Evaluation of Effectiveness of Manufacturing Safety Intervention; A Key to Successful Safety Planning and Management

Abstract

Safety interventions (which entail a number of activities) are resourceful tools in the control or prevention of workplace accidents. Combination of these interventions achieved more results compared with individual application of these interventions. The cost effectiveness of these safety interventions/strategies is often considered a major interest to the leadership or management of an organization. This work hereby used retrospective accident analysis to determine the effectiveness indices (µ_k) of the identified strategies, thus determining the preventable number of accidents (S_k). Fifteen strategies (S₁ to S₁₅) were determined from the six safety interventions (Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Training (Tr), Guarding (Gu), Accident Investigation (AI), Awareness (Aw) and Incentives (In)), out of which PPE and Tr were considered prominent. Their respective effectiveness indices (µ₁ to µ₁₅) were hereby calculated. It was revealed that µ_15, µ₁₁ and µ₁₂ have highest effectiveness indices of 5.50×10^-06 (Q/N), 5.46×10^-06(Q/N) and 5. ×10^-06 (Q/N) respectively. The effectiveness indices µ₃ and µ_4, however, have the lowest effectiveness indices of 3.50×10^-06 (Q/N) and 3.52E×10^-06 (Q/N). The highest effectiveness index reduced the highest number of accidents of 46 while lowest effectiveness index reduced the accidents by 19.

Keywords: Safety Intervention, Effectiveness Index, Safety Strategy.