Behavior based approach for enhancing safety in printing industry : case study approach

Abstract

In Sri Lanka today, the requirement of printing industry grows upward in speedily since they are contributing to provide a range of products to the market both local and export such as papers, books, security printed papers, cartoons, garment tags, labels etc. However it needs to be pointed out the reporting of industrial accidents also are increasing year by year. It is same to the printing industry. As per the experts’ view 90 % of accidents occur due to human errors. Unsafe human activities are leading to cause server accidents in the printing industry and directly impact to their production. Workplace accidents are the result of employees’ negligence or employees’ lack of care. Employees together with employers have a vital responsibility to prevent industrial accidents and injuries. It should be provide significant weight to occupational safety and health, improve human behaviour in order to mitigate accidents by preventive measures, and ensure that employees have the required information, training, and supervision to carry out their jobs safely. The aiming is this study to use Behaviour Based Safety (BBS) approaches to prevent workplace accidents in the printing industry. A case study was performed with selected two large scale annual production printing plants located in the Biyagama Export processing Zone. Based on the prepared questioners semi structured interviews and expert survey were conducted with reviewing accident analysis reports to gather information and data validation. The results pointed out the factors affecting to unsafe behaviours of employees. According to the workers judgments and root cause review of accident analysing reports, factors such as lack of safety related trainings, lack of worker involvement for safety, lack of management commitment to improve safety culture, inefficient communication system are directly link to improve worker unsafe behaviours and report accidents. Experts validated that approaches of each behavioural factors to reduce accidents in printing industry. The final outcome of this study is helping to improve employee moral towards safety and reduce accidents while improving productivity.