Developing and Applying Risk Assessment Method for Working Conditions in Cement Industry

Abstract

Background: The cement industry in Vietnam has been developing since 1899 with the establishment of a local cement company and in 2020, over 90 cement manufacturing lines have been established and under operation with a capacity of over 100 million tons per year. However, besides the development of the cement industry in terms of capacity and number of new cement manufacturing lines. Vietnam’s cement industry has faced many problems, one of them is health and safety for workers. Cement workers have been facing many harmful factors such as excessive cement dust, excessive noise levels, vibration, chemical and dangerous factors such as falling objects, rotating parts, working at height activities, moving vehicles which are potentially lead to occupational diseases, accidents. Risk assessment is one of the popular tools used to prevent occupational diseases and accidents at the workplace in the world. However, there is currently no official risk management guideline developed for enterprises in the cement industry in Vietnam. It is necessary to develop and deploy a risk management guideline for the cement plants to deal with health and safety risks at the workplace. Objective: The objective of this thesis is to develop a risk management guideline for the cement industry in Vietnam based on ISO 31000:2018 approach. The sub-objectives are to (1) describe the basic definitions of hazard, risk, and risk management; (2) understanding the context of the cement working conditions; (3) identify hazard profile in the cement industry; (4) establish a risk assessment criteria that is used to evaluate the risk in the cement manufacturing plants; (5) propose and apply a new risk management guideline for the cement plants in Vietnam; Method: Basing on the researched articles and references, the author described the overall cement industry in Vietnam, the cement manufacturing process. Hazards profile of the cement industry was identified based on the recorded incident analysis in combination with survey, sampling and process observation. The qualitative risk matrice was proposed based on the injury frequency rate and severity rate of the cement plants in Vietnam. Finally, the risk management guideline was developed based on ISO 31000:2018, the context of the cement working conditions and the nature of risk in the cement plants. Results: The study shows that the cement industry remains the complex context of the working conditions that caused occupational accidents and diseases. In addition, the cement plants contain a wide range of hazard categories that cause occupational accidents and occupational diseases. The hazard categories mainly consist of vehicles movement, falling object, slip, trip and fall, fire, environmental hazards, moving machines, and operational hazard. The accident consequences were in the range of first aid injuries and fatal injuries. A risk management guideline that includes 12 steps was proposed for the cement industry in Vietnam. A case study in a cement plant shows the risk scenarios that potentially cause occupational accidents and diseases. Conclusion: The work presented in this dissertation has fulfilled the overall objectives of the thesis. It is necessary for the cement makers to apply a risk management process in combination with an effective health and safety management system to protect worker from harm.