HSE Management for a Sound Work Environment: Strategies for Improving Health Safety and Environmental Indicators through Ergonomic Design Thinking

Ergonomic Design Thinking (EDT) is a project management methodology that takes advantage of two important concepts or themes in carrying out project actions. The first is Design Thinking itself, a project management approach originally proposed by Tim Brown, who knew beforehand the full potential of design tools, techniques and maybe we should add idiosyncrasies. Designers have “their own way” of following through and carrying out issues such as deadlines and sequences, for example. This logic is similar to another important theme: ergonomics. The main objective of ergonomics is adapting work systems to workers themselves. By doing so, its professionals dig deep into the social technical fabric of a workplace and use recurrent and iterative strategies in order to search for a perfect fit for a given workstation. EDT as a modeling guide for workspace projects have been used in Brazil for quite some time. This text outlines an interesting experience in which EDT was used as a conception tool in building a new health safety and environmental (HSE) management system model for construction sites. A real case–an ongoing construction work–was used to contextualize the experiment and better define the various instruments of this HSE model. Due to the work environment and predominant job characteristics available, the EDT approach did quite well in terms of serving its project management purpose, as it was confirmed when the new system became fully functional

Chapter HSE Management for a Sound Work Environment: Strategies for Improving Health Safety and Environmental Indicators through Ergonomic Design Thinking

The environmental effect of ground-borne vibration and noise generated by urban rail transit systems is a growing concern in urban areas. This chapter reviews, synthesizes and benchmarks new understandings related to railway vibration and associated airborne and ground-borne noise. The aim is to provide new thinking on how to predict noise and vibration levels from numerical modelling and from readily available conventional site investigation data. Recent results from some European metropoles (Brussels, Athens, etc.) are used to illustrate the dynamic effect of urban railway vehicles. It is also proved that train type and the contact conditions at the wheel/rail interface can be influential in the generation of vibration. The use of noise-mapping-based results offers an efficient and rapid way to evaluate mitigation measures in a large scale regarding the noise exposure generated to dense urban railway traffic. It is hoped that this information may provide assistance to future researchers attempting to simulate railway vehicle vibration and noise

Demand forecasting and inventory management as requirements for quality assurance in a bakery company

This paper is a case study on the influence of inventory management on the results and profitability of a bakery located in the municipality of Nova Iguaçu, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. As a general objective, this study sought to identify the extent to which demand forecasting influences the inventory management of the bakery studied. To this end, the intermediate objectives were to evaluate how demand forecasting is applied, to verify how information on raw material stock levels is managed at the bakery and, finally, to report on how the adoption of a stock control methodology has a positive impact on the quality of service and the bakery's results. The theoretical reference research used a literature review as its methodology, but as far as the case study is concerned, local observations were made and a questionnaire was applied to the operation's manager, comprising ten discursive questions. Based on the analysis of the data collected, the results of the research made it clear how important it is to optimize stocks at the company in order to obtain better results and reduce freight costs, making it financially healthier and, consequently, increasing its profitability. To this end, the need for theoretical and technical knowledge, updating, integration of information, stock management strategy and investment in technologies and tools for stock control and management has become apparent

Application of the control chart for variables in a vehicle assembly plant in the south of the state of Rio de Janeiro

Vehicle assemblers have quality as a prerequisite for the proper functioning of their process. The monitoring of the quality of this type of industrial activity is carried out by means of control charts by variables. The objective of this article is to show a case study carried out in a company in the south of the State of Rio de Janeiro that used this type of control chart, more specifically the control chart of the mean and amplitude to evaluate a process carried out by three machines. The results showed the need for some adjustments and managerial attitudes will be taken to improve the process

Mapping the Accidents and Unsafe Conditions of Workers in the Automotive Sector

Purpose: Their production processes involve several risks and repetitive tasks and adoption of penalizing postures, which can cause musculoskeletal disorders and occupational accidents. The objective of this paper is to elucidate the situation of Occupational Health and Safety in the automotive sector in the Agulhas Negras region and in Brazil. Methodology/Approach: For this bibliographic research was carried out to characterize and define the processes and concepts pertinent to the economic activities of the sector; collect and treat the most frequently registered data and elaborate a comparative study for better visualization of the scenarios. Findings: The result was the identification of different behaviours of the curves, which showed the national scenario being linear and constant, while the regional one proved to be unstable, with many variations over the years. Research Limitation/Implication: The research was developed in a region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, and it is recommended to conduct a global survey. Originality/Value of paper: The analysis of the characteristics of occupational accidents, with the most frequent type of injury, the most affected body parts, the groups of causative agents, and the most notified occupations in accidents

Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands

Acknowledgments: The long-term data on the demography and foraging ecology of wandering albatrosses at Possession Island, Crozet Islands, were supported by the French Polar Institute IPEV (program no. 109 to H.W.), with additional funding from the Prince Albert II de Monaco Foundation. The study is a contribution to the Program ANR Biodiversité 2005-11 REMIGE. We acknowledge the modeling groups, the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI), and the World Climate Research Programme’s (WCRP’s) Working Group on Coupled Modeling (WGCM) for their roles in making available the WCRP CMIP-3 multimodel data set. Support for data and model selection was provided by S. Jenouvrier. We thank the many field workers involved in the Crozet long-term monitoring since 1966 and in tracking programs since 1989, and D. Besson for help with the management of the demographic database. M.L. was funded by a postdoctoral contract of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Ref. EX2007-1148) and Marie Curie Individual Fellowship (PIEF-GA-2008-220063). We are grateful to L. Riotte-Lambert for help with data analysis and C. Barbraud, C. A. Bost, Y. Cherel, and S. Jenouvrier for comments on the manuscript.Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools (multifunctionality). However, the relationship between biodiversity and multifunctionality has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We report here on a global empirical study relating plant species richness and abiotic factors to multifunctionality in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth’s land surface and support over 38% of the human population. Multifunctionality was positively and significantly related to species richness. The best-fitting models accounted for over 55% of the variation in multifunctionality and always included species richness as a predictor variable. Our results suggest that the preservation of plant biodiversity is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands.Depto. de Biodiversidad, Ecología y EvoluciónFac. de Ciencias BiológicasTRUEpu

Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands

Experiments suggest that biodiversity enhances the ability of ecosystems to maintain multiple functions, such as carbon storage, productivity, and the buildup of nutrient pools (multifunctionality). However, the relationship between biodiversity and multifunctionality has never been assessed globally in natural ecosystems. We report here on a global empirical study relating plant species richness and abiotic factors to multifunctionality in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth's land surface and support over 38% of the human population. Multifunctionality was positively and significantly related to species richness. The best-fitting models accounted for over 55% of the variation in multifunctionality and always included species richness as a predictor variable. Our results suggest that the preservation of plant biodiversity is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in drylands