at providing a method able to control safety in workplaces, in a concrete and operatively reliable manner.

The idea for solving such problem is to consider safety as other parameters that are controlled in industrial production cycles, such as for example costs, consumptions in electrical and thermal energy, productivity, quality, etc...

Accordingly safety becomes a parameter that can be used as a feedback for correcting production processes and for improving industrial performances; as a consequence, in such context the invention aims at solving a further technical problem that is to define safety with quantitative terms, such that it can be controlled by means of computerized means (particularly computers, individual or connected in a network), with the clear advantages deriving therefrom.

In a more specific aspect, the invention therefore relates to a production process that can be executed in any company, both an industry, a building yard, an office, a commercial concern, an hospital and so on, comprising in addition to the steps of controlling safety as mentioned above, also those necessary for correcting the production cycle in order to reduce the risk of harmful events.

In order to solve such problems and further ones, the invention provides a method comprising the following steps:

- providing, for a work activity carried out in a workplace, a risk factor for the operations related to such an activity (probability of occurrence of at least one event)

- providing an expected damage coefficient for the person for the occurrence of a respective risk factor;

- providing a primary attention index for a respective risk factor;

- determining the value of a weighed safety index for a respective risk factor based on the expected damage coefficient and on the attention index;

- obtaining the weighed general safety index for a work activity, by summing the values of the weighed indices obtained for each risk factor.

If the weighed safety index does not fall within predetermined limits it is possible to implement corrective measures for the operations related to the work activity, which are adapted to vary the primary attention index such that the obtained risk value falls within the predetermined parameters.

Moreover, by reading at predetermined intervals over time the changes in the weighed attention index for a specific work activity, it is possible to control the trend of the safety level over time for such an activity, and to concretely obtain the improvement of safety and health in workplaces that is provided by current regulations, good practice regulations and standards known as business "vision" for those skilled in the art.

As it can be understood, in this manner safety becomes an industrial target like other ones such as productivity, quality, costs, etc, which can be measured or anyway can be quantified, in order to make the relevant assessments.

According to the invention the method can be applied to a single work activity carried out by one or more persons in the same workplace, such as the workers of an assembly line, an office, a department, an hospital department or somewhere else, or to a plurality of work activities carried out in different workplaces.

In these cases, it will suffice to perform the steps of the method described above for each work activity and then to sum the respective weighed attention indices obtained with reference to the different places, then to calculate the average of all the weighed indices. It can be easily understood that the safety controlling method provided in this way can be performed in a computerized way by means of electronic processing means (such as PCs and the like), like any other process for the industrial control of the production.

Characteristics of the invention are recited in details in the following claims ; such characteristics and advantages deriving therefrom will be more clear from the description below of an exemplary but not limitative embodiment of the invention, which is shown in the annexed drawings wherein:

- Fig. 1 is a flow diagram of the steps of the method according to the invention;

- Figs. 2, 3 and 4 are respective parts of the same table showing risk factors, primary attention indices and corrective measures, provided by the method according to the invention;

- Fig. 5 is an explanatory form of the evaluation criteria for the primary attention indices, provided in the table of the previous figures;

- Figs. 6 and 7 are tables showing, in different steps of the method, risk factors, primary attention indexes, and corrective measures for the same work activity.

- Figs. 8 and 9 are risk factors, primary attention indices and corrective measures for different work activities carried out in the respective workplaces;

- Fig. 10 is a schematic view of a system for performing the method according to the invention;

- Fig. 11 is a table verifying the realization of the method according to the invention. With reference to the drawings and particularly to the first figure, the method of the invention consists of a sequence of operational steps organized according to a flow diagram wherein the first step 1 is to provide a risk factor F_r for each operation carried out in a workplace.

According to such step a general work activity carried out in a specific work environment is considered, for example an hospital department, an office, a workshop with machine tools, a building yard, a commercial concern and so on, and it is broken down into the several operations that workers have to carry out, highlighting the possible relevant risks.

Thus, for instance, in the case of a building yard for building a house, several work activities shall be identified, such as roofing, the construction of foundations or walls, such activities require the employment of one or more persons and require several operations to be made: some are in common and some are specific to each work activity. In order to build the foundations of a house, it is necessary to make excavations that (obviously) are not necessary for building the roof; however, concrete castings can be made in both cases, even if with different quantities of material.

Therefore, for building foundations excavators or other earth-moving equipment are used (think of trucks or truck mixers for the concrete) which are not used for building the roof; the use of such machines involves risk factors F_r such as people being crushed if the machine overturns on inclined surfaces, or risks related to moving vehicles (people being knocked down, accidents between mechanical means, impacts, and so on).

These risk factors F_r are different, at least partially, from those related to operations carried out on the house roof for building it, where, obviously, excavators are not used; on the contrary, in this case the risk of people or objects placed on the roof by a crane (beams, roof tiles, insulating boards) falling from height is very high; on the contrary the building of foundations involves a significantly lower fall risk.

The choice of risk factors F_r is preferably made in compliance with the several current accident prevention regulations concerning safety in workplaces, including good practice regulations and codes of practice, and therefore it can be different from one country to another, where there can be different laws; however, it is possible to make a list of risk factors case by case, integrating or modifying those deriving from the accident prevention regulations already mentioned above.

A list of the risk factors that can be faced in various work activities is shown in the table whose parts are represented in figs. 2, 3, 4 together with the respective corrective measures to be implemented in order to reduce attention indices.

According to a preferred embodiment, in the table of figs. 2-4, risk factors are characterized by a respective coloring code (red or yellow but it may be also different), for facilitating the identification of a respective expected damage coefficient Ca_n; this table must be easy to fill in and to read, even on an electronic processing means (such as a PC or the like) as it will be understood better below.

The expected damage coefficient Ca_n is a weighed coefficient, i.e. it gives a relative weight to each risk factor upon the occurrence of the harmful event to which it relates; in this case, for simplification reasons, the expected damage coefficient can take only two values: one equal to 3/2 for the red code and one equal to 2/3 for the yellow code, but such values can be different and it is possible also to provide a higher amount thereof. In this case, a higher amount of coefficients shall result in a more complex, but even in a more accurate safety control, since it is necessary to make a more complex range of expected damages.

For example, in the present case the value 3/2 corresponds to a damage that can even lead to the worker's death (and it is greater than 1 for this reason), while the value 2/3 denotes a permanent damage for the health, but not a mortal damage.

However, it is possible to add intermediate values between these two limits, or even values not falling within the range 2/3-3/2; for instance, it may be possible to add a coefficient lower than 2/3 (such as 1/3 or 1/2) for temporary damages to the health, or coefficients higher than 3/2 when mortal damages can affect also the surrounding people and environment.

According to what said above, the flow diagram of fig. l , which shows schematically the method of the invention, provides for a specific work activity (that can be the building of the roof or foundations as mentioned above, or a mechanical treatment such as turning, milling, welding, the movement of goods in a port, the surgical activities in an hospital, air transport and so on) to assign expected damage coefficients Ca_n for each risk factor F_r (step 2) and to provide primary attention indices I_sp (step 3).

The latter are integer numbers ranging from 1 to 5, which correspond to a qualitative indication of the attention level associated to the worker in charge of a specific operation (ordinary, medium, significant, high and considerable level); fig.5 shows the evaluation criteria of such indices, with reference to safety procedures that must be provided in order to protect people and to time intervals for control execution. Here, it must be pointed out that the number of values that can be taken by the primary attention index I_sp can be anyway different than 3, it being both a lower one (for example 3) or a higher one (7, 8, 9, 10 or more) depending on several aspects such as the complexity of work activities to be controlled, the number of persons involved, the safety level that is desired to be reached and the accuracy of its evaluation.

Safety must be evaluated by considering on one hand all the factors involved in the risk formation, with no distinctions, and on the other hand the consequent damage expected from the occurrence of such risk: the mere probability that a certain harmful event can occur leads to the fact that it must be taken into consideration; in other words, the table of figs. 2 to 4 must include all the possible risk sources that have to be taken into consideration.

Actually, it is not possible to have a risk with a probability equal to zero but there must be anyway an attention level to which a respective index is associated.

After providing the primary attention indices I_sp and the expected damage coefficients Ca_n for each risk factor F_r, it is possible to define a general safety index I_sc (see step 4 in fig.1) related to a work activity according to what described better below.

If the general safety index I_sc falls within proper limits, its value is processed together with the values obtained in the past, such to obtain an indication of the trend of the safety level over time: this trend is a precious instruction for controlling the work activity, and it can be considered as any other parameter for the production control in an industrial production process (steps 5 and 6).

Therefore, if the safety level does not fall within the limits, the necessary corrective measures will be implemented, such that the work can be carried out under total safety conditions (steps 5 and 7); once the corrective measures have been implemented, the primary attention indices I_sp will be again determined, and the consequent safety level will be defined.

As said above, in the example considered herein, the primary attention indices I_sp are characterized by ascending numbers ranging from 1 to 5 , to which a respective attention level corresponds. Such attention level is explained in the table of fig.5: ordinary (index 1), medium (index 2), significant (index 3), high (index 4), considerable (index 5).

The table of fig.5 shows also a general explanation of each index, providing a time limit for verifying (monitoring) the risk related to a specific work activity.

Such evaluation is based on the elements described up to now, according to what is explained below with reference to the tables of figures 6 and 7, which refer to some risk factors related to a work activity carried out above the ground level, such as for example the maintenance of a house roof.

Three risk factors F_r ,extrapolated from those listed in the table of figs. 2, 3 and 4, have been defined for the operations performed in such activity; obviously such factors relate to the case under examination: however, according to the method of the invention, from time to time the risk factors shall be selected depending on the operations carried out in a workplace, both a building yard, an office, an industrial plant, an hospital and so on. The table of fig.6 refers to the risk assessment made in a specific moment in a specific workplace, that in the example is the roof of a house; as it can be noted, primary attention indices I_sp related to the extrapolated risk factors have been assigned, that, in the example, have a maximum value of 5 : this means that the conditions found in the workplace have pointed out very high critical situations.

It has to be noted that this is an impartial evaluation, namely for each risk factor F_r the conditions mentioned in the table of fig.5 are verified to be present, and therefore there are no discretionary margins related to the person in charge of the evaluation.

Moreover, since the work is carried out above the ground level, consequences that can derive from the risk factors are highly dangerous for the health of the person, since they can also lead to death: therefore the maximum expected damage coefficient equal to 3/2 (red code) is applied for each risk factor.

To this end, it has to be noted that situations that are seemingly negligible, in some environments can result to be very dangerous (for example when working above the ground level or in the presence of high voltage) and therefore they require the maximum attention.

For this reason, tables of figs. 6 and 7 show also the use of personal protective equipment (by the acronym "ppe") as a risk factor, since the fact of not using such equipment has to be considered as an important risk factor, like people or objects falling from height, where ppe are an evaluation of the residual risk together with warning and safety signs as applicable and provided.

Personal protective equipment are preferably those provided by accident prevention regulations in force in Italy (D. Lgs. 475/1992 - D. Lgs. 81/2008); however, they can be different ones or even those in compliance with other regulations can be provided (for example from regulations of other countries); the expected damage coefficient however is high since the non-use of such equipment leads to serious damages.

According to the invention, the expected damage coefficient Ca_n and the primary attention index I_sp allow a safety index I_s& to be calculated for each risk factor F_r, according to the following formula (multiplication): I_sfr= Ca_n x I_sp.

By setting Ca_n = 3/2 (that is greater than 1) and having the maximum primary attention index I_sp = 5 for each risk factor F_r of the table in fig. 6, the general safety index I_sc deriving therefrom, namely the one relating to the whole work activity and that results from the average of each safety index (in mathematical terms: I_sc = I_Sfr' + I_Sfr" + W ...+ I_Sfrⁿ)/n, where I_sfr' + I_sfr" + W 'etc, are the respective attention indices for the various risk factors) for each risk factor F_r, does not fall within the limits for the proper execution of the work activity.

In this context, it has to be added that each company shall set the limits for each work activity, which relate to the acceptable safety indices I_sc taken into account for the performed activities.

The table of fig.6 shows also the corrective measures to be implemented in order to reduce the risk level of the work activity: therefore according to the method of the invention, after implementing the corrective measures (step 7) the primary attention indices I_sp are again verified (step 3), and the value of the general safety index I_sc is calculated according to formulas already mentioned above (that is I_s& = Ca_n x I_sp for each risk factor F_r; and the total average I_sc =∑ (I_Sfr)Vn, where "i" refers to the i-th risk factor and "n" is the total number of the risk factors F_rfor a work activity).

This step is repeated till the safety level falls within the correct limits: in this case the control method goes on with steps 5 and 6 already mentioned above, and therefore the improvements occurred over time provided by the current regulations concerning safety in workplaces and by the good practice regulations are monitored.

The table of fig. 7 shows that by applying the corrective measures, it is possible to modify the primary attention indices I_sp that are used as a base for calculating again the general safety index I_sfr by using the same formula as described above.

The example of the method according to the invention described up to now considers risk factors F_r, the expected damage coefficients Ca_n, the primary attention indices I_sp and the safety indices of the risk factors I_sfr', I_sfr", ... I_sfr ⁿ, and the general ones I_sc (see summarizing table in fig. 12) for a work activity carried out in a specific place (the maintenance of the roof of a building); however, the principles under such method are valid and can be extended to all the work activities carried out in different places, both surrounding the previous one (for example the area of the same building), or remote places (building yards, offices, industrial plants, etc.).

Therefore, by the same method, it is possible to control safety of all the work activities that are carried out under the responsibility of the same subject, such as a company with various plants, offices, warehouses, laboratories, etc...

To this end, summing the values of the general safety indices I_sc related to each work activity and determined as explained above is enough to obtain an average value denoting the safety of the whole office, industrial plant, or of entire branches or sectors of a company.

Such value can be taken as a further index I_ss to be used in the method of the invention, for branches or sectors of companies in general; it may refer to homogeneous work activities, such as for example those performed in several offices of a company having several branches throughout the country (think of bank branches or branches of insurance companies in the same town or region), or to heterogeneous activities such as those of a company that has both offices and production activities (for instance manufacturing factories having production plants and technical offices, shipyards and building yards, etc.).

Considering such situation, with reference to figures 8 and 9, they show tables with risk factors F_r and the primary attention indices I_sp for two different workplaces, for example the first one being near an operating machine such as a press, and the second one being a scaffold used for carrying out operations on a face of a building.

In the place where the first work activity is carried out, there are vibrations and noises due to the operational phases of a molding press, which are not present in the scaffold of the second case where, however, workers must wear the personal protective equipment in order to prevent falls. By calculating the index for each work activity according to what explained above (I_s& =

Cdn Isp) for the case of Fig. 8 (marked by the latter A) we have:

(I_sfr')^A = (3/2 x 4) = 6; (I_sfr")^A = (2/3 x 2)=4/3; (I_sfr"')^A=(2/3 x 2)=4/3

(I_Sc)^A = (6 + 4/3 + 4/3)/3 = (6+8/3)/3= 2,889

While for the case of fig.9 (marked by the latter B) we have:

(I_sfr')^B = (3/2 x 3) = 9/2; (I_sfr")^B = (2/3 x 3)=2; (I_sfr"')^B=(3/2 x 3)=9/2

(I_Sc)^B = (9/2 + 2 + 9/2)/3 = (9+2)/3= 3,667

The total safety indices (I_SC)^A, (I_SC)^B of each activity carried out in the respective workplaces are therefore 2,889 and 3,667; so the sector index I_ss related to both the workplaces will be the calculated as the average of the general indices in each of them, namely: [(I_SC)^A + (I_sc)^B]/2 = [2,889 + 3,667]/2 = 3,278 = I_ss.

Such value can be measured over time like any other parameter related to a production process, such to provide useful information for controlling safety in different workplaces, desirable and desired improvements over time, such as those of a same company.

By extending such principle then it is possible to define a general safety index I_sg for an entire company, obtained on the basis of the average of the indices I_ss of the sectors thereof.

For the above calculations, it is possible to use computerized means, such as for example those schematically shown in figure 10, where a control system 10 intended for controlling safety in a company comprises a central processing unit 11 (acting as a "server"), connected in a network with other peripheral computers 12, 13, by means of which it is possible to send data related to the several work activities carried out in various places, even remote ones.

Think for instance of departments and offices of a company, or of industrial plants that can be in different countries or even different continents. The peripheral computers 12, 13 detect the trend of the risk level for a respective place, according to what already explained; obtained data are transmitted to the central processing unit that is able to control safety in all the places where work activities of a company are carried out, and is able to perform the activity intended to improve the safety and health conditions over time and to verify the truth thereof.

Obviously variants of the invention with respect to what described up to now can be provided.

As already mentioned above, the number of safety indices can be different than the five indices that have been considered in the example; therefore in order to carry out the method of the invention it is possible to have 2, 3, 6, 7 or more indices, as well as the range can be a different one namely it is possible to provide indices that are not integer numbers but, for example, fractional numbers (1/4, 1/2, 2/3, etc). Moreover, depending on the complexity of the desired control, it is possible to have safety indices resulting from mathematical functions made ad hoc for the several work activities; such functions can consider the statistics of the accidents at work that can be made by a company itself or that are provided by bodies specialized in that field.

The same is also valid for the expected damage coefficient that in the described example takes only two values (2/3 and 3/2), but actually it can take more values, even non- fractional ones; then the expected damage coefficient can be an integernumber, like the attention indices.

More in general, it has to be considered that the range of the values of the primary attention indices I_sp and of the expected damage coefficients Ca_n are related to each other such to obtain a quite simple safety calculation, in order to facilitate the control procedures and the possible improvement of safety over time.

Such improvement is also easy to be verified, since information filled into the tables of the previous figures can be integrated with further data such as shown in fig. 11.

This figure shows an example of a table like the previous ones, where additional items have been added in order to evaluate the effect of corrective measures applied according to what already explained with reference to the method (see fig.1): by assigning a value to such additional items, it is possible to quickly update the primary attention indices I_sp in order to go on with the control method.

Then it has to be pointed out that even other parameters can be provided in addition to the already mentioned indices and coefficients, depending on the work activities to which the method of the invention is applied.

Under such circumstances, it has to be underlined that the safety control made in this manner can be easily performed in any industrial production process, this term being considered in its widest sense as including not only office work or the manufacturing of products (mechanical, chemical, plastic parts or the like) in indoor places (rooms, sheds and the like), but also outdoor activities such as building yards, shipyards, agriculture, transports (road, air and sea transports etc.).

Claims

1. Method for controlling safety in workplaces, characterized by comprising the steps of:

- providing for a work activity carried out in a workplace, a risk factor (F_r) for the operations related to such an activity;

- providing an expected damage coefficient (C_dn) for the occurrence of a respective risk factor;

- providing a primary attention index (I_sp) for a respective risk factor;

- determining the value of a safety index (I_sc) for a respective risk factor (F_r) based on the expected damage coefficient (C_dn) and the primary attention index (I_sp);

- obtaining a general safety index (I_sc) for a work activity as a function of the safety indices for each risk factor.

2. Method according to claim 1, comprising a step (7) of executing corrective measures for the work activity, in order to vary the primary attention indices (I_sp) whenever the value of the general safety index (I_sc) of the activity concerned does not fall within predetermined limits.

3. Method according to claims 1 or 2, wherein the value of the general safety index (I_sc) is read at predetermined intervals over time.

4. Method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the value of the safety index (I_sfr) for a risk factor (F_r) is established by means of the formula: I_sfr = C_dn x I_sp, where C_dn is the expected damage coefficient and I_sp is the primary attention index.

5. Method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the primary attention indices (I_sp) and the expected damage coefficients (C_dn) are expressed as integer and/or fractional numbers.

6. Method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the primary attention indices (I_sp) or the safety indices (I_sfr) for a risk factor (F_r) are verified at predetermined time intervals.

7. Method according to any of the preceding claims, wherein the general safety index (I_sc) for a work activity is determined on the basis of an average of the safety indices (Ι₅&) associated with the single risk factors (F_r) taken into account for that activity.

8. Method according to claim 7, comprising a step of determining a safety index (I_ss) of a sector of a company, on the basis of the average of the general safety indices (I_sc) obtained in various workplaces belonging to that sector.

9. Method according to claim 8, comprising a step of determining a general safety index (I_sg) of a company, on the basis of the average of the sector safety indices (I_ss) obtained in various sectors.

10. Industrial production process, characterized by comprising at least one work activity controlled by using the method according to any of claims 1 to 7.

11. Industrial production process according to claim 10, wherein the work activity is carried out in an indoor or outdoor workplace.

12. Process according to claim 11, which takes place in one or more of the following workplaces: building yard, office, factory, hospital, shop.

13. System for controlling safety in workplaces, characterized by comprising electronic processing means (11) adapted to obtain the safety index (I_sfi) for a respective risk factor, on the basis of expected damage coefficients (Cdn) and primary attention indices (I) associated with a work activity carried out in a predetermined place.

14. Control system according to claim 13, which is connected to peripheral computers (12, 13) for communicating, through the latter, the value of the safety index (I_sc; I_ss; I_sg) in respective workplaces, company sectors or companies.