Causes of Workplace Accidents

Causes of Workplace hazardsWorkplace accidents atomic number 18 generally caused by the unsecured behaviour of employees and the unsafe state of objects (Shi Wenwen, et al., 2011). In the former(prenominal), rootle causes of those accidents were reported in the main in margins technological malfunctions and the forgiving element tended to be do by (Gordon, 1998). Technology and systems have become more reliable and the frequency of technological adversitys has diminished, there is little uncertainty today that mankind errors contribute to the absolute majority of prophylactic incidents indoors high insecurity industries (Baysari, et al., 2009 Skalle, 2014).The current research on the toyplace accidents document that military personnel errors be the root cause of up to 80% of incidents in high risk industries (Liping, 2003 Cullen and Anderson, 2005 Garret and Teizer, 2009 Ganguly, 2011 Quanmin, et al., 2011). As fence (1997) indicated in an earlier research, it is e xpected, because human decisions and actions are not only compound in accidents, but also in the build, construction, operation, maintenance and counselling of difficult systems.The significance of human factors contribution to safety has been demonstrated all over the past two decades by the often-quoted examples of the contribution of human failures to the major accidents in spite of appearance the operation industry such as Bhopal, Piper Alpha, Texas City refinery blowup, Esso Longford gas explosion and Texaco Milford Haven explosion (Hughes and Kornowa-Weichel, 2004).Given this demonstration, it is astounding that the importance of human factors in the safety trouble has not yet been extensively acknowledged inwardly the high risk industries in the Middle East. there are merely every literatures exist inside the Middle East on the relevancy of human factors in safety management. Some elements of human factors such as training and motivation had always been received a ttention within the rock oil and gas industry however, they have been deliberately managed as part of an merged safety management system or with the rigour that their contribution to the risk requires.The term human error is defined in several literatures (Norman, 1981 drive, 1990 Sanders and McCormick, 1993 Salmon, et al., 2005). sympathy (1990, p.9) defined human error as a generic term to encompass all those occasions in which a planned era of mental or physical activities fails to achieve its intended step upcome, and when these failures cannot be attributed to the hitch of some chance agency. Salmon, et al. (2005, p.5) defined human error as any mental or physical activity, or failure to perform activity, that leads to each an undesired or unacceptable outcome. Dhillon Liu (2006) and Shi Wenwen, et al. (2011) point out that the causes of human errors are complicated, and the basic reasons can be ones own unsafe psychological activities, physiological factors, environme ntal factors, insufficient safety training, poor externalise factors and inadequate procedures.The term human factor is often referred as the sop up that runs done the safety management system, the organisation for safety and the culture of a site (Cullen and Anderson, 2005). Cacciabue (2004, p.12) defined human factors as the technology concerned with the abstract and optimisation of the relationship between people and their activities, by the integrating of human sciences and engineering in systematic applications, in consideration for cognitive aspects and socio-technical functional contexts. The fall in Kingdom, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defined human factors as environmental, organisational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics which influence behaviour at work in a way which can affect health and safety (HSE, 2005, p.5 Ganguly, 2011, p.14).Hughes Kornowa-Weichel (2004) and Cullen Anderson (2005) highlight that it is important to integrate h uman factors from the early stages of process design and procedural development to reduce human failures. Hamilton, et al. (2013, p.5) state that human factors integration is the principal method for applying human factors to the development of socio-technical systems across safety full of life industries. In this way, the integration helps to ensure that human factors methods and principles are applied appropriately and consistently during the system development in order to achieve a safe and effective design for end users.McLeod (2004) indicates that human factors maturity judicial decision of an organisation should be in terms of what action organisation takes to inform the human contribution to incidents and the impact on the health of the workplace through the way it designs the equipment and implements its associated training and procedures.On the whole, the above discussed literatures put forward the convey that management systems, tools and equipment of an organisation to be designed with the potential capabilities and limitations of people in mind to run it safely and effectively as people are the integral and key features of the business systems. Therefore, the best practices of human failure stripe can only be attained when human factors are combine into the procedural and system development phase rather than considering as a stand-alone activity. For this reason, the success rate of human failure prevention loosely depends on the level of human factors integration into the health and safety management system of that organisation.Background to the organisationLamprell Energy Limited (LEL) is a lede provider of diversified engineering and contracting services to the onshore and onshore oil and gas and renewable energy industries. Based in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) and with the operations throughout the region, Lamprell has played a prominent role in the development of the energy industry within the Middle East for over 35 years. Lamp rell has established a leading market position in the construction, commissioning and installation of rigs, process modules and top sides. The primary facilities of Lamprell are primed(p) in Hamariya, Sharjah and Jebel Ali all of which are located within the U.A.E. The facilities cover nigh 910,000 m2 with 2.2 km of quayside. The organisation employs approximately 2400 employees in the Jebel Ali facility where the research was conducted.Reason for the dissertationHealth and safety is a core value within Lamprell businesses and a strong health and safety culture exist within the group. The health and safety management system is accredited by the occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 180012007 standard. Surveillance audits are carried out by Bureau Veritas, a global leader in the management systems certification with a strong presence within the U.A.E.Kelvin fleet Set root cause abbreviation tool and problem solvent methodology is used within the organisation fo r the investigation of workplace incidents. This ensures that the root causes of all incidents reported within the organisation are systematically identified.An analysis carried out on all the lost time, restricted work, medical intervention accidents and root causes reported in the last 3 years within the Jebel Ali facility of Lamprell reveals that the accidents caused by the human failures are at an alarming rate. There were no fatalities reported during this period within the organisation. It was confirmed that accidents are classified advertisement based on the similar reporting criteria across all terzetto years to ensure consistency of collected data. foresee 1. Total Accident Frequency site (AFR) and Human Failure Accident Frequency Rate from January 2011 to December 2013.Figure 2. The causes of human failure accidents from January 2011 to December 2013.As Figure 1 indicates, there was a rise in AFR in 2012 compared to 2011 and indeed dropped in 2013. Human failures cont ributed 76%, 82% and 83% to the total AFR in 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively. The causes of these human failure accidents were retrieved from Lamprells Single Incident Reporting brass (SIRS) and illustrated in Figure 2. The pie chart shows that over half the human failure accidents were due to the noncompliance of procedures, poor competency and environmental factors. The high human failure accident rate and the nature of the causes of these failures are self-explanatory for assessing the human factors integration into the health and safety management system of Lamprell.