Interdisciplinary researches for occupational risk evaluation.

Draghici, Anca ; Vacarescu, Valeria ; Lovasz, Erwin-Christian 等

1. INTRODUCTION--PROBLEM STATEMENT

The importance of occupational risk analysis and evaluation is linked with the work systems safety assurances and production systems environment policies development and implementation, too. Nowadays, organization social responsibility is a hot subject because it is an intensive preoccupation of different level managers. They all are involved in practical and propaganda actions that aim to diminish or eliminate the work accidents and occupational diseases. So, for better explanation of the concepts and their importance there are given the following definitions (Erickson, 2003), (Macdonald, 2003): (1) work accident means "the hurting of the human body and occupational acute intoxication that are happening during working process or during work duties that are causing the lost of work capacities at least for three days, invalidity or death"; (2) occupational disease "the disease produced by the exercitation of a profession, caused by physical, biological, chemical agents from the working environment and the overload of organs and systems during the working process".

The actual statistics (EUROSTAT, 2007) estimate that in the world there is approximate 160 millions of occupational disease each year; 30-40% of these evolve as chronically disease; 10% determine permanent working incapacity. From these reasons, the occupational diseases are considered as "silent epidemics" because are hard to diagnose and are discovered late, and cannot assure the reversibility of individual's health. If we consider the fact that 10-30% of workers from the evolved countries and 50-79% from the workers from the countries in course of evolution are constantly exposed to occupational risk factors or are working in non-ergonomic conditions we just can draw the conclusion that the problem of evaluating these factors and the study of their genesis (appearance, development, manifestation, effects) is a clef for amelioration/optimization of professional life--the "iceberg" model (Roughton & Mercurio, 2002). The costs of these phenomena are composed not only by their direct effects regarding treating and hospitalization of those affected but also, by the indirect effects regarding the temporary lost of work capacity. So, statistics underline that work accidents and occupational diseases attracted costs of 3% from GDP in the first case and about 20% in the last case (EUROSTAT, 2007). The social investigations done for the employees work incapacity dynamics showed that the psychological stress experienced by them from the pressure exercised upon their family, the society and, the collectivity (at organizational level) affect the health, the wellbeing of other members of society (in accord with the documents and statistics provide by International Labor Organization, www.ilo.org).

The European Union New Strategy adopted in the field of Occupational Health and Safety for the period 2007-2012, (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/spidla/speeches_en.cf m), proposes to realize a reduction by 25% of working accidents and professional diseases.

Based on these considerations and perspectives, the present paper will outline the detailed approach used to build the ontology and complementary knowledge map for the particular field of the occupational risk evaluation in the context of the research activities planed to be developed in the national project "Interdisciplinary research for the occupational risk evaluation platform development with impact upon the safety culture in organization" (ID 1022) financed by CNCSIS in Romania, in the context of the Ideas -- PN II program.

2. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH APPROACH

In the following are presented the proposed objectives and scenario for a future research regarding the occupational risk evaluation in the context of the financial opportunities given by the PN II program in Romania, and the specific Ideas Exploratory Projects format. Having these minimal, but representative considerations as a leaving point the financed project wants to accomplish interdisciplinary integrative approaches that would offer an efficient and innovative system for occupational risk evaluation, with effects on the development and implementation of the safety culture in organizations.

The approach complexity is sustained by its interdisciplinary and also, by the results of the research- development and innovative activities (using modern means of the information and communication technology and of knowledge management). The approach novelty consists of an ontology creation that will be the base of the knowledge management system (KMS). The KMS will collect three important aspects of the occupational risk filed: the risk factor, the possible accident and/or disease induce by it and finally, the corrective and/or preventive measure that could be implement for avoiding the risk factor "activation".

The research scenario consists of: (1) knowledge capitalization and formalization regarding the occupational risk from the perspective of the interdisciplinary and systemic approach given by ergonomics; (2) the occupational risk taxonomy structure establishment; (3) the knowledge management contribution for the occupational risk ontology definition by considering the work accidents genesis (risk factor -- effects -- prevention and corrective measures). Figure 1 show the complex and innovative proposed research scenario based on a bottom top approach.

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Using appropriate software (MindManager) the knowledge map is first structure and build, including the description of each item in the database: the occupational risk, the work accidents and/or diseases and the preventions--corrective measures that can be implement at the work place level.

The design knowledge map and ontology will allow the analysis and optimization of the different work systems' activities and interdependences relations inside them by considering the technical, economical, social variables. Also, the proposed approach aims to collect the whole practical cases that can appear in different working systems regarding the occupational risks. Based on this, managers and work safety responsible can better analyze, evaluate and prevent the negative events of the working processes of their organization by not omitting some aspects or situations. In this context, safety responsible of the organizations (managers from different levels) can better define their strategies, policies and tactics and they can pro-active act by investments in intelligence, learning, communication, and knowledge in order to develop the safety organization culture (Monteau & Phamd, 2004).

3. PRELIMINARY RESEARCH RESULTS

The preliminary research result is presented in Figure 2. There are presented only the first and the second level of the ontology. The other levels are particular build and developed depending of the considered sub-system. Then for each final item of the knowledge map there was define a specific file (note) that include: the detail description of the item (risk factor, accident, disease, preventive and corrective measure according to some existing regulation, with some examples and case studies for particular working systems depending of the industry type). These notes are definition elements of the database behind the knowledge map.

The preliminary occupational risk ontology was first tested and valid inside the real economic environment of a company in the field of electric maintenances services. During this process there have been identify more risks that where collected by the evaluation process developed for the ISO 18001 company certification. So, the occupational risk ontology is a complex and useful tool, superior to the actual procedure.

4. FURTHER RESEARCHES

This working and research approach facilitate the future research and work for defining the occupational risk platform that will develop as a web platform in the next year. So, the future researches will develop the KMS using a graphic model represented by diagrams on activities build with the SADT method (Structured Analysis and Design Techniques), using graphic language IDEF[empty set]. This will allow the study of some interdependence from technical, economical, social variables, for the occupational risk factors in the case of some particular production/working systems. The occupational risk ontology will be associated with the project researchers' competencies that will support better the future activities.

At the organization level, the design web platform for the occupational risk evaluation will support the management team to define the strategies and to act pro-active by investments in intelligence, learning, communication, and knowledge for the development of the safety and security culture (Monteau & Phamd, 2004).

5. CONCLUSION

The paper presents the interdisciplinary -- systematic approach for defining the occupational risk ontology as the base of the knowledge management system development in the filed. The preliminary research results were focus on the capitalization and the formalization of the knowledge based on the ergonomics way of thinking. The ontology was developed using the MindManager software and it will be the bases for an occupational risk platform which will be a web base one.

The main advantage of the ontology (complexity and detail description of the items) was confirmed by its test and validation in a particular organization in the field of electric maintenances services. The work system's risk analysis and evaluation process was better conduct and the ISO 18001 procedure was update with new risks identification together with their prevention and corrective measures implementation.

6. REFERENCES

Erickson, P. A. (2003). Practical Guide to Occupational Health and Safety, Elsevier

EUROSTAT (2007). European Statistics, http://epp.eurostat.ec. europa.eu/portal/, Accesed on: 2009-05-13

Macdonald, D. (2003). Practical Industrial Safety, Risk Assessment and Shutdown Systems, Elsevier

Monteau, M. & Phamd, D. (2004). L' accident du travail: evolution des conceptions. Traite de psychologie du travail, (Concept Evolution Regarding the Work Accidents. Work Psychology Book). Paris, PUF

Roughton, J. E. & Mercurio, J. J. (2002). Developing an Effective Safety Culture. A Leadership Approach, Elsevier