Considerations Regarding the Application of the Occupational Injury and Illness Risk Assessment Method at Workplaces/Workstations, in Relation to the ISO 45001 Standard

Abstract

European legislation stipulates the obligation to carry out a risk assessment for each job, as well as the application of measures to prevent these occupational risks. Therefore, taking into account the importance of risk determination at the workplace for the prevention of work accidents and occupational diseases, this paper proposes the digitization of a risk assessment method. The application of the occupational injury and illness risk assessment method begins with a document that contains a description of the company (name, location, domain of activity, organization chart, etc.), a description of the work system detailing its components and a brief description of the assessment method. Next follows a Microsoft Excel document that performs the actual application of the method. Finally, another document presents the list of measures that lead to the implementation of the prevention and protection plan. This paper presents the code design of the Microsoft Excel document, an essential part in the application of the method of assessing the risks of occupational injury and illness. The document is structured on a variable number of worksheets, which present the different types of occupational injury and illness based on risks on the components of a work system. The digitalization of the risk assessment method reduces the time allocated to the evaluation without affecting its quality.

1. Introduction

A method for assessing the risks of occupational accidents and illnesses was developed by the National Research and Development Institute on Occupational Safety “Alexandru Darabont” Bucharest and was presented in 2003 in the work “Evaluation of risks in the man-machine system” [1]. It analytically evaluates the level of risk of occupational injury and illness at workplaces and at the level of the company, having a quantitative character. The method covers all types of workplaces and workstations: fixed, evolving and mobile [2].

This method is based on the analysis of four specific components: worker, work task, means of production and work environment at workplaces/workstations, which are in a permanently interdependent relationship [3,4]. Each component of the work system can present dysfunctions that may cause accidents and occupational diseases. These are the consequences of one or more dysfunctions, determined by an initial and a final cause [5]. In addition, occupational injury and/or illness can occur when there is an interaction between a final cause specific to the means of production or work environment and a cause specific to the worker. Between causes and preventive measures is a biunivocal relationship [6], according to which each cause corresponds to an optimal preventive measure which, if applied, eliminates the accident.

The principle of the method consists in analyzing the degree to which the potential causes of occupational injury and/or illness are covered by adequate preventive measures, which are called safety barriers [7]. The method of assessing the risks of occupational injury and illness involves the identification and appreciation, through direct visual observations and measurements, of the existence of the protective measures provided for by the legislation in force for each risk that exists or may occur at the level of the components of the work system [8,9].

The assessment of occupational injury and illness risks is a requirement of the Council Directive 89/391/EEC as well as of the Occupational Safety and Health Law No. 319/2006, but in addition, it is also an important requirement provided by the ISO 45001:2018 standard. Thus, the standard requires the organization to establish, implement and maintain a process(es), as part of its occupational safety and health management system, to ensure the identification of hazards and the assessment of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) risks in relation to the identified hazards [10]. The standard also requires that the methodology used to assess OSH risks is proactive and used systematically [10].

It should be mentioned that the method for assessing the risks of occupational accidents and diseases developed by the National Research and Development Institute for Labor Protection “Alexandru Darabont” Bucharest meets both the requirements of Law No. 319/2006 and the ISO 45001:2018 standard [11,12]. The method has a proactive character, which means that it can be applied to identify OSH risks that can lead to work accidents or occupational diseases before these undesirable events occur. The forms for recording the results of the assessment, established by the method, enable the fulfilment of the requirements of the ISO 45001:2018 standard regarding the establishment of the documented information necessary to demonstrate the performance of the hazard identification and risk assessment processes in accordance with the planned aspects [13]. In addition, according to the requirements of the standard, this documented information must be used to make workers aware of hazards, OSH risks and preventive and protective measures [10].

Another important advantage of the method is that it can be used both on paper and in electronic format, with the development of a suitable software application. If the use of an electronic format is suitable for the organization, the software application contributes to increasing the efficiency of the OSH risk assessment process by reducing the data processing time and increasing the degree of flexibility in presenting the assessment results [14]. Creating and maintaining the results of the OSH risk assessment as documented information in electronic format is also a variant allowed by the ISO 45001 standard.

Risk assessments in the field of safety and health at work are of major importance. This is because they identify the measures that must be implemented in order to reduce or eliminate occupational risks. Liu R. et al. [15] made an impressive review of numerous assessment methods currently used, using bibliometric analysis. Additionally, George P.G. and Renjith V.R. [16] analyzed works published between 2000 and 2019, presenting the evolution of risk level assessment methods that use the Bayesian network. A bibliometric analysis was also conducted by Tubis A. et al. [17], who analyzed the latest research in the field of OSH related to assessing the level of risk in the mining industry. This highlighted the need for deepening and continuous improvement of research in this field. Patrinieri et al. [18], who proposed risk assessment based on machine learning techniques and deep neural networks, also highlighted the importance of risk assessment.

In recent years, an increase in the level of digitization has been observed in factories and beyond. Therefore, the issue of digitization in the field of OSH was also analyzed by Agnusdei et al. [19], studying the possibility of using Digital Twin technology in industrial safety. In addition, regarding improving existing methods, Morandi R. and Groth K.M. [20] proposed the modernization of a risk assessment method based on probabilistic risk assessment and prognostics and health management. Furthermore, Kim A. et al. [21] researched the digitization of a risk assessment method using industrial control systems, highlighting the possibility of using this system to maintain an acceptable level of safety.

Over time, different methods of assessing the level of professional risk have been developed and implemented with the aim of improving the safety of workers at work. The method of evaluating the professional risk level proposed in this study is currently used by many companies. However, if we take into account the continuous development of the online environment, digitization is also necessary in the field of safety and health at work. Therefore, the aim of this work is to digitize the method of evaluating the level of professional risk, and thus reduce the evaluation time without affecting its quality.

2. Methodology

This method of assessing the risks of occupational injury and illness at workplaces/workstations follows the following stages:

• The establishment of the analysis and evaluation team;
• Description of the system to be analyzed;
• Identification of risk factors in the system;
• Assessment of occupational injury and illness risks;
• The ranking of risks and the establishment of prevention priorities;
• Establishing preventive measures;
• Analysis report.

The level of risk obtained allows the establishment, in the end, of preventive measures in order of priority, completing a plan for the prevention of and protection from risks at work/workstations and common risks per workstation, department or unit.

Formation of the analysis and evaluation team. The team leader is the occupational safety specialist who harmonizes the points of view of the other evaluators to achieve the goal: the assessment of occupational risks. The team includes specialists in the field of occupational health and safety, technologists, designers, specialists in ergonomics and doctors specializing in occupational medicine, depending on the workplace to be evaluated.

Description of the system to be analyzed. A detailed analysis of the workplace is carried out, looking at the description of the technological process; the work operations; the machines and equipment used (functional parameters and characteristics, tools, etc.); specification of the workload of the worker in the system; description of environmental conditions; and specification of security requirements.

Identification of risk factors in the system. It is established for each component of the evaluated work system, based on a risk factor identification list, which dysfunctions the system can present in all foreseeable and probable operating situations.

Evaluation of occupational injury and illness risks. To determine the possible consequences of the action of risk factors on the human body, a list of possible consequences developed by the relevant Ministries of Health/Labor is used. For the probability classes, the European Union standard was adopted.

Ranking of risks and establishing prevention priorities. The result obtained from the previous procedures is identified in a risk assessment grid and entered in the job evaluation form.

The global risk level at the workplace, $N_r$, is calculated as a weighted average of the risk levels established for the identified risk factors. For the obtained result to reflect reality as accurately as possible, the rank of the risk factor, which is equal to the risk level, is used as a weighting element. The global risk level is determined by the following relationship:

$$N_r=\frac{{\sum }_{i=1}^n{r}_i·R_i}{{\sum }_{i=1}^n{r}_i}$$

where $r_i$ is the rank of risk factor $i$; R_i is the risk level for risk factor $i$; and n is the number of risk factors identified at the workplace.

To obtain the global level of risk for the workshop, section, sector or evaluated enterprise, $N_g$, the following relationship is used:

$$N_g=\frac{{\sum }_{p=1}^n{r}_p·N_{sp}}{{\sum }_{p=1}^n{r}_p}$$

where $r_p$ is the rank of the risk workplace $p$, equal in value to the risk level of the place; $N_{sp}$ is the average level of job security for job $p$; and n is the number of analyzed jobs.

Establishing preventive measures. The hierarchical order of prevention measures is considered, as follows: intrinsic prevention measures; collective prevention measures; and individual protection measures. The proposed measures are entered in the measures sheet, which is a form for their centralization.

Analysis report. This is an informal instrument that contains the following information: the persons involved; the manner of carrying out the analysis; the results of the assessment—job sheets with risk levels; and measures sheets.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Digitization of the Method

ISO 45001 is based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, which means that it is constantly evolving as new information becomes available. Identifying important aspects in a quality risk-assessment method is critical for companies. By digitizing the method that is already used as a tool in the OSH national industry, the challenge for OSH specialists in adopting the application into their workload diminishes greatly. To streamline and simplify the way of using a programming environment, this work is based on the use of the VBA programming language [22]. It does not require the installation of a compiler to run the risk assessment application, and users who are already familiar with the Microsoft Excel interface do not need additional instructions to use the program.

The application of the evaluation method involves opening the Microsoft Excel document, which contains a worksheet named “List” (Figure 1). The predefined table header can be seen; this will be populated with the risks observed after the evaluation of the workplace.

By double-clicking the “Data Entry” button, the application is launched and will display all the fields necessary to be filled in to prepare the evaluation (Figure 2).

Each field can be populated by choosing one of the presented options, which are based on the assessment method [1]. All the options available are presented in

Table 1. Main categories of risk factors grouped according to generating element within the work system.

Component of the Work System	Main Categories of Risk Factors
Work task	unconforming content of labor task in reply to safety requirements: wrong operations, rules, procedures; absence of operations; inappropriate work methods (wrong sequence of operations);
	task is wrongly dimensioned in comparison with worker capacity: physical stress; mental stress;
Worker	errors: wrong operations; non-synchronization of operations; performing unforeseen tasks; miscommunications;
	omissions: omission of tasks; forgetting to use protective equipment;
Means of production	mechanical risk factors: functional movements of technical equipment; contraindicated self-triggering or self-blocking of functional movements of technical equipment or fluids; movements under the effect of gravity; movements under the effect of propulsion; dangerous surfaces or contours; reservoirs under pressure; excessive vibrations of technical equipment;
	thermal risk factors: high temperature of surfaces or objects; low temperature of surfaces or objects; flames;
	electrical risk factors: electric current (direct touch, indirect touch, step voltage);
	chemical risk factors: toxic substances, caustic substances, flammable substances, explosive substances, carcinogenic substances;
	biological risk factors: cultures or preparations with microorganisms; dangerous plants; dangerous animals;
Work environment	physical risk factors: air temperature; air humidity; air currents; air pressure; air ionization; overpressure under water; noise; ultrasounds; vibrations; lighting; electromagnetic radiation; ionic radiation; electrostatic potential; natural calamities;
	chemical risk factors (`): gases, vapors, toxic or caustic aerosols; airborne dusts, flammable or explosive gases or vapors; pneumoconiogenic powders;
	biological risk factors (WE): microorganisms suspended in the air;
	environment characteristics: underground, aquatic, underwater, marshy, aerial, cosmic, etc.

.

If a risk factor is identified and it is not present in the list, the application lets users fill in this factor themselves by selecting the “…” option and manually filling in the identified risk factor, as presented in Figure 3.

It is mandatory to fill in all the fields shown in the application, in the order shown above, starting from step one: selecting the work system component; step two: selecting the work system subcomponent; and step three: selecting one of the proposed risk factors identified through the method or selecting the “…” option and manually writing a short, concise title for the risk. In the fourth step, the user must describe the risk factor identified, including parameters related to the risk (if applicable). In the fifth and sixth steps, the user chooses the gravity and frequency of the risk. After all the fields are filled in, by pressing the “Entry Data” button, the application inserts the data line into the table (Figure 1). Thus, the fields are automatically emptied in order to be able to enter a new set of information. At the same time, the application allows manual data entry into the table, but the user must follow the format of the data so that it corresponds to the format of the table header.

The application does not allow entering information into the table if all the fields in the interface are not filled in (Figure 4).

After the risk assessment is completed, and the table is populated with all the necessary data, the user can double-click the “Generate Evaluation” button (Figure 5).

The application generates the message shown in Figure 6, and by pressing the “OK” button, new worksheets are generated: “Evaluation”, “Histogram”, “Measures” and “Interpretation” (Figure 7, Figure 8, Figure 9 and Figure 10).

These worksheets contain the assessment itself, which can be exported after filling in the data necessary for its identification, namely:

• The company;
• The department;
• The job title;
• The number of workers;
• The exposure time;
• The evaluation team.

After filling in the characteristic data for the workplace, PDFs can be generated by pressing CTRL + P. The worksheets are specially formatted to be filed with 1-inch (2.54 cm) margins.

If changes or additions are made to the identified risk factors, they are to be made in the first worksheet, “List”, after which the “Generate Evaluation” button is pressed, and the application displays the message shown in Figure 11. After pressing the “OK” button, the previously generated worksheets are deleted, and new ones will be generated and updated with the added information.

3.2. Skeletal Code for the Assessment Application

The application was developed using the Developer function in the Microsoft Excel application [23]. Enabling it allows the application to open the VBA programming interface in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications [24].

The actual interface is created by following these steps: from Developer, open Visual Basic → Insert → UserForm. This interface (Figure 12) can be populated with text, images, text fields with options, etc.

To be able to access the interface, a Form Controls button is inserted (Figure 13) which is given a name (“Form”), and in VBA it is programmed to interact with a double click:

Sub Run_DblClick(ByVal Cancel As MSForms.ReturnBoolean)

Form.Show

End Sub

The same is performed for the button that generates the worksheets. First, the application checks if there are any worksheets with method-specific names; if such worksheets exist from a previous evaluation, they are deleted, and if not, they are created.

Dim check As Boolean

For Each Sheet In Worksheets

If Sheet.Name Like (“Evaluation”) Then check = True: Exit For

Next

If check = True Then

MsgBox “ Warning! Modifications made in other worksheets will be deleted!”

Worksheets(“Evaluation”).Delete

Else

MsgBox “ Would you like to start the evaluation?”

End If

Sheets.Add.Name = “Evaluation”

The formatting of the worksheets is performed individually, following the model presented: landscape orientation, A4 size, 1-inch margins, with scaling option “Fit All Column on One Page”, using Times New Roman as font, size 12.

With Worksheets(“Evaluation”).PageSetup

.Zoom = False

.Orientation = xlLandscape

.PaperSize = xlPaperA4

.LeftMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)

.RightMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)

.TopMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)

.BottomMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(1)

.HeaderMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.5)

.FooterMargin = Application.InchesToPoints(0.5)

.FitToPagesWide = 1

.FitToPagesTall = False

End With

Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“A:H”).Font.Name = “Times New Roman”

Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“A:H”).Font.Size = 12

The information entered by the application in the table is copied, taking into consideration the order of the table header according to the method, using the command shown: copy columns A and B, and paste them into the new worksheet, starting with cell A1.

Range(“A:B”).Copy Destination:=Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“A1”)

Range(“A:B”).Copy

The numbering of the risk factors is performed as follows: two variables are initialized, one of which stores how many rows are in the table, and one of which is used as a counter.

Dim LastRow As Long

Dim counter As Long

LastRow = Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“A” & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row

For counter = 1 To LastRow

Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“C” & counter).Value = “F” & counter

Next counter

The same counter is used to determine the risk factor’s specific risk level based on gravity class and frequency class and the maximum possible consequences based on gravity class only.

For counter = 1 To LastRow

Dim Val As String

Val = Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“F” & counter) & Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“G” & counter)

If Val = 11 Or Val = 12 Or Val = 13 Or Val = 14 Or Val = 15 Or Val = 16 Or Val = 21 Then

Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“H” & counter) = 1

End If

Next counter

For counter = 1 To LastRow

If Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“F” & counter) = 7 Then

Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“E” & counter).Value = “DEATH”

End If

Next counter

To border the cells in the table, a similar counter-like structure is used, which checks the cells that have information and borders them.

Dim iRange As Range

Dim iCells As Range

Set iRange = Sheets(“Evaluation”).UsedRange

For Each iCells In iRange

If Not IsEmpty(iCells) Then

iCells.BorderAround _

LineStyle:=xlContinuous, _

Weight:=xlThin

End If

Next iCells

To calculate the global risk level, three variables are used: one of counter type, one that will calculate the simple sum of the risk level values and one for the sum of the squares of the risk level values. The final value is displayed in the corresponding cell, after dividing the sum of the squares by the simple sum of the risk levels, rounded to two decimal places.

Dim counterS As Long

Dim sumSQ As Long

Dim sumS As Long

LastRowS = Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“A” & Rows.Count).End(xlUp).Row

For counterS = 1 To LastRowS

sumSQ = sumSQ + Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“H” & counterS).Value * Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“H” & counterS).Value

sumS = sumS + Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“H” & counterS).Value

Next counterS

Sheets(“Evaluation”).Range(“A” & LastRow + 1) = “Nrg = “ & Round(sumSQ/sumS, 2)

Graphics are inserted by defining a graphic object type variable, which can be set to be displayed at certain coordinates. The chart will receive information as to which cells have the data needed to generate the graph.

Dim pcht As ChartObject

Set pcht = Sheets(“Interpretation”).ChartObjects.Add(Top:=420, Left:=15, Width:=450, Height:=350)

pcht.Chart.SetSourceData Source:=Sheets(“Interpretation”).Range(“B18:B21”)

pcht.Chart.ChartType = xlPie

pcht.Chart.HasLegend = True

pcht.Chart.SetElement msoElementDataLabelInsideEnd

pcht.Chart.HasTitle = True

pcht.Chart.ChartTitle.Text = “Distribution of risk factors identified by the generating source within the work system”

pcht.Chart.ChartTitle.Font.Name = “Times New Roman”

pcht.Chart.ChartTitle.Font.Size = 12

4. Conclusions

This method of assessing the risks of injury and illness is intended for the assessment of the level of risk at work by an evaluation team. It analytically evaluates the level of risk at workplaces or workstations at the level of the company before accidents or occupational diseases. The method applies to all types of workplaces/workstations: fixed, evolving and mobile.

The Microsoft Office package has become a commonly used software which is installed and used on most personal computers, tablets and even smartphones, regardless of the operating system. As a result, this software is widely known and used by users of these devices. The application of the occupational injury and illness risk assessment method begins with a Microsoft Word document that contains a description of the company (name, location, object of activity, organizational chart, etc.), a description of the work system that details its components and a brief description of the method of evaluation. It continues with a Microsoft Excel document that represents the actual application of the method and, finally, in another Microsoft Word document, conclusions, proposals and priorities that can lead to the realization of the prevention and protection plan are presented.

To reduce the time allocated for the evaluation, considering that after identifying the risk factors the method follows the same calculation steps as the assessment method, the use of the program executed in Microsoft Excel comes to the aid of the OSH specialist. Once the identified risk factors are entered into the predestined Excel worksheet, the program created and briefly presented above generates worksheets of interest for the evaluation of the workplace/workstation. The challenge when implementing such an application is that there is a learning curve that needs to be overcome. While the application itself is straightforward, companies must ensure that their OSH specialists are trained in how to use the system so that they may obtain the most accurate and reliable results. The level of risk obtained, correlated with the classification of the risk in the acceptable or unacceptable field, allows the final establishment of preventive measures in descending order of priority, and completing the summary sheet of risks at the workplace and the summary sheet of common risks at a workshop, section or unit determines the mode of action for implementing the prevention and protection plan.