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BACKGROUND: Municipal solid waste treatment plants are industrial facilities with important occupational health and safety issues. Hence, a risk assessment system would be very useful to help workers to cope successfully with complexity when they are under pressure situations, such as loss of control or failures of the system safety. In recent years, Resilience Engineering has come up as a new proactive approach to improve and keep safety the complex systems. To evaluate Resilience Engineering the methods at our disposal are mostly qualitative, which are complex and difficult to compare due to their external validity. OBJECTIVE: The present research proposes a method for the quantitative assessment of Resilience Engineering in the municipal solid waste treatment sector. METHODS: The study was carried out as part of an EU SAFERA project in two European cities. The data were obtained from a survey of a sample of 328 workers of treatment plants. RESULTS: The results indicated that priority must be given to improving top-level commitment, culture, preparedness and learning culture, while awareness and opacity emerges as positive results. Significant differences can be seen in the Resilience Engineering evaluation for different posts. CONCLUSION: These findings allow practitioners and management with a view to implementing appropriate corrective measures to achieve high Resilience Engineering in the plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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BACKGROUND: The construction sector has one of the worst occupational health and safety records in Europe. Of all construction tasks, formwork activities are associated with a high frequency of accidents and injuries. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents an investigation of the activities and related safety risks present in vertical formwork for in-situ concrete construction in the civil engineering sector. METHODS: Using the methodology of staticized groups, twelve activities and ten safety risks were identified and validated by experts. Every safety risk identified in this manner was quantified for each activity using binary methodology according to the frequency and severity scales developed in prior research. A panel of experts was selected according to the relevant literature on staticized groups.RESULTS: The results obtained show that the activities with the highest risk in vertical formwork tasks are: Plumbing and leveling of forms, cutting of material, handling materials with cranes, and climbing or descending ladders. The most dangerous health and safety risks detected were falls from height, cutting and overexertion. CONCLUSIONS: The research findings provide construction practitioners with further evidence of the hazardous activities associated with concrete formwork construction and a starting point for targeting worker health and safety programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]