Search results

The emerging industrial revolution referred to as Industry 5.0 is focusing on leveraging human creativity with intelligent and autonomous systems to derive user-friendly work environment for the businesses. Industry 5.0 stresses on people centric work ecosystem, zero accident policy and the well-being of labour within the production processes. This approach of Industry 5.0 to obtain human-centric safety solutions through the deployment of digital technologies deduces workplace accidents and costs leading to the development of Safety 4.0. This chapter aims to investigate the opportunities and challenges of Safety 4.0 and its enabling technologies aspiring towards the greater impact on safety management. Further, we have proposed a framework for the role of human centric digital transformations concerning safety in the manufacturing industry propelling Safety 4.0. Concluding, we discuss the implications for managers and practitioners. We found that Safety 4.0 will strengthen industrial safety, and instead of reacting to accidents, the concept evolved towards a preventive and proactive approach for a healthy industrial ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to present a hierarchy decision model for assessing the priority of safety management elements in manufacturing enterprises with reference to three major industries (i.e. textile and clothing, electronics, and printing and publishing) in Hong Kong. The identification of core decision criteria and safety management elements were addressed with respect to the effective implementation of safety management systems (SMS) in manufacturing enterprises.

Empirical data were acquired via a conduct of personal interviews with evaluators (i.e. safety personnel, experts and professionals) in industry. Using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology, a list of seven decision criteria and 13 safety management elements were identified and their relative importance were evaluated.

It was found that the top three criteria for SMS implementation were “client requirement” “insurance company requirement” and “employee requirement”. Both “safety organisation” and “safety policy” were the most important safe management elements. Besides, evaluators put greater concerns on “safe person” elements than “safe place” elements. Incorporating the AHP findings, a self‐regulatory approach to implementing safety management elements was proposed.

The hierarchy decision model would enable manufacturing enterprises to focus their resources on the critical elements at a time, to improve the effectiveness of SMS implementation. Future study could validate the applicability of the model and the self‐regulatory approach in large enterprises and small to medium‐sized enterprises, separately and collectively.

Using the AHP methodology, safety personnel could evaluate the relative importance of decision criteria and safety management elements with respect to the corporate goals, resources and constraints of their respective organisations.

The hierarchy decision model presented would enable manufacturing enterprises to determine the relative importance of decision criteria and safety management elements and to establish viable strategies for SMS implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting the adoption of food‐safety management systems by Thai food‐manufacturing firms.

The study employs a survey questionnaire using a sample of Thai food‐manufacturing firms. The three‐part questionnaire was mailed to managers performing food‐safety management activities in 480 firms. A total of 217 questionnaires were returned, with a response rate of 45.2 percent.

The results of hypothesis testing indicated that the adoption of a food safety management system can be significantly predicted by: expected gain of social legitimacy; expected gain of economic competitiveness; perceived importance of external stakeholders (government, community, food safety organizations, and media); top management commitment to food safety; firm size and amount of export sales. It can also be predicted by the extent to which firms exchange food safety knowledge with other stakeholders.

The results of the study suggest that the Government should formulate food safety policies in favour of educating senior managers in the potential benefits of food safety management systems for their firms. In addition it confirms the importance of Government information dissemination on the successful adoption of such systems and the need to focus Government resources on assisting smaller firms. The findings present evidence of the commercial benefits of system adoption.

The paper identifies statistically significant factors that can “predict” the uptake of food safety management systems within the Thai food industry.

The purpose of this paper was to map the safety management research of construction industry by scientometric analysis, which can predict important highlights and future research directions of safety management research in the construction industry. As an important issue in the construction industry, safety management issues have been researched from different perspectives. Although previous studies make knowledge contributions to the safety management research of construction industry, there are still huge obstacles to distinguish the comprehensive knowledge map of safety management research in the construction industry.

This study applies three scientometric analysis methods, collaboration network analysis, co-occurrence network analysis and cocitation network analysis, to the safety management research of construction industry. 5,406 articles were retrieved from the core collection database of the Web of Science. CiteSpace was used for constructing a comprehensive analysis framework to analyze and visualize the safety management research of construction industry. According to integrating the analysis results, a knowledge map for the safety management research of construction industry can be constructed.

The analysis results revealed the academic communities, key research topics and knowledge body of safety management research in the construction industry. The evolution paths of safety management research in the construction industry were divided into three development stages: “construction safety management”, “multi-objective safety management” and “comprehensive safety management”. Five research directions were predicted on the future safety management research of construction industry, including (1) comprehensive assessment indicators system; (2) intelligent safety management; (3) cross-organization collaboration of safety management; (4) multilevel safety behavior perception and (5) comparative analysis of safety climate.

The findings can reveal the overall status of safety management research in the construction industry and represent a high-quality knowledge body of safety management research in the construction industry that accurately reflects the comprehensive knowledge map on the safety management research of construction industry. The findings also predict important highlights and future research directions of safety management research in the construction industry, which will help researchers in the safety management research of construction industry for future collaboration and work.

There is increasing recognition amongst healthcare providers on the necessity to improve fire safety management in healthcare facilities. This is possibly not yet satisfactory because of recent fire incidents in Asia. This paper set out to analyse the literature because of the paucity of systematic reviews on fire safety management of public healthcare facilities and proffer preventive measures.

Thirty related studies were identified with the support of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses via Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Influencing factors, hindrances to fire safety management and preventive measures for fire-related occurrence in Asian hospital buildings were the three themes that emerged from the reviewed. The factors that influence fire in Asian hospital buildings were categorised into technical, management and legislation factors.

The recommendations of this paper were based on literature that was systematically reviewed but does not compromise the robustness concerning fire safety management in hospital buildings across Asian countries. Much is needed to be known regarding fire safety in healthcare buildings across Asian countries. This paper recommended exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach as part of the implications for further studies. This will allow in-depth face-to-face interviews and increase the generalisability of future findings concerning fire safety management in hospital buildings across Asian countries to a larger population.

As part of the practical implications, this paper recommends fire safety management plan as one of the practical possible measures for addressing technical, management and legislation factors. Also recommended is training and fire safety education of healthcare staff in collaboration with safety firefighters to address major issues that may arise from management factors. The government should upgrade the safety technology equipment in healthcare facilities as part of measures to mitigate issues concerning technical and legislation factors. Also, the identified factors are part of the theoretical contributions to the advancement of knowledge and this brings to the front burners new opening.

This is probably the first systematic review paper on fire safety hospital buildings in Asia.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for performance assessment of organizations based on integrated approach of knowledge management and safety management using data envelopment analysis, and the proposed model is then applied in the car industry in Isfahan province to be checked. Therefore, deficiencies can be highlighted and possible strategies can be evolved to improve the performance.

As data envelopment analysis is a robust mathematical tool, it has been used to evaluate organizational performance. For discovering the organizational performance of knowledge management and safety management by data envelopment analysis (DEA), the first step is to specify proper criteria. To this end, in this method, the indices in both approaches of knowledge management and safety management were identified. Then, inputs and outputs were specified. Knowledge management and safety management were determined as input indices, and customer satisfaction and accident indicators were the output indices. It is noteworthy that each output index was used one time. In the next stage, performance of organizations was assessed based on both determined approaches and via data envelopment analysis. Finally, the organizations were ranked.

The suggested method was implemented in the car industry in the Isfahan province. The obtained results disclosed that among 12 decision-making units, 4 units are efficient when customer satisfaction is the output and 5 units are efficient when accidents indices are the output. In ranking with customer satisfaction as the output, Sepahan Atlas Pump Company was ranked first via super efficiency method, data envelopment analysis and similarity to ideal solution. In ranking with accidents as the output, Sepahan Atlas Pump Company ranked first via strong efficiency method and Sanatgar Company ranked first via data envelopment analysis and similarity to ideal solution.

Knowledge has been recognized as one of the valuable resources, and knowledge management would greatly effect improvement of job quality. Knowledge level increase is led by better performance and less errors. Consequently, it can enhance the organizational health and safety. There are some studies which have been conducted on safety management or knowledge management performance analysis. The organizational performance evaluation based on integrated approach of knowledge management and safety management is an important issue which is less considered in theory and practice. Thus, the authors have proposed a method which is able to evaluate the organization based on this integrated approach with functional indices, which resulted in accurate results, and finally, ranking can show the organization status to determine proper strategies.

Frequent fire incidences in various hospitals across the globe with devastating effects on humans and other resources have multiplied. Stakeholders in the health-care sector are worried because of the yearly fire outbreak increase. However, fire safety management has been proved as a successful platform to mitigate fire in health-care facilities. How far regarding public health-care facilities is yet to receive in-depth studies in Malaysia. This paper aims to investigate the issues associated with fire safety management and proffers possible solutions to improve safety in public health-care facilities from the operators’ perception.

The objectives were achieved through a combination of case studies of five selected Malaysia’s public hospitals and a qualitative approach. Thematic analysis with the assistance of MAXQDA (software program designed for computer-assisted qualitative and mixed methods data) 2018, a type of qualitative data analysis software was used to analyse the collated data which emerged from the knowledgeable participants.

Lax implementation of safety policy, inadequate water pressure, poor maintenance, inadequate communication system, amongst others, emerged as the issues. Findings proffer five main measures to possibly improve fire safety management in public health-care buildings. This includes a feasible institutional framework, improve the emergency response team, improve the occupational health and safety system and others.

This paper is limited to exploring the issues associated with fire safety management and proffer possible solutions to improve safety in public health-care facilities from the operators’ perception. Future research is needed to engage useful information in advancing fire safety management in public hospital buildings and possibly developing a qualitative model using a generic fire response model. Also, to investigate the level of compliance with the requirements of a fire safety management plan and possibly develop a well-detailed fire safety plan in Malaysia’s public health-care buildings.

As part of the paper implications, the paper concludes that improved fire protection systems via modern technologies and training of key staff members in accident response and recovery during fire emergencies should be encouraged. This can be achieved through the enforcement and implementation of a fire safety management plan. Thus, this study is encouraging the implementation and sustainability of a fire safety management plan for health-care buildings across Malaysia.

To the best of this paper’s knowledge, this is possibly the first comprehensive paper on fire safety management in public health-care facilities that engaged operators in Malaysia. Moreover, this paper proffers feasible policy solutions to improve the fire safety management plan in public health-care buildings.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the facilities maintenance employees’ priority on safety management practices and relationship to safety performance. The study aims to increase the safety performance among the facilities maintenance contractor by implementing safety management practices.

The data were collected by distributing questionnaire forms to the employees of selected facilities maintenance contractors representing general workers, technicians and executive- and the management-level employees. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation and multiple regressions.

The descriptive results revealed that the employee priority on safety management practices is fairly “low”. The correlation and regression analyses tested and satisfied that management commitment, workers involvement in safety, safety training, safety communication and feedback, safety rules and procedures, and safety promotion policies significantly and strongly correlate with the degree and level of satisfaction to the safety performance.

This research focuses only on facilities maintenance contractors working in the Klang Valley, Malaysia. It is possible that respondents from other areas or states may allow comparisons across different locations.

There are many factors affecting safety performance. By implementing safety management practices, high safety performance can be achieved in the facilities maintenance organisations in Malaysia.

This paper presents empirical findings on the relationship between employee priority on safety management practices elements and safety performance.

The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method was used to determine the priority of processes outlined in the BS8800 Guide to Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems for the Hong Kong construction industry. Analysis of variance was used to further investigate the differences among three different kinds of construction enterprises: joint venture (JV), well‐established (W‐E) and small and medium sized (SME) enterprises. This study of 32 construction enterprises suggests that JV and W‐E enterprises are able to demonstrate stronger commitment to strategic safety issues whereas SMEs focus more on the short‐term safety issues in implementation of safety management system. The results also indicate that “Safety Training” may be a problem area in all three groups. When considering differences shown between groups, these rankings can be used as a guide for the practical implementation of the British Standard BS8800 Safety Management System in construction enterprises in Hong Kong.

This study aims to reduce the construction safety accidents of prefabricated building (PB) projects, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of safety supervision by government departments, and provide theoretical reference for improving the safety supervision system of PB construction.

Considering the information asymmetry between government supervision departments and construction contractors and the interactive relationship between the two parties under bounded rationality, we propose an evolutionary game model for the construction safety dynamic supervision of PBs and analyze the evolutionary strategy of the game. The system dynamics (SD) method is used to simulate and analyze the evolutionary game process under a dynamic supervision strategy and the adjustment of external variables.

The cost difference between the government's strong and weak supervision, the construction contractor's additional expenditure for strengthening safety management, and other factors affect system stability. The government can dynamically adjust the penalties based on the construction contractor's subjective willingness to ignore safety management and further adjust their rate of change based on the completion of the supervision goals to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of construction safety supervision.

This study makes contributions in two areas. Through a combination of SD and an evolutionary game, it provides new insights into the strategic choice of the main body related to PB construction safety. Additionally, considering the nonlinear characteristics of construction safety supervision, it provides useful universal suggestions for PB construction safety.