Scale Development and Validation of Safety Engineering Systems in Major Hazardous Industries

One of the earliest researches in industrial safety was‘The Domino theory of accident causation’, where 88% of all accidents are triggered by unsafe acts of workers and 10% by unsafe actions” [1]. This theory was revised because the emphasis was given only on workers, not considering the fault of management and organizations. Essentially pro-active management must comply with strict safety legislation, and create healthy workplace safety practices and policies. It is imperative to diminish the risks of human life in industries through accidents and injuries, especially in high-risk sectors such as nuclear, aircraft, chemical, mining, oil and gas industries, where a fatal mistake can be catastrophic. Thus, the evolution of systems engineering safety is out of necessity, making safety a priority in the fast-evolving productivity-driven work environment where engineers take a more serious approach to designing safety into both systems and products. System safety was described as “organized common sense”[2].

System engineering safety is a planned, disciplined, comprehensive, and systematic approach to identifying, analyzing, eliminating, and controlling hazards. The critical purpose of the practice is to remove the severity and probabilities of the recognized hazards and to diminish risk where the hazards cannot be eliminated. SES comprises fault-tolerant equipment, fireproof and fail-safe characteristics, also with enclosed hazardous systems to prevent exposure. It also includes choosing the least hazardous resources, constructing a safe design with environmental aspects of the workplace, maintaining safeguarding schedules, carrying out regular safety reviews, employee training regarding safety issues with performing audit and inspection measures. The hazardous industry environment has entered a new era in continuation of safety which involves installations were any substance produced, processed, used, handled, or stored has the potential to cause a major accident. This article will identify the underlying safety engineering systems factors in Major Hazardous Industries in Karnataka, India, and explain the framework in designing an instrument for the assessment of safety engineering system components. These factors can be taken into consideration by policymakers as potential approaches for risk analysis.

Out of a total of 72 MHI in the state of Karnataka, a sampling approach was devised in the present study. The data was collected through a structured questionnaire based on 14 components that were identified through an extensive literature survey. The developed survey instrument was administered to 1300 respondents of 22 MHIs. Duly completed questionnaires were collected from 1123 employees. Out of that, 1029 questionnaires were found to be valid, appropriate, and hence considered for the final analysis. The responses of the remaining 94 questionnaires were rejected because they were illegible, inappropriate, and incomplete. Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted on the surveyed data to reduce the safety engineering systems components and to extract the predominant components using Principal Axis Factor. Partial least square structural equation modeling was conducted using ‘R’ to validate the results.

3.1 Sample for the study

To represent the population for the present research reasonably, a convenience sampling approach was adopted. All the population characteristics have been considered while deciding the sample size. In this study, the unit of analysis was employees of MHIS like executives, engineers, managers, supervisors, operators, and helpers and the population is from different MHIs from various parts of the State of Karnataka. The sample size for this research is 22 MHIs (shown in Table 2), which will be about 30.5% of the total MHIs of the Karnataka State.

3.2 Design of SES survey instrument

Considering the frequency of the components appeared in the previous studies by various researchers and based on the results that emerged in the brainstorming session conducted with many safety professionals, a draft questionnaire was designed considering the following main safety engineering systems components.

1. Preventive and breakdown maintenance
2. Electrical Safety systems
3. Mechanical safety systems
4. Work station systems
5. Material handling
6. Chemical safety
7. Safety and health policy
8. Safety and interlocking systems
9. Responsible care system
10. Incident investigation and reporting system
11. Safety communication system
12. Motivational for safety
13. Safety administration systems
14. Relief and rehabilitation system

Table 2. Selection of sampling data based on Manufacturing Process and Number of Major Hazardous Industries (MHIs)

Table 3. Demographic attributes of the industries

The questionnaire was designed using 5 points Likert scale, which is ranging from 1 to 5 i.e. strongly disagree to strongly agree. The questionnaire was prepared in both Kannada (local language) and English language to carry out the pilot study. The prepared questionnaire has two sections i.e., general demographic information, employee perception about SES.

The questionnaire was distributed among the 100 employees of one MHI as a pilot study to test the initial questionnaire. Based on the results of the pilot study reliability coefficient is obtained as 0.91 and 0.87 in test and retest which is more than the threshold value of 0.7. Hence, it was concluded that the questionnaire had good reliability and is tenable for statistical computation. The final questionnaire was distributed among the employees of 22 MHI in Karnataka.

3.3 Demographic characteristics

As mentioned above, the demographic profile is one of the major sections of the survey instrument. Out of 72 MHI in Karnataka, the questionnaire was distributed among the employees of 22 industries as a sample study. The information about demographics will give us the perception of SES in different firms also from employees who have a varied background of knowledge, experience in their respective profession.

3.3.1 Demographic attributes of firm

The 22 MHI’s are mainly classified firstly based on demographic attributes of the firms from which the data has been collected and they are: Size, Cost, Nature of Manufacturing, Types of hazardous substance handled, Sector to which the firm belongs. From Table 3, it is shown that major of the firms i.e., 36.36% belong to medium scale industry employees ranging from 501-1000, 72.72% are from the project where investment is more than 50 crores, 50% of them belong to the Production unit and 36.36% are from different hazardous industries.

3.3.2 Demographic profile of respondents

The valid 1029 responses from the distributed questionnaire in 22 MHI’s are categorized on the demographic characteristics like Gender, Age, Experience, Education, Nature of the job, Designation, and Department. Table 4 shows that major of the respondents are male about 95.73%, 39.32% are more than 40 years, 39.81% have more than 15 years of experience, 28.74% belong to ITI qualifications, 73.5% are from a technical background, 75.34% are workers and 57.57% are from the production department. The categorization will itself cover the perception of all employees from different backgrounds who are eligible and have adequate knowledge to judge the questions in the survey instrument and provide their opinion. According to Boyatzis et al. [24], a graduate degree helps people to have the required cognitive ability. Certain employees who have specialization in their higher graduation are considered as expert opinion though their percentage is 15.05%. Apart from proficiency suggestions the study mainly focuses on gathering the data from employees to assess the level of SES in MHI.

Table 4. Demographic characteristics of respondents

The operational definition of the six critical components is given for the policymakers and organizations to include these factors during risk assessment.

Safety management system (SES1): is management intended to bring about safety elements in the workplace. It includes policy, objectives, plans, procedures, organizational structures, accountabilities, responsibilities, and other measures to eliminate the risk of dangerous occurrences.

Accident relief and rehabilitation system (SES2): is providing suitable relief and rehabilitation systems for the accident victims, heirs of the deceased, by providing suitable compensation, alternate employment, etc., to the victims or their families. Also, it includes controlling the rehabilitation of affected areas and procedures for rehabilitation at the end of the emergency with instructions for re-entering the accident area.

System for safety maintenance (SES3): is defined as a combination of all technical and organizational activities required to keep equipment, installations, and other physical assets in the desired operating condition or restore them.

System for safety preparedness (SES4): is forecasting and taking precautionary measures before an imminent threat when warnings are possible. It is safety systems that provide the tools, equipment, and personnel to meet any emergencies arising during the course of work either on-site or off-site emergencies. Health and safety policy are in place in the company. Remedial actions are taken immediately after the accident/ incident in the company.

Safety communication system (SES5): includes direct and indirect communication, motivation to do the job safely, providing suitable training on hazards, and remedial measures. Workers are educated about the imminent dangers of chemicals used in the factory. Material safety data sheets are displayed for all chemicals in the factory premises.

Safety monitoring system (SES6): This system helps in monitoring the total safety systems such as providing tools and equipment, proper supervision, reporting of accidents, near misses, etc. Air monitors, smoke detectors, and noise control monitor optimum functionality. The company conducts ergonomics studies and monitors to prevent any workplace injuries.