Understanding and preventing bypassing of safeguards on machinery through an assessment tool based on probability levels

RÉSUMÉ: La Loi sur la santé et la sécurité du travail est une loi québécoise visant à éliminer à la source, les dangers pour la santé et la sécurité des travailleurs. En assurant la santé et la sécurité au travail (SST), on protégera ainsi les travailleurs contre les risques et interventions dans une zone dangereuse de machine, par exemple. Cela contribuera à maintenir et promouvoir le plus haut niveau de bien-être physique, mental et social des travailleurs dans tous les corps de métiers et professions. Des millions de travailleurs intervenant sur des machines peuvent être exposés à divers phénomènes dangereux, tels que : ceux d’origine mécanique, électrique, thermique, ergonomique ou environnementale, ainsi que le bruit, les vibrations, radiations, matériaux ou contaminants pendant leurs interventions sur les machines. Ces risques peuvent entraîner des blessures graves ou un décès s'ils ne sont pas gérés. Par conséquent, dans le processus de gestion des risques qui menacent la SST, des mesures doivent être adoptées afin de réduire ces risques. Les protecteurs et les dispositifs de protection constituent les mesures de réduction des risques les plus efficaces après la prévention intrinsèque, selon la hiérarchie des mesures de réduction des risques liés aux machines. Différentes normes et règlements exigent des entreprises qu’elles utilisent des moyens de protection sur les machines : protecteurs et dispositifs de protection. Malheureusement, certains travailleurs violent ces règlements et enlèvent les gardes ou désactivent les dispositifs de protection pour différentes raisons. Conséquemment, ils peuvent finir par avoir accès à une zone dangereuse lorsqu’une machine fonctionne. Un tel comportement dangereux est appelé contournement. Le contournement des moyens de protection est une problématique de SST courante dans la plupart des entreprises et est considéré comme une problématique internationale. C'est la raison pour laquelle l'Association internationale de la sécurité sociale a lancé un projet international avec la participation de l'Allemagne, l'Italie, la Suisse et l'Autriche en tant que groupe de projet afin d'atténuer le contournement des moyens de protection. Cette recherche propose de prévenir le contournement des moyens de protection et d’en promouvoir l'utilisation en concevant, en appliquant et en améliorant un outil spécifique s'inspirant de la norme ISO 14119. Cette thèse examine trois questions de recherche : 1) Comment les préventeurs des milieux de travail peuvent-ils identifier les incitatifs au contournement des moyens de protection sur leur machine, 2) Comment ces préventeurs peuvent-ils trouver des mesures préventives pour vaincre le contournement sur leur machine, et 3) Comment peut-on évaluer ces incitatifs afin d'éviter de contourner des moyens de protection de la machine pendant sa phase d'utilisation ? Cette thèse présente une liste qui couvre un vaste champ de 72 incitatifs possibles au contournement, en se basant sur la littérature. Ils sont classés selon les cinq principales catégories suivantes : ergonomie, productivité, machine ou moyens de protection, comportement et climat d'entreprise. De plus, cette thèse fournit une panoplie de solutions, basées sur la littérature, comprenant 82 mesures préventives afin d'éviter le contournement des moyens de protection; elles sont classées en facteurs d'influence techniques, organisationnels et individuels. L’outil développé, sur la base des catégories d’incitatifs mentionnés ci-dessus, permet d’évaluer le contournement des moyens de protection et prévenir ce contournement lors de la phase d’exploitation des machines. Par conséquent, cette thèse sert non seulement à concevoir un outil mais aussi à améliorer la compréhension du problème du contournement. L'outil proposé est capable d'estimer qualitativement la probabilité de contournement selon quatre niveaux : faible, modéré, significatif et élevé. Ces niveaux aident les décideurs des entreprises à établir des priorités dans les mesures préventives visant à éliminer ou à réduire les incitatifs de contournement dans leur milieu de travail. Cet outil est testé d'abord avec cinq rapports d'accidents liés au contournement, puis en l'appliquant à quatre entreprises manufacturières et à des machines réelles comme études de cas dans la province de Québec. Au total, cinq préventeurs en SST dans ces entreprises, en tant qu'utilisateurs de l'outil proposé, ont appliqué l'outil à 18 machines et 37 activités. Un questionnaire a permis de recueillir les commentaires des préventeurs en SST. Ces derniers ont trouvé l'outil utile avec un niveau de satisfaction élevé (82%). Leurs commentaires ont permis d’améliorer l’outil. Ensuite, un processus hiérarchique de l'amélioration de la sécurité est présenté pour les machines et les moyens de protection. Enfin, les résultats de l'outil sont utilisés pour définir des mesures préventives afin d'éliminer ou de réduire les incitatifs, ainsi que pour illustrer comment les préventeurs en SST pourraient utiliser les résultats de l'outil pour définir des mesures préventives dans leur entreprises. Cette meilleure compréhension de l’enjeu du contournement a permis de concevoir l’outil dédié à la phase d’exploitation des machines pour évaluer les incitatifs sur les machines existantes. Les préventeurs en SST peuvent utiliser périodiquement cet outil dans le milieu de travail pour effectuer des audits et des évaluations, afin de comprendre la raison pour laquelle des accidents liés au contournement surviennent, ainsi que pour prévenir le contournement. Les incitatifs identifiés par les utilisateurs finaux peuvent alimenter les concepteurs de machines en connaissances additionnelles, conformément à la boucle de rétroaction du processus de réduction des risques recommandé par la norme ISO 12100:2010 (boucle représentant le retour d’expérience de l’utilisateur au concepteur de la machine). Cet outil fournit une approche préventive pour les entreprises: 1) éviter le contournement des moyens de protection en analysant les motifs au contournement plutôt que de blâmer les opérateurs, 2) réduire le nombre d'accidents dus au contournement et, par conséquent, 3) augmenter la productivité.----------ABSTRACT: The Act Respecting Occupational Health and Safety is a law in Quebec aiming at eliminating, at their source, dangers to the health, safety and physical well-being of workers. Therefore, ensuring occupational health and safety (OHS) will contribute to protecting workers from risks and entering a hazard zone of machinery; subsequently, it will maintain and promote the highest degree of physical, mental, and social well-being of workers in all professions. Millions of employees working on machines may be exposed to various hazards, including mechanical, electrical, thermal, noise, vibration, radiation, material or contamination, ergonomic, and environmental hazards, during their interventions on machinery. Those hazards can cause serious injuries or fatalities if they are not well-managed. Therefore, in the process of occupational risk management, measures are essential to control the OHS-related risks. Guards and protective devices are the most efficient risk reduction measures, after inherently safe design, in the hierarchy of risk reduction measures associated with machines. Different standards and regulations require enterprises to use guards and protective devices (safeguards) on machinery. Unfortunately, some workers violate those regulations and remove guards or disable protective devices for different reasons. Therefore, they may end up having access to a hazard zone when a machine is operating. Such unsafe behavior is called bypassing. Bypassing of safeguards has been identified as a common OHS problem in most enterprises, and it is considered to be an international problem. As such, the International Social Security Association began an international project with the participation of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria as the project group to mitigate bypassing. This research proposes the prevention of bypassing safeguards and promoting the use of safeguards by designing, applying and improving upon a dedicated tool inspired by the ISO 14119 standard. This dissertation investigates three research questions: i) How can OHS practitioners identify the existing incentives to bypass on their machine? ii) How can OHS practitioners find preventive measures to overcome bypassing on their machine? iii) How can one assess those incentives in order to avoid bypassing safeguards of the machine during the use phase? This dissertation presents a list that covers a wide scope of 72 possible incentives to bypass based on the literature. They are categorized into five main categories: ergonomics, productivity, machine or safeguarding, behavior, and corporate climate. In addition, this dissertation provides a collection of literature-based solutions that include 82 preventive measures classified into technical, organizational and individual influential factors to prevent bypassing safeguards. The tool developed based on the above-mentioned groups of incentives helps assess and prevent the bypassing of safeguards at the use phase of machines. Therefore, this thesis serves not only to design a tool but also to improve the understanding of the bypassing problem. The proposed tool is able to qualitatively estimate the probability of bypassing according to four levels: low, moderate, significant and high. These help decision makers in enterprises prioritize preventive measures to eliminate or reduce incentives to bypass in their workplace. This tool is tested first with five bypassing-related accident reports and then by applying it to four actual manufacturing companies and to real machinery as case studies in the province of Quebec. In total, five OHS practitioners in those companies, as the users of the proposed tool, have applied the tool to 18 machines and 37 activities. A questionnaire enabled feedback to be gathered from the OHS practitioners. Their feedback revealed that the tool was useful with a high level (82%) of satisfaction. The OHS practitioners’ feedback also helped improved the tool. Afterwards, a safety improvement prioritization process is presented for the machines and their safeguards. Finally, the results of the tool are applied to define preventive measures to eliminate or alleviate the incentives, as well as to illustrate how the OHS practitioners could utilize the results of the tool to define preventive measures to their companies. The improved understanding of the bypassing issue enabled the design of the tool dedicated to the machine use phase to assess incentives on existing machines. OHS practitioners can periodically use the tool in the workplace to do audits and assessment in order to understand why bypassing-related accidents happen, as well as to prevent bypassing. Those identified incentives, as end users input, can provide additional guidance to machine designers according to the feedback loop in the risk reduction process recommended by ISO 12100:2010 (loop representing the experience feedback from the machine user to the designer). This tool provides a preventive approach for the enterprises to: 1) tackle the bypassing of safeguards through an analysis of the incentives to bypass rather than blaming operators, 2) reduce accidents caused by bypassing, and subsequently, 3) increase productivity

Insights into Women’s Occupational Health and Safety: A Decade in Review of Primary Data Studies

Women play integral roles across various sectors, including mining. Moreover, they often form a majority in certain sectors, such as healthcare and education. Biological (sex) and social (gender) differences can influence how hazards are assessed and controlled for women at work. Therefore, because of the importance of women’s occupational health and safety (OHS), this study reviews and analyzes OHS-related research studies to explore (i) the attention given to women’s OHS; (ii) the specific occupations studied; and (iii) the primary OHS issues and challenges faced by women. Following PRISMA guidelines, the study examined articles from 2010–2021, selecting 62 that utilized primary data, with all or part of their participants being female. The results indicate that the included studies examined women’s OHS in specific occupations. These include healthcare workers, farm and forestry workers, office staff, teachers, firefighters, police officers, nail technicians, workers in the clothing industry, and general industrial workers. The trend of publishing articles on women’s OHS has been growing, with most studies focusing on healthcare and agriculture. The USA and South Korea are leading in publications in the field of women’s OHS, while the USA, Australia, and the Netherlands have the highest collaboration rates. Key findings reveal that the most common OHS issues faced by women in various occupations include stress, fatigue, musculoskeletal disorders and pain, sleep disorders, long working hours, depression and anxiety, workplace violence, and allergies and skin problems. Many of these issues are related to mental health. Specific issues based on the nature of the work vary; for example, teachers experience voice disorders, while farmers face digestive problems. This study contributes theoretically by enhancing understanding of women’s OHS, serving as a foundation for further research, and providing practical guidance for employers and policymakers seeking to implement effective strategies for guaranteeing women’s OHS across sectors

Sustainable resilient E-waste management in London: A circular economy perspective

The circular economy (CE) is reasoned to organize complex systems supporting sustainable resilience by distinguishing between waste materials and economic growth. This is crucial to the electronic waste (e-waste) industry of developed countries, and e-waste operation management has become their top priority because e-waste contains toxic materials and valuable sources of elements. In the UK, although London Metropolitan city boasts an ambitious sustainable resilience target underlying the context of CE, practical implementation has yet to be feasible, with few investigations detailing if and how the existing target implications enable industrial and social-ecological sectors to continue their performance functionalities in the face of undesired disruptions. In this paper, a dynamic Bayesian Network (dynamic BN) approach is developed to address a range of potential risks. The existing London e-waste operation management is considered as an application of study for sustainable resilience development. Through the utilization of dynamic BN, a comprehensive analysis yields a Resilience Index (RI) of 0.5424, coupled with a StdDev of 0.01350. These metrics offer a profound insight into the intricate workings of a sustainable system and its capacity to swiftly rebound from unexpected shocks and disturbances. This newfound understanding equips policymakers with the knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of sustainable e-waste management effectively. The implications drawn from these in-depth analyses furnish policymakers with invaluable information, enabling them to make judicious decisions that advance the cause of sustainable e-waste management. The findings underscore that the absorptive capacity of a sustainable and resilient e-waste operation management system stands as the foremost defense mechanism against unforeseen challenges. Furthermore, it becomes evident that two pivotal factors, namely “diversifying the supply chain” and “enhancing supply chain transparency,” play pivotal roles in augmenting the sustainability and resilience of e-waste operation management within the context of London\u27s ambitious sustainability targets. These factors are instrumental in steering the trajectory of e-waste management towards a more sustainable and resilient future, aligning with London\u27s aspirations for a greener and more eco-conscious future

Synthesis and tyrosinase inhibitory activities of novel isopropylquinazolinones

Abstract To find new anti-browning and whitening agents in this study, new series of isopropylquinazolinone derivatives were designed and synthesized. All derivatives were evaluated as possible tyrosinase inhibitors and compound 9q bearing 4-fluorobenzyl moieties at the R position exhibited the best potencies with an IC50 value of 34.67 ± 3.68 µM. The kinetic evaluations of 9q as the most potent derivatives recorded mix-type inhibition. Compounds 9o and 9q also exhibited potent antioxidant capacity with IC50 values of 38.81 and 40.73 µM, respectively confirming their antioxidant potential. Molecular docking studies of 9q as the most potent derivative were exacuated and it was shown that quinazolinone and acetamide moieties of compound 9q participated in interaction with critical His residues of the binding site. The obtained results demonstrated that the 9q can be considered a suitable pharmacophore to develop potent tyrosinase inhibitors

Harnessing AI for Project Risk Management: A Paradigm Shift

Project risk management is pivotal in ensuring the success of endeavours within contemporary organizations. As businesses navigate an intricate and competitive landscape, integrating artificial intelligence (AI) introduces a paradigm shift in how project risks are recognized, evaluated, and addressed. This chapter go through into the multifaceted impact of AI on project risk management, reshaping strategies and enhancing decision-making processes to elevate project outcomes. By leveraging predictive analytics and machine learning, AI uncovers hidden patterns in historical project data, enabling proactive risk anticipation and simulation-based mitigation strategies. AI\u27s cognitive capabilities expedite risk assessment by aggregating diverse data sources, fostering agility in response strategies through real-time communication and collaboration among project teams. Beyond operational facets, AI-driven algorithms continuously adapt to evolving risk landscapes, refining risk management strategies and resource allocation. Ethical considerations arise with the expanding role of AI, emphasizing the importance of transparency and accountability in algorithmic decision-making. This chapter envisions a dynamic convergence of AI and project risk management, fostering a future where innovation harmonizes with human understanding, propelling projects towards excellence, resilience, and growth