An accident prevention model: Case study of a small-scale wood workshop in a developing country

Abstract

Majority of processing activities in small-scale wood workshops are huge, including lifting, stacking and cutting
of wood materials. These generate substantial hazards, which trigger accidents, injuries and possibly death. To
prevent these calamities, a new accident prevention model is proposed based on barriers (human shields) that
safeguard the human body from attacks and damages. The effectiveness of creating and optimizing these barriers,using principal barriers for skin, organs (internal and external), bone and fatigue is presented. The predicted rate of accident occurrence ranged from 0 (best) to 0.4587 (worst) accident per period. The percentage rate of occurrence varied from 0 (best) to 26.85 (worst) accident percentages per period. The bone injury prevention barrier involving factors of trips, slips, contact with moving machine parts, and contacts with rollers yielded a range of values from 0.2635 to 0.4255. Results showed that a high percentage (almost 50%) of the probable accidents would be classified under external organ injury prevention barrier. Results further showed that EOIPB is a first degree accident. This implies that the wood workshop has a high degree of uncertainty in terms of predicting when and what type of accident is likely to occur. The main novelty of this contribution is the unique integration of barrier factors with the fault tree analysis and being able to optimise than using Lagrange’s multiplier. The presented methodology serves as an effective tool in the identification of influential accident causative factors, on a preventive basis, before any accident occurs. It can be appropriately applied in other processes, such as manufacturing with some practical utility to the safety coordinator.