Risk assessment of fatal accidents due to work at heights activities using fault tree analysis: Case study in Malaysia.

Risk assessment of fatal accidents due to work at heights activities using fault tree analysis: Case study in Malaysia

Abstract

Introduction

Malaysia's economy proliferated in the last few decades (Khan et al., 2014). Construction, manufacturing, and agriculture are among some of the sectors most influenced by this growth. With the booming economy, a rapidly increased demand for new development and infrastructure rose. Construction, in particular, has become one of Malaysia's quickest, most expensive, and powerful industries (Khan et al., 2014). The Department of Occupational Health and Safety of Malaysia (DOSH) indicates that the construction sector has higher workplace fatalities than any other sector (Malaysia Department of Occupational Safety and Health, 2018). According to the annual statistics report by the Malaysia Department of Occupational Safety and Health (2018), a significant increase in workplace fatal accident rate ranging from 69 cases in 2013 to 106 cases in 2016, with the deadly accidents level rising from 4.21 per 100,000 workers in 2014 to 4.90 per 100,000 workers in 2017. In the year 2019, it was reported that there were 259 cases of fatal accidents, with the construction sector having the highest number with 84 fatal accidents, while the manufacturing and agriculture sectors were second and third with 73 and 43 fatal accidents, respectively. Work by Ayob et al. (2018) shows that falling from heights contributes to almost half of all fatal injuries in the workplace with 46%. Therefore, understanding the origin of fatal occupational and industrial accidents was, and will always be, a high priority in maintaining health and safety in the workplace.

The increasing numbers of occupational fatal accidents each year raise the need to conduct a study that will understand the whole accident sequence, immediate and root causes as necessary to understand these types of accidents. Several studies that are not based in Malaysia have attempted to analyse and investigate fatal falls from height accidents such as Huang and Hinze (2003) in the US, Wong et al. (2016) in Hong Kong, and Sehlikoğlu (2019) in Turkey. Furthermore, Previous studies focused on one topic at a time that varied from human factors affecting falls from heights accidents, fatal to non-fatal falls, behavioural-based safety and management involvement, and leadership in reducing fatal accidents (Nadhim et al., 2016).

Hence, a research project focused on fatal falls from heights accidents is currently being conducted in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). This study is the continuation of previous work by Zermane et al. (2020) on falls from heights causes and prevention, which discusses the factors influencing falls from heights accidents in Malaysia during eight years from 2010 to 2018.

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate fatal falls from heights accidents and the working conditions behind these accidents. Eventually, by understanding how these accidents occur, management can focus on specific prevention measures that can serve as proactive measures, help minimise the reaction time and reduce the risk of these accidents in the future. Most of the previous studies focused on finding the causes behind the accidents (Nadhim et al., 2016). In contrast, this study focused on a deeper understanding of how specific types of fatal falls from heights accidents scenarios develop and their root causes.

The outcome of this study provides a clear guideline to any safety professionals to understand fatal falls from heights accidents by knowing precisely what will happen during the accident sequence and how to prevent it in time before a near-miss turns into a deadly accident. This study was conducted using Malaysian data as a case study, but the framework is designed to be flexible to be applied anywhere in the future.

Introduction

Malaysia's economy proliferated in the last few decades (Khan et al., 2014). Construction, manufacturing, and agriculture are among some of the sectors most influenced by this growth. With the booming economy, a rapidly increased demand for new development and infrastructure rose. Construction, in particular, has become one of Malaysia's quickest, most expensive, and powerful industries (Khan et al., 2014). The Department of Occupational Health and Safety of Malaysia (DOSH) indicates that the construction sector has higher workplace fatalities than any other sector (Malaysia Department of Occupational Safety and Health, 2018). According to the annual statistics report by the Malaysia Department of Occupational Safety and Health (2018), a significant increase in workplace fatal accident rate ranging from 69 cases in 2013 to 106 cases in 2016, with the deadly accidents level rising from 4.21 per 100,000 workers in 2014 to 4.90 per 100,000 workers in 2017. In the year 2019, it was reported that there were 259 cases of fatal accidents, with the construction sector having the highest number with 84 fatal accidents, while the manufacturing and agriculture sectors were second and third with 73 and 43 fatal accidents, respectively. Work by Ayob et al. (2018) shows that falling from heights contributes to almost half of all fatal injuries in the workplace with 46%. Therefore, understanding the origin of fatal occupational and industrial accidents was, and will always be, a high priority in maintaining health and safety in the workplace.

The increasing numbers of occupational fatal accidents each year raise the need to conduct a study that will understand the whole accident sequence, immediate and root causes as necessary to understand these types of accidents. Several studies that are not based in Malaysia have attempted to analyse and investigate fatal falls from height accidents such as Huang and Hinze (2003) in the US, Wong et al. (2016) in Hong Kong, and Sehlikoğlu (2019) in Turkey. Furthermore, Previous studies focused on one topic at a time that varied from human factors affecting falls from heights accidents, fatal to non-fatal falls, behavioural-based safety and management involvement, and leadership in reducing fatal accidents (Nadhim et al., 2016).

Hence, a research project focused on fatal falls from heights accidents is currently being conducted in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). This study is the continuation of previous work by Zermane et al. (2020) on falls from heights causes and prevention, which discusses the factors influencing falls from heights accidents in Malaysia during eight years from 2010 to 2018.

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate fatal falls from heights accidents and the working conditions behind these accidents. Eventually, by understanding how these accidents occur, management can focus on specific prevention measures that can serve as proactive measures, help minimise the reaction time and reduce the risk of these accidents in the future. Most of the previous studies focused on finding the causes behind the accidents (Nadhim et al., 2016). In contrast, this study focused on a deeper understanding of how specific types of fatal falls from heights accidents scenarios develop and their root causes.

The outcome of this study provides a clear guideline to any safety professionals to understand fatal falls from heights accidents by knowing precisely what will happen during the accident sequence and how to prevent it in time before a near-miss turns into a deadly accident. This study was conducted using Malaysian data as a case study, but the framework is designed to be flexible to be applied anywhere in the future.

Section snippets

Falls from heights accidents

A study by Nadhim et al. (2016) shows that many attempts have been made to understand the hazards and the root causes of falls from height in construction sector accidents to create a hazard identification system for construction projects. In addition, the authors sought to seek valuable insights on how to improve workers health and safety in the construction industry through either proactive or reactive interventions or both. Nadhim et al. (2016) has carried out a thorough analysis of all

Methodology

The study was carried out to identify causes of fatal accidents at the workplace and looking at the factors and patterns which cause an increase in the numbers of fatal accidents in Malaysia. This study also recognizes that understanding the causes in various scenarios of accidents may play a significant role in avoiding potential accidents.

This study consists of a two parts methodology; the first part which uses preliminary statistical analysis of the data obtained from DOSH to determine the

Statistical analysis

A frequency analysis was conducted to determine the level of occurrence of each immediate and root cause to understand which causes affect the outcome of accidents scenarios. This study showed that the most common immediate cause was the failure to use personal protective equipment appearing 110 times (85.93%) (see Table 8), and the most frequent root cause was the lack of leadership and supervision which appeared on the accident scenarios 115 times (89.84%) (see Table 9).

Immediate causes...

The risk matrix

Based on the frequency analysis, each cause has a frequency of occurrence. These frequencies can be categorized and organized based on their priority and which set of accidents should be taken into action first. Based on Table 11, three categories have been determined, and the causes of fatal accidents will fall into each category. From 0 to 33.32% are the recommended actions, and it contains four immediate causes (B07, A12, A01 and B12), from 33.33% to 66.65% are the necessary actions also..

Conclusions

Falls from height accidents are a significant concern in any workplace that requires the worker to work at height. Based on the number of increasing fatalities due to falls and limited research that focused on this issue, it was necessary to conduct this study. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a deep understanding of fatal falls from height accidents and avoiding these accidents. Two sets of tools were used to investigate this phenomenon, a statistical analysis and...