Causes of Workplace Accidents

Causes of Workplace Accidents Workplace accidents are generally caused by the unsafe behaviour of employees and the unsafe state of objects (Shi Wenwen, et al., 2011). In the past, root causes of those accidents were reported mainly in terms technological malfunctions and the human element tended to be ignored (Gordon, 1998). Technology and systems have become more reliable and the frequency of technological failures has diminished, there is little uncertainty today that human errors contribute to the majority of safety incidents within high risk industries (Baysari, et al., 2009; Skalle, 2014). The current research on the workplace accidents document that human errors are the root cause of up to 80% of incidents in high risk industries (Liping, 2003; Cullen and Anderson, 2005; Garret and Teizer, 2009; Ganguly, 2011; Quanmin, et al., 2011). As Reason (1997) indicated in an earlier research, it is expected, because human decisions and actions are not only involved in accidents, but also in the design, construction, operation, maintenance and management of complex systems. The significance of human factors contribution to safety has been demonstrated over the past two decades by the often-quoted examples of the contribution of human failures to the major accidents within the process industry such as Bhopal, Piper Alpha, Texas City refinery explosion, Esso Longford gas explosion and Texaco Milford Haven explosion (Hughes and Kornowa-Weichel, 2004). Given this demonstration, it is astounding that the importance of human factors in the safety management has not yet been extensively acknowledged within the high risk industries in the Middle East. There are scarcely any literatures exist within the Middle East on the relevance of human factors in safety management. Some elements of human factors such as training and motivation had always been received attention within the oil and gas industry; however, they have been deliberately managed as part of an integrated safety management system or with the rigour that their contribution to the risk requires. The term ‘human error’ is defined in several literatures (Norman, 1981; Reason, 1990; Sanders and McCormick, 1993; Salmon, et al., 2005). Reason (1990, p.9) defined human error as â€Å"a generic term to encompass all those occasions in which a planned sequence of mental or physical activities fails to achieve its intended outcome, and when these failures cannot be attributed to the intervention of some chance agency.† Salmon, et al. (2005, p.5) defined human error as â€Å"any mental or physical activity, or failure to perform activity, that leads to either an undesired or unacceptable outcome.† Dhillon Liu (2006) and Shi Wenwen, et al. (2011) point out that the causes of human errors are complicated, and the basic reasons can be one’s own unsafe psychological activities, physiological factors, environmental factors, insufficient safety training, poor design factors and inadequate procedures. The term ‘human factor’ is often referred as the thread that runs through the safety management system, the organisation for safety and the culture of a site (Cullen and Anderson, 2005). Cacciabue (2004, p.12) defined human factors as â€Å"the technology concerned with the analysis and optimisation of the relationship between people and their activities, by the integration of human sciences and engineering in systematic applications, in consideration for cognitive aspects and socio-technical working contexts.† The United Kingdom, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defined human factors as â€Å"environmental, organisational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics which influence behaviour at work in a way which can affect health and safety† (HSE, 2005, p.5; Ganguly, 2011, p.14). Hughes Kornowa-Weichel (2004) and Cullen Anderson (2005) highlight that it is important to integrate human factors from the early stages of process design and procedural development to reduce human failures. Hamilton, et al. (2013, p.5) state that â€Å"human factors integration is the principal method for applying human factors to the development of socio-technical systems across safety critical industries.† In this way, the integration helps to ensure that human factors methods and principles are applied appropriately and consistently during the system development in order to achieve a safe and effective design for end users. McLeod (2004) indicates that human factors maturity assessment of an organisation should be in terms of what action organisation takes to minimise the human contribution to incidents and the impact on the health of the workplace through the way it designs the equipment and implements its associated training and procedures. On the whole, the above discussed literatures put forward the claim that management systems, tools and equipment of an organisation to be designed with the potential capabilities and limitations of people in mind to run it safely and effectively as people are the integral and key features of the business systems. Therefore, the best practices of human failure prevention can only be attained when human factors are integrated into the procedural and system development phase rather than considering as a stand-alone activity. For this reason, the success rate of human failure prevention mostly depends on the level of human factors integration into the health and safety management system of that organisation. Background to the organisation Lamprell Energy Limited (LEL) is a leading provider of diversified engineering and contracting services to the onshore and offshore oil and gas and renewable energy industries. Based in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) and with the operations throughout the region, Lamprell has played a prominent role in the development of the energy industry within the Middle East for over 35 years. Lamprell has established a leading market position in the construction, commissioning and installation of rigs, process modules and top sides. The primary facilities of Lamprell are located in Hamariya, Sharjah and Jebel Ali all of which are located within the U.A.E. The facilities cover approximately 910,000 m2 with 2.2 km of quayside. The organisation employs approximately 2400 employees in the Jebel Ali facility where the research was conducted. Reason for the dissertation Health and safety is a core value within Lamprell businesses and a strong health and safety culture exist within the group. The health and safety management system is accredited by the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001:2007 standard. Surveillance audits are carried out by Bureau Veritas, a global leader in the management systems certification with a strong presence within the U.A.E. Kelvin Top Set root cause analysis tool and problem solving methodology is used within the organisation for the investigation of workplace incidents. This ensures that the root causes of all incidents reported within the organisation are systematically identified. An analysis carried out on all the lost time, restricted work, medical treatment accidents and root causes reported in the last 3 years within the Jebel Ali facility of Lamprell reveals that the accidents caused by the human failures are at an alarming rate. There were no fatalities reported during this period within the organisation. It was confirmed that accidents are classified based on the similar reporting criteria across all three years to ensure consistency of collected data. Figure 1. Total Accident Frequency Rate (AFR) and Human Failure Accident Frequency Rate from January 2011 to December 2013. Figure 2. The causes of human failure accidents from January 2011 to December 2013. As Figure 1 indicates, there was a rise in AFR in 2012 compared to 2011 and then dropped in 2013. Human failures contributed 76%, 82% and 83% to the total AFR in 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively. The causes of these human failure accidents were retrieved from Lamprell’s Single Incident Reporting System (SIRS) and illustrated in Figure 2. The pie chart shows that over half the human failure accidents were due to the noncompliance of procedures, poor competency and environmental factors. The high human failure accident rate and the nature of the causes of these failures are self-explanatory for assessing the human factors integration into the health and safety management system of Lamprell.

Expectations of Current Economy Essay

The U. S. economy in 2013 has a projected growth increased to an annual rate of 2. 5 percent in the first quarter, but not enough to meet the expectations made by the economists (Aljazeera 2013). The reason why all of these projections came to be was because of disappointments that came about; plans did not follow through, or because of accident and uncontrollable events. For example, part of the acceleration in activity reflected farmers filling up silos after a drought in the summer decimated their crops output, but the growth rate was a halfhearted 1. percent (Aljazeera 2013). Because of this event that transpired, the economy did need to compensate in other areas for this event not to be an overall bust. To help with the compensation would be all the other fields of the economy such as the spending of the consumer. The consumer spending, accounting for more than two-thirds of US economic activity, increased at a 3. 2 percent. It grew at a 1. 8 percent rate in the fourth quarter of last year (Aljazeera 2013). However consumer spending was not enough to compensate for other downfalls. Households cut back on saving to fund their purchases after their incomes dropped at a 5. 3 percent rate in the first quarter (Aljazeera 2013). The saving rate fell to 2. 6 percent from 4. 7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012(Aljazeera 2013). But now, based on projections, housing is showing positive signs and can be expected to keep improving over the next year The spending of the government fell to a 4. 1 percent annual rate and most of the increase in the first-quarter spending came from car purchases and outlays for utilities (Aljazeera 2013). But with this good news, the purchase of equipment and software by businesses slowed sharply. But it picked back up at only three percent rate after a brisk 11. 8 percent pace in the fourth quarter (Aljazeera 2013). The forces needed for a quickening US recovery are already in place, but they are going to occur slowly but surely. The balances of items that are or could be affecting the US consumer spending have turned positive (IHS 2012). Also seen is that US businesses are likely to spend and hire more, which means that growth will average around 2% next year (HIS 2012).

Financial Rewards For Living Organ Donors - 2012 Words

Financial Rewards for Living Organ Donors Deciding whether or not one would like to become an organ donor should be a relatively simple decision. But becoming a living organ donor, for someone who may need a kidney or liver, is something that is not always possible to those who do want to help. Unfortunately many people incur costs for the life-saving donation. Regardless of the fact that many other types of donors get paid for their donations. Here lies the frustration of many who are waiting years for their life saving organ. Many of which who do not receive them. If we can financially compensate individuals who donate hair, sperm, eggs and even become gestation surrogates, than there must be a way to financially reward live solid organ donators. There is an increased demand for life saving organ transplantation has become overwhelming. So much that those who are awaiting organ transplants are becoming desperate, despite the current tax incentive already offered to organ donors in many states. As of July 2016 there are 19 states who have enacted tax deduction or credits to living donors, one of them being Wisconsin. Wisconsin’s statute 71.05 states that, â€Å"Subject to the conditions in this paragraph, an individual may subtract up to $10,000 from federal adjusted gross income if he or she, or his or her dependent who is claimed under section 151 of the Internal Revenue Code, while living, donates one or more of his or her human organs to another human being for humanShow MoreRelatedArgumentative Essay On Organ Donation716 Words   |  3 PagesWe have an organ donor enigma in the U.S., as more than record number of Americans support organ donation, but half are registered to donate. This year, thousands of Americans will die needlessly for a need of an organ. 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Comparing Home Fire to Antigone - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1336 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2019/06/13 Category Literature Essay Level High school Tags: Antigone Essay Did you like this example? The home fire is the updated version of Antigone, which has transported from ancient Greece to todayrs London and the main characters were British-Pakistanis. This premise forms the basis for Kamila Shamsiers Home Fire, which updates Sophocles tragedy and sets it in the contemporary context of the War on Terror and the struggle of European countries to deal with their citizens who join the Islamic State. Though ultimately a derivative work one that doesnt stand alone without reference to the original the novel has some interesting insights on what it means to be British and on Islamrs place in todayrs UK.. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Comparing Home Fire to Antigone" essay for you Create order Sophocles tragedy centers around the conflict between Antigone and Creon, her uncle and the ruler of Thebes. Antigone desires to bury her brother Polyneices according to the religious law while Creon refuses to grant permission since he considers him to be an enemy of the state. In Shamsiers novel Home Fire, Polyneices becomes Parvaiz Pasha, a young Londoner who becomes radicalized and leaves to work in the Islamic Staters media unit in Syria. His sister Aneeka (Antigone) first tries to enable him to return to the UK without facing charges and later to bring his body back to London. Her opponent is Karamat Lone, the British Home Secretary, himself of Pakistani and Muslim origin. The equivalent of Creonrs refusal to allow Polyneicesrs body to be buried in Thebes is like Karamatrs order to abolish British citizenship from those dual nationals who act against the interests of the UK. Thus, after Parvaizrs death in Istanbul, his body is sent to Pakistan instead of the UK. Aneeka then travels to Karachi to sit in protest outside the British Consulate until the government allows the body to be returned to the UK. Her sister Isma (Ismene), on the other hand, attempts to distance the sisters from their brotherrs actions. Shamsie recounts her story in five acts, and each one is narrated by a different character with their own take on events; Isma, Eamonn lone, Parvaiz, Aneeka, and Karamat Lone. One of the main themes of the novel is how Britain treats its Muslim citizens. The story begins with Isma at the airport, enduring a lengthy interrogation that causes her to miss her onward flight to the US, where she plans to pursue her Ph.D. The interrogation is particularly fraught because of her family background, though the experience of being questioned at Western airports is one familiar to many Muslim travelers. More problematic is the mediars demonization of British Muslims. As Isma recalls a conversation she had during college: The 7/7 terrorists were never described by the media as British terrorists. Even when the word British was used it was always British of Pakistani descent or British Muslim or, my favorite, British passport holders, always something interposed between their Britishness and terrorism. (38). Later, Aneeka refers to the perils of Googling While Muslim, a nod to state surveillance of Muslims for any sign of extremism. Shamsiers characters are all three-dimensional and none of them are entirely heroic. Unlike Antigone, Aneeka uses sex to try to achieve her objectives, becoming involved with Karamatrs son Eamonn (Haemon). In the original play, Antigone is engaged to Haemon, but she sacrifices this relationship to fulfill her obligations to her brother. Aneeka, in contrast, attracts Eamonn as part of a plan to bring her brother home. Though she does eventually fall in love with him, her initial actions cast her in a manipulative light, she prays and wears the hijab yet doesnt seem to have problems with premarital sex. Like Aneeka, Karamat is also a complicated character. He is an integrationist who distances himself from his Muslim background and marries an Irish woman. He gives his son an Irish name, Eamonn, rather than the Arabic Ayman. Yet, he confesses that in times of stress he often finds himself unconsciously reciting the Ayat al-Kursi. Asked in an interview to respond to the accusation that he hates Muslims, he replies I hate the Muslims who make people hate Muslims (231). Shamsie heightens the dramatic conflict by giving the Creon character a Muslim background and depicts that type of Muslim and British-Pakistani who believes that in order to advance in mainstream society, he has to distance himself from his religion and be more loyal than the King. One of the other Shamsiers most interesting departures from Sophocles is providing a bigger backstory for the Polyneices character. Sophocles begins his story after Polyneices is already dead, so we never learn what drove him to become an enemy of Thebes. In contrast, Shamsie shows the reader the process by which Parvaiz is radicalized, and thus highlights how lost and vulnerable young men are often exploited and brainwashed into waging jihad. In Parvaizrs case, he is a young boy who has never known his father, himself a jihadi, a fact that Parvaizrs mother and sisters never discussed, fearing the negative consequences for the family. When an older man comes along and asserts that Parvaizrs father was a hero, Parvaiz is naturally drawn to him and led down the path to radicalization. In Shamsiers narration, even the jihadi is a somewhat sympathetic character. His motivations are understandable though his actions are reprehensible. Oppose to the sisters is Karamat, who tells students at a Bradford school: You are, we are, British. Britain accepts this. So do most of you. But for those of you who are in some doubt about it, let me say this: dont set yourselves apart in the way you dress, the way you think, the outdated codes of behavior you cling to, the ideologies to which you attach your loyalties. Because if you do, you will be treated differently†not because of racism, though that does still exist, because you insist on your difference from everyone else in this multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multitudinous United Kingdom of ours (88). While telling Muslims that they shouldnt freely express their religion is problematic, there is something to be said for greater assimilation into the societies in which Muslims find themselves. Karamatrs most problematic action is the abolishing of British citizenship from those dual nationals who act against British interests. Rather than dealing with why some young British Muslims are alienated from the larger society, this action simply ignores the problem by retroactively defining them as un-British. Shamsie concludes with Karamat Lone, whose unstable status at once inside and outside British mainstream culture remixes that of Isma. Shamsie is sympathetic to the vulnera  ­bility of his position, to the risks he takes to realise his ambition to be a man assured of his own power. But she is also alive to the hypocrisy and absurdity generated by his constant compromises. Out walking beside the Thames, he notices a brown-skinned jogger and identifies him as a potential threat, asking his security detail: That one too Muslim for comfort? To which his guard replies: That one was Latino. These shifting perspectives serve deeper purposes. In terms of pure narrative excitement, they trap characters between competing loyalties. I admit it, Eamonn confesses near the end of the novel. Ive been [ ] caught between the two people I love most in the world: my father and my fiancee. But this narrative relativity also encourages the reader to interrogate their own preconceptions, not to mention the shallow news ­paper head  ­lines Shamsie parodies on several occasions. Home Fire makes an interesting companion to Antigone though most of the power of the novel comes from seeing how Shamsie has updated that great work of world literature. Without the literary resonances, the novel would simply be another work that attempts to deal with jihad and the place of Islam in the West, themes worked and reworked by many Pakistani novelists writing in English. Home Fire is impressive comparing to Antigone because in its final pages, deeply moving a complex, heartbreaking meditation on the ties that bind, no matter how hard we struggle to be free. By turns deeply humane and provocative, Shamsie has reinforced her reputation as one of the worldrs most arresting writers.