Safety, health and productivity of cold work:a management model, implementation and effects

Abstract Cold is a very common physical risk factor in workplaces in circumpolar regions. Cold has many detrimental effects on human health and performance, and on the safety, quality and productivity of work. In this study a systematic general Cold Risk Management Model was developed, applied and evaluated. The model can be integrated in a company’s or an organization’s occupational safety, health, environment and quality (SHEQ) management systems and practices in workplaces. The Cold Risk Management Model and methods were later included in ISO 15743 Ergonomics of the thermal environment – Cold workplaces – Risk assessment and management. The Cold Risk Management Model and methods were applied in two case company’s SHEQ systems and practices in the fields of construction and maritime administration and services. Based on the case studies, the concrete cold risk management activities and the personnel training campaign resulted in immediate positive results and improved attitudes towards further development. At the national level, working in the cold was estimated to increase personnel costs in the construction industry annually by €50M, which is 3% of the industry’s annual personnel costs. This study also showed that the Cold Risk Management Model and methods are profitable. In the case construction company, the savings achieved by cold risk management activities at a construction site were 2.5 time the costs of those activities. A follow-up study in the case company in the field of maritime administration and services showed that implementation and dissemination of the Cold Risk Management Model and methods require systematic work also after the initial development process. The implementation process could and should be enhanced by early establishment of organization-wide guidelines, visible concrete actions, a training campaign and use of necessary external experts. This study also presents a Safety Management Matrix Model for analyzing development and implementation activities during the process time span.Tiivistelmä Kylmä on yksi yleisimmistä työympäristön riskitekijöistä pohjoisissa oloissamme. Kylmästä aiheutuu haittaa ihmisen toimintakyvylle ja terveydelle sekä työn turvallisuudelle, laadulle ja tuottavuudelle. Tässä väitöstutkimuksessa kehitettiin systemaattinen kylmäriskien hallintamalli osaksi yrityksen työterveys- ja työturvallisuus-, ympäristö- ja laatujohtamisjärjestelmiä (SHEQ). Kehitetty kylmäriskien hallintamalli menetelmineen on nykyisin osa standardia ”SFS-EN ISO 15743 Lämpöolojen ergonomia. Kylmät työpaikat. riskin arviointi ja hallinta”. Kylmäriskien hallintamallia ja sen menetelmiä sovellettiin ja edelleen kehitettiin kahdessa tapausyrityksessä rakennusalalla sekä merenkulun tukipalveluissa. Konkreettisista kehittämistoimenpiteistä ja henkilöstön koulutuksesta koettiin tapausyrityksissä saadun välitöntä hyötyä, ja ne johtivat positiivisiin asenteisiin jatkokehittämistyötä kohtaan. Tutkimuksessa arvioitiin kylmätyön myös lisäävän rakennusalan henkilöstökustannuksia vuosittain 50 miljoonalla eurolla, mikä oli 3 % alan vuotuisista palkkakustannuksista. Tapaustutkimuksen avulla osoitettiin, että kylmänhaittojen hallinta on kannattavaa. 20 henkilön rakennustyömaalla kylmänhaittojen hallinnalla saavutettavat säästöt olivat 2,5-kertaiset toimenpiteistä aiheutuneisiin kuluihin verrattuina. Merenkulun tukipalvelujen alalla toimivassa tapausyrityksessä tehdyn seurantatutkimuksen mukaan kylmäriskien hallintamallin käyttöönotto ja levittäminen yrityksessä vaatii kuitenkin aikaa ja systemaattista työtä. Mallin käyttöönottoa ja levittämistä voidaan tutkimuksen perusteella nopeuttaa kehittämistyön näkyvyydellä ja konkreettisuudella, koulutuksella, organisaatiotasoisten ohjeiden laatimisella aikaisessa vaiheessa sekä erityisesti asiantuntijatuen saatavuudella koko implementointivaiheen ajan. Tutkimuksessa syntyi myös turvallisuusjohtamismatriisi työkaluksi kehittämistyön suunnitteluun ja arviointiin

Challenges of adopting DevOps in automotive software development

Abstract. DevOps is a practice of that brings developers and operations together, and it is enabled by rigorous automation, improvement and monitoring. It is beneficial for a company, because it speeds up the delivery of new software updates to customers. However, automotive software field has not yet taken the practices in use. In this study, several different challenges of adopting DevOps-practices in automotive software development projects were identified. Previous research about both DevOps and automotive software, existed on the time of writing, but studies combining these two topics were rare. The study concluded that since automotive software development is traditionally highly complex and distributed, most of the benefits of DevOps are not seen in the field. The study focused on both social and technical challenges seen in adopting DevOps for automotive project. Collaboration and automation were identified as the main problems that need addressing before an automotive company can shift to a DevOps-style development mode. Collaboration problems were explained to arise from the way how automotive software projects are distributed. Traditionally, automotive manufacturing projects are split to multiple sites to allow efficient production of different parts, but it became evident that that future automotive projects are much more software intensive. This in turn requires more system thinking, which does not match with the distributed development model. Coordination of different suppliers becomes hard when experts are rare, and time is divided between multiple projects. Little time is allocated to self-development, which makes the problem more severe. Instead of cross-functional development teams, automotive software projects were noticed to be split into so called silos, where knowledge is not spread between the silos easily. Automation was confirmed to be a major problem for the field, mostly because low abstraction level in automotive software. Most of the code is directly written to be hardware specific and reusing old solutions for new problems was noted to be impractical. Testing the implementation is costly, because often proper testing needs to be executed on special hardware, that might not be available for the organizations that provide the software. Monitoring of automotive software was not seen as important by the manufacturers, which makes adopting DevOps style continuous delivery useless, since no new knowledge can be easily derived from software updates that are not monitored afterwards. Significant changes to the development methodologies are needed before any DevOps adoption can occur in automotive software projects

Implementation of Cold Risk Management in Occupational Safety, Occupational Health and Quality Practices. Evaluation of a Development Process and Its Effects at the Finnish Maritime Administration

Cold is a typical environmental risk factor in outdoor work in northern regions. It should be taken into account in a company’s occupational safety, health and quality systems. A development process for improving cold risk management at the Finnish Maritime Administration (FMA) was carried out by FMA and external experts. FMA was to implement it. Three years after the development phase, the outcomes and implementation were evaluated. The study shows increased awareness about cold work and few concrete improvements. Concrete improvements in occupational safety and health practices could be seen in the pilot group. However, organization-wide implementation was insufficient, the main reasons being no organization-wide practices, unclear process ownership, no resources or a major reorganization process. The study shows a clear need for expertise supporting implementation. The study also presents a matrix for analyzing the process