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Europe wants to prepare its businesses and citizens for a sustainable and more prosperous human-centric digital future.The path to the translation into reality of the digital objectives will bring a complement to the existing rights and principles regarding the protection of data and private life, the digital rights of citizens as well as guidelines for companies regarding new technologies.Globally, the occupational health and safety risk assessment process is implemented using hundreds of dedicated tools, used in a flexible and complementary way, according to clearly specified criteria. Customized concepts offer a major potential for improving the management of safety and health at work in economic organizations, regardless of their size, form of ownership or other conditioning categories, sectors of activity or public institutions. This paper aims to make contributions regarding the forecasting and identification of new and emerging OSH challenges related to how digitization would change automated systems, work equipment and tools used, how work is organized, business models, hierarchies and relationships, the characteristics of the force of work, responsibilities for OSH management, skills, knowledge and information needed to work.

Globally, the process of assessing the risks to the health and safety of workers is implemented through the use of hundreds of dedicated tools, used in a flexible and complementary way, according to clearly specified criteria. Unfortunately, in the national practice of occupational risk assessment, only one method has become generalized, which is used in a proportion of 90-95%, and the major problem is that often it is not even applied only formally. This paper has an ambitious goal, aiming to offer practitioners in our country a case study on good practice on the procedural structure for achieving and capitalizing on the results of risk assessment, in a manner that is both complex and pragmatic. The concept proposed and successfully implemented at the investigated multinational company, offers a major potential to improve the management of occupational safety and health in economic organizations, regardless of their size, form of ownership or other categories of conditioning.

As economies grow and the use of chemicals becomes more and more widespread, the adoption of effective control measures allows for safer use of chemicals on an industrial scale. Chemical hazards can have severe negative consequences for both the health of employees, the safety of personnel and facilities (fire and explosion risk) and the environment. To characterize them, it is necessary to combine the inherent hazards associated to chemicals with their conditions of use that may generate emissions and exposures. Various methods, both qualitative and quantitative are available worldwide for chemical risk assessment, but unfortunately in Romania this important aspect is treated in a minimalist manner, which can often be considered as insufficiently rigorous. In this perspective, the present paper aims to validate through a practical case study conducted in a Romanian paint manufacturing company, the application of a simplified method of chemical risks prioritization and assessment. The obtained results allowed the substantiation of the control measures of these risks, being also able to constitute an instrument of raising awareness for all the interested parties (occupational safety and health inspectors, managers, safety officers, supervisors, workers), in the effective management of the chemical risks.

Only an objective knowledge of safety and health at work reality on the harbor platform and an active participation of all stakeholders (employers, unions, workers) can bring an improvement in this activity. The prevention of accidents at work by ensuring safe and healthy working conditions and maintaining the Occupational Safety and Health Management system are factors that continuously develop and improve safety performance by helping to actively manage risks. This paper aims to systematize the information available, both at European and national level so as to develop a strategy at the organizational level that can be included in a guide to optimal safety and health practices for harbor operations. The paper also proposes relevant practical aspects of safety and health at work in the activities carried out in the loading and unloading flow in / from the port of the ship, trying to support the knowledge and understanding of identification, assessment and prevention of specific risks.

Musculoskeletal disorders are one of the most common occupational diseases, affecting millions of workers in the European Union and costing employers billions of euros. Researching the relationships and possibilities of optimal mutual adaptation, under given conditions, both of human to his work and of work to humans, in order to increase the technical-economic efficiency, to optimize the conditions of satisfaction, motivation and work results, while maintaining the worker’s state of health also involves, as a basic stage, the assessment of the risks of osteomuscular-articular overload. Starting from a statistical synthesis on the incidence of MSD and the characteristic types of demands, the paper systematizes in a unitary vision the categories of methods, techniques and tools available for recording and evaluating the factors of physical and postural stress of workers. The pointed description of three of the most commonly applied ergonomic risk assessment tools, aimed at developing a synthesis of Strengths-Weaknesses type, which highlights the advantages of methods in counterbalance with their limitations, providing a first basis for selection in order to apply them in the practice of companies that are aware that investing in safety means investing in profit and not losing financial resources and implicitly human, material ones.

As they are anticipative, proactive, and treating assessment as a quasi-continuous phase of risk management, the next step in keeping workers safe seems to be the proper implementation of the guidelines on risk assessments included in ISO 45001. They are indeed inspiring for organizations worldwide to consider risk management as really important, good for the business, and imperative for worker health and safety. What should the Romanian organizations know and do in this spirit? The main objective of this paper is to answer systematically and in a structured way the question of whether there is a set of principles, means to follow, recommendable approaches that, taking into account the general practice established at national level at this time of evolution, allow even to facilitate the transition from reactive to proactive management of occupational hazards, with all the advantages and - at the same time - challenges that this change implies? The main possible answers to this question are investigated, resulting in a set of conclusions with practical applicability, which can guide the process of streamlining the results of accidents at work and occupational diseases prevention work at the national level, within a coherent and unitary vision.

The main objective of the paper is to analyze the safety culture in order to understand how theory and practice can be integrated to improve safety performance and related economic outcomes. The research includes the synthesis of systematic studies on safety culture and the factors that influence the relationship between organizational culture and safety behavior. In a global manner, the results obtained generate relevant insights into how safety culture can be theoretically systematized and provide a series of recommendations that can guide the development of future safety culture interventions. Finally, a framework is proposed for an in-depth understanding of all the implications of safety culture in the practice of Romanian companies.

The protection of workers exposed to specific risks is regulated by a substantial and well individualized legislation on safety and health at work. Currently there are many difficulties and shortcomings in implementing legal requirements on specific risks assessment and prevention, especially due to their insufficient knowledge and understanding by employers. In this context, starting from detailing and explaining legal requirements applicable, this paper aims to summarize and systematize the information regarding available, both at national and European level, tools and guides prepared for a unitary process of implementation of legal provisions on specific risks assessment and prevention. The paper was structured so as to constitute a legal and methodological guide to assist employers and other interested parties in the effort to implement an efficient and effective management of preventive activities directed to avoid or reduce workers’ exposure to specific risks.

Until the present, addressing the economic dimension of work accidents and occupational diseases in Romania has been sporadic, relatively unsystematic and unenforceable. Any quantitative assessment of the consequences of accidents and occupational diseases involves determining the cost associated with these undesirable events, which can be used as an economic indicator. Embedding the labor safety criterion among the performance criteria of a company makes its profit directly conditional on the fulfillment of legal requirements on working conditions, so that general management must include among its objectives and maximizing the results of preventive activity. In this context, the paper presents the results of a critical comparative analysis conducted on tools developed worldwide to analyze the costs associated with accidents. The main purpose of the study was to establish the feasibility of introducing the most appropriate tools in the practice of romanian companies, in order to optimize the cost-benefit of investments in occupational safety and health.

The paper proposes a model unfolded for occupational safety aspects inclusion in the design and management of change stages for a piece of machinery. The “Integrated Safety - Technical Equipment” (ISTE) model substantiates a logical connection between various task-based features to be fulfilled, hazardous areas and occurrences, hazards, risk assessment, ways to wedge in, workplace characteristics, the effect of the working environment, work crew as well as apparatus, tools and/or basically corresponding to and following a set of prior theoretically grounded guidelines, found in literature. At the same time, the paper gives the outline of the case study performed to give proof of the practical model’s, illustrating operational safety design for a mechanical press line, used for sheet metal milling. Resorting to the developed model, it was performed the design, construction and assembling of the automatic press line which is compliant in terms of occupational safety.

Maintenance activities are essential for maintaining the safety and reliability of the equipment and the working environment, it has a decisive impact on occupational safety and health, being a high risk activity that needs to be done safely, with adequate protection for maintenance workers and of other people present at the workplace. These activities include operations from very different sectors and from all types of work environments. This study highlights the impact of maintenance - as a high risk activity - on the safety conditions of the maintenance workers' protection, within the post-accident evaluation and analisys of several organizations from Arad county. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable exploitation of coal in Jiu Valley can not be achieved without using methane drainage systems, given that the primary objective of these is to improve the safety and health of workers and ensure the proper environmental conditions underground, by reducing the concentration of methane in the mine atmosphere. It should not be neglected the valorization of drained gas which can play an important role in increasing the efficiency and profitability of mines. Studies and research on improving the efficiency of degassing coal seams in Jiu Valley focused, in particular, on the development of automated monitoring and management system for methane drainage networks. Despite progress achieved, qualitative and quantitative parameters of drained gas are still hard to keep under control due to inadequate knowledge about the phenomena related to migration of gas from massive to boreholes. Currently, the location of boreholes and setting the amount of depression on the borehole so that the highest possible gas flow to be captured is an area with prevailing empirical approaches that do not always achieve the objectives set. From this perspective, this paper aims to present, based on current the situation analysis, an original mathematical model of boreholes location for achieving an optimal management of methane drainage systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowing the level of risk enables decision makers to act effectively on the preventive side of Occupational Health and Safety. This paper contains a partial assessment of the risk of accidents and professional diseases for a number of three jobs at a polling repair machinery workshop. Also it is briefly described the method that was used for this risk assessment by analysing the situation at the risk assessment date: technical equipment, staff workload, environmental conditions, workload of staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a global problem, namely workplace safety, which is an important issue not only for employers but also for employees. The health and safety is focus on reducing work-related incidents and increase safety at work. Anything that jeopardizes these priorities should be detained and prevented from happening again. Risk management tools provide systematic methods of managing such events. Current figures available on the number of accidents and occupational diseases and deaths are still unacceptable. Injuries and occupational diseases can have severe consequences on workers, their families, employers and the entire community. This paper aims to highlight ways to limit hazardous behaviour and increase safety behaviors. Proactive behavior of safety and health at work addressed the entire population, can provide social support for behavior change concerning safety at the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge the application of finite element method - FEM, represents an approximate solving method to the problems of field (elastic field movements, tension field, temperature field, etc.), that is to determine in a given field to one or more unknown functions, characteristics of the physical nature of researched field, when we can't solve differential equations of the phenomenon. This paper contains the application of FEM on two auto inferior arms which differ only in the material from which they are made. It is also described the FEM, by means of which was performed the manner in which the two auto inferior arms behaves, subject to the same forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Awkward identification, superficial knowledge and misperception of occupational risks related to underground working environment in Romanian mining industry, basically linked to their probability of occurrence and severity, but also to the lack of scenario development generated in the last decades a series of undesired events with great losses, both in terms of human lives and property damage. Managing hazards in underground mining operations necessarily involves a systematic and structured process based on proactive behaviour of all stakeholders. The process should be initiated and, then, developed and spotted from exploration to closure of mining activities, namely throughout the entire life cycle of any mine unit. Nowadays, despite a strong regression of the Romanian mining industry, or quite for this reason, the commitment for quality, consistency and effectiveness of performed occupational risk analysis and management across the remaining mine units should become more accurate and holistic, considering the particular risks related to industry restriction. More and more complex evaluation tools should be applied, bringing their related benefits and consequently providing the opportunity to practically achieve higher effectiveness of decision-making processes. This paper is aimed to highlight the structure and spot the light on the main problems to be addressed by occupational health and safety engineers and managers from any mine, when setting the strategic, organizational and risk management goals, context and framework needed to perform a usable and rational risk assessment. Another goal of our systematization effort is to emphasize and offer guidance on how an adequate and targeted risk analysis method applicable in every life cycle stage of a mine, ranging from design until closure and rehabilitation should be selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper summarizes the results of a larger study which aimed to perform a comparative critical analysis of tools available for risk analysis and safety diagnosis, to highlight commonalities and specificities that differentiates them. We noticed that risk analysis tools such as FMECA by their characteristic structural, functional and methodological aspects, represents a risk analysis method that could be integrated within the safety diagnosis of complex industrial systems. It is intended proposing a diagnostic tool whose results will allow a connection with the risk analysis carried out on an investigated industrial system. Starting from the restrictions specific to different behavioral patterns and modes associated with them and integrating the results of the risk analysis (as expert level knowledge), will develop detailed procedures for diagnosis, which will allow to complement incomplete diagnoses, to eliminate physically impossible diagnoses and indication of the failure thus responsible for generating unwanted events. On this basis the authors estimated that it will become possible to develop an integrated approach to forecast the failure modes of an industrial system that will directly be applicable to the practice of industrial units to allow risk analysis and safety diagnosis through a systematic, scientific, holistic and integrated procedure. To assist all stakeholders involved in industrial installations safety (operators, competent authorities, population etc.), the new methodology will have to effectively integrate risk analysis and safety diagnostic tools, based on the prerequisites outlined in this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, machinery safety is an extremely complex and dynamic field, with major implications in terms of ensuring the safety and health of workers. This domain is characterized by a high level of regulation resulting, in particular, in a large number of standards addressing detailed safety requirements for a particular machine or a particular group of machines. Even if the technical and methodological aspects benefited and continue to benefit from all stakeholders involved in assessing and reducing the risks associated with the use of machines by workers it can be emphasized, both at European and at national level, a lack of concern regarding clarity and uniformity of terminology used in this area. In Romania, this lack of concern is coupled with language difficulties encountered in transposing Community legislation and the adoption of harmonized European standards on machinery. In this context, the present article aims to achieve a critical and comparative analysis of terminology used in Romania the field of machinery safety in order to systematize information in this area and to establish concrete ways by which one can achieve its improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modernization and expansion of telecommunications networks in Romania led to the explosive growth of the number of workers engaged in these activities. A determined role in the performance of these activities belongs to workers employed in the occupation of utility climber who face a risk with often fatal consequences, namely the risk of falling from a height. Carrying out work at height in safe and healthy conditions by using utilitarian climbing techniques in the field of telecommunications requires its internal regulation according to OSH, through the elaboration of OSH's own instructions. Unfortunately, the main operators in the field of telecommunications in Romania, who have the legal obligation to draw up these instructions, are currently facing multiple legislative and methodological gaps, as well as a lack of knowledge and information. In this context, this paper aims to contribute to the improvement of the safety and health of workers in the field of telecommunications in Romania, by elaborating a framework structure of the own OSH instructions for the activity of working at height by using utilitarian climbing techniques. The proposed framework structure is based on an exhaustive bibliographic documentation at the national level and has a modern and innovative character, while its content can be adapted to the particularities of the activities carried out by all operators in the field of telecommunications in Romania. With rigorous adaptations, its applicability can be successfully extended to all economic operators who carry out work activities at height by using utility climbing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thorough analysis of undesired events occurred in the Jin Valley collieries, such workplace accidents, occupational diseases, near-misses, coal mine fires, self-heating phenomena, methane and coal dnst explosions, safety indexes catalysis, the related costs and the loss of production costs should be the ground that underlies the establishment of any policy in the occupational health and safety field. This paper proposes cut overview and critical analysis of the three risk assessment methods most commonly applied at Branches of Alining Dm s ion within Hunedocua Power Complex for occupational risk analysis, respectively the INCDPMBucharest method, Job Safety Analysis and Energy Analysis, to highlight they strengths and drawbacks in order to increase the efficiency of their application, with the consequence of improving the workers' level of health and safety at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]