Conformity issues for health and safety at work--part of integrated management systems.

Botezatu, Cezar ; Botezatu, Cornelia Paulina ; Carutasu, George 等

1. INTRODUCTION

Health and security at work is constantly gaining importance for the enterprises' management teams, under social or humanitarian pressures, these issues gaining significant implications in the economic and legal fields, being an important part of the integrated management systems, irrespective of their level of operation. The principle of risk evaluation is also widely accepted, and this process engages two stages: the first--identifying the risks and the second analyzing and evaluating the risks.

Developing a management system for health and safety at work may contribute in an efficient manner to anticipating events that have a high-risk of affecting the health and/or safety of workers at workplace, to reducing the negative effects when they occur, while maintaining the productivity of the company at a decent level (Botezatu et al., 2006).

Workplace accidents and professional illnesses mustn't be perceived only as a fatality, as it is more lucrative to consider them as a dysfunctionality of the processes taking place in an enterprise.

Three different ways of action may be identified:

* Prevention or precaution regarding the events and/or situations through which dysfunctions in the work processes lead to damaging the heath of the workers or to the technological deterioration of the environment (named risks, in this context);

* Intervention through actions in the cases described above for the elimination and/or reduction of the negative effects or of their intensity;

* Analysis of the situations that determined the negative effects on humans, environment or on the technological security and post-event actions to rehabilitate or compensate them.

As a result of appliance of EU Directives and national laws and regulations (more the 300 documents), regarding Health and security at work, one of the implementation activity, as a prerequisite for certification, is evaluation of accident emerging risk, being dependent (as method of cunatification) of industry, work complexity, number of employees, type of product manufactures etc.

2. RISK EVALUATION

The considerable impact of the precautionary principle is based on a lot of opinions. Associating the concept of sustainable development with environment damage at planetary level is translated ad a reaction caused by the flaws in prevention, observed during several recent sanitary crises, so the aspirations towards a better life are associated to the management of technological development.

The precautionary principle tends to gain weight in Europe in the fields of environment, food and health (Green, 2004). It is compatible with the "a priori" control practice, widely spread in the European area. Precaution aims at limiting hypothetic, potential risks, while prevention regards the control of identified risks (Burt et al. 2008).

The distinction between a potential and a verified risk fundaments the distinction between precaution and prevention: precaution for potential risks and prevention for verified risks.

For risk evaluation a very popular classification introduces three levels of tolerance: intolerable risks, risks tolerable only with adequate surveillance and intervention methods and insignificant risks that only necessitate actions to ensure they maintain this level.

Tolerable risks are considered all risks between intolerable and insignificant. It considered that an activity can be tolerated with these risks when they cannot be reduced, while there are certain benefits of the respective activity, under special coordination and surveillance, remaining that they are eliminated or reduces when possible.

At the same level are the risks for which the actions for their reduction are too costly compared to the advantages obtained.

The tolerable risks area has two subdivisions. The first comprises the risks that cannot be reduced or whose reduction costs are disproportionately big compared to the improvement. The second part of tolerable risks is represented by lower risks, without being insignificant.

An example of how a risk can be estimated, according to two characteristics: frequency (Frequent, Probable, Occasional, Seldom, Unlikely, and Incredible) and consequences (Catastrophic, Critical, Marginal, and Negligible) is presented in the table 1 (Botezatu, 2001).

Considering the level of tolerable risks as being made up of two classes (II and III), we can make an interpretation (table 2).

3. RISK ELIMINATION--REDUCTION

In the countries of the European Community (including Romania) and not only there is a long experience and a lot of good practices both in classifying, identifying and evaluating risks and in eliminating and reducing them.

Among others we can mention that at enterprise level, a lot of attention is paid to: air quality (ventilation systems), pressure equipments, elevators, lifting equipments and accessories, noise, construction sites, shipyards, illumination, electricity, individual protection equipments, explosives, extraction of fat using flammable substances, fires, fixed refrigeration systems, heat systems, machinery, fruit and vegetable maturation, divers and deep-sea activities, flammable liquids or liquefied gasses, gates and doorways, ionized areas, chemical hazards, depots, air cooling towers (according to INRS) (Yule et. al.2007).

Each European country (including Romania) has, through a system of regulations, standards and good practices guides, its own set of procedures, more or less compulsory for all economic agents.

4. STUDY CASE IMS-FE

The authors are currently participating in a research project which began in September 2007, named "The Development and Implementation of the Integrated Management Systems in the Field Of Energy (SIM-FE) " within the "4th Framework Programme (Partnerships)" which aims through its objectives to contribute to the development of the socio--economic research to enhance the Romanian firms' competitiveness.

Within this project we elaborate procedures to integrate the field of health and safety at work within the integrated management system which is created, projected and implemented in a company, after developing an adequate theory which takes into account the results on international (ILO for the subject matter) European and national levels, both for regulations (including accepted standards) and for institutional, labour force, efficient methods or accredited quality assessment procedures, efficient technologies (including IT&C) as well as for good practice guides corresponding to specific activities.

The estimated results are: generating an "integrated systems" theory, elaborating a number of procedures conforming to the aim of the integrated system and not the subsystems (a global optimization), a methodology to implement the integrated systems, a technological transfer web site and programs to assist the managerial decision.

The novelty aspect claimed is the integration of work and safety procedures into a larger concept and it degree of generality. Furthermore, we will be able to offer, at the end of the project a set of tools (knowledge system, database with reference documents, evaluation algorithm, step-by-step procedure to follow by enterprises to inform and obtain health and safety national certification, mandatory in Romania and EU. At this stage, we collect a large amount of unstructured information, related to this subject, a classifying process being on course.

5. CONCLUSIONS

As conclusion, presently it exist many reference documents regarding Health and Safety at work, information unstructured, all effort of the companies being focused to obtain the mandatory certification imposed by national or EU regulations. In this matter, an important activity consists in risk evaluation, a very complex process, with many depending parameters. So, as first step in integration of Health and Safety into an integrated management system, we emphasize the activities regarding labour health and safety at work together with the proposed instruments, inside of SIM-FE project.

Firs was realised the documentation regarding the current situation and the need for conformity assessment in the field of labour security and health, at European and international level, using studies and analyses regarding the current situation of the methods used for conformity assessment at European and international level. Also, will be documentated activities regarding the current regulations in the field of labour security and health in Romania and European and international level for conformity assessment methods, from point of view of inclusion of the conformity assessment within the enterprise general management system.

Now, will develop the experimental models of the conformity assessment methodology and of the support software product, by consultation with partner economic agent regarding the general requirements of the methodology and the corresponding work instruments and the requirements of the software product. Next step is the analysis of the data collected during documentation and of the specific requirements regarding the methodology of conformity assessment. Is followed by development and testing of an experimental model of methodology (procedures and work instruments) and software product. Preparing documentation for the methodology and software product models and proving the functionality and utility of the developed models together with logistical and information support for identifying the general requirements of the methodology and of the software product and for testing the resulting models is the last step.

Next two years we will develop of the conformity assessment methodology and the software product based on the experimental model. We hope, at the project end (2010), to have a clear, integrated methodology for conformity in Health and Safety, using an integrated system. The overview of this problem, the method, transposed in software and integration in larger system is the main contribution of the authors, having a relevant experience in the field.

6. REFERENCES

Botezatu, C. (2001). Professional lesions by economic activity, 1991-2000, The directory of the statistics of work" 2001; Table 8B--ISIC-Rev3 /ST125-56 (Left 8), Romania

Botezatu, C.P., Botezatu, C. Carutasu, G. (2006),The development and the implementation of the integrated management system, Annals of DAAAM for 2006 & Proceedings of the 17th International DAAAM Symposium, pp. 053-054, ISSN 1726-9679, ISBN 3-901509-57-7

Burt, C.D.B., Sepie, B., McFadden, G. (2008) The development of a considerate and responsible safety attitude in work teams, Safety Science, v 46, n 1, January, 2008, p 79-91, ISSN: 0925-7535 CODEN: SSCIEO, Elsevier

Green, S. (2004) Safety is the priority, Materials Handling News, n 558, June 2004, 25-6 ISSN: 0025-5351 CODEN: MAHNA4 Highbury Nexus, UK

Yule, S., Flin, R.; Murdy, A (2007). The role of management and safety climate in preventing risk-taking at work, International Journal of Risk Assessment & Management, v 7, n 2, 137-51, ISSN: 1466-8297 CODEN: IJRABZ, Inderscience Enterprises, Switzerland

Tab. 1. Consequences vs. Frequency

Frequency Consequences
 Catastrophic Critical Marginal Negligible

Frequent I I I II
Probable I I II III
Occasional I II III III
Seldom II III III IV
Unlikely III III IV IV
Incredible IV IV IV IV

Tab. 2. Risk classes

Risk Interpretation
class

Class I Intolerable risks

Class II Undesirable risks, tolerable only is their reduction
 is impossible or if the costs of the reduction are
 disproportionately high compared to the results

Class III Risks that are tolerable only if the costs of the
 reduction are lower than the achieved results

Class IV Negligible risks