Factory automation as a risk prevention tool: a case study

PROBLEM DEFINITION This paper concerns with occupational safety and health problems of traditional industrial plants producing storage batteries. In this kind of plants there is a wide use of manual activities which are particularly critical and need the development of specific models for a correct risk evaluation and prevention. This type of plants has a big impact on natural environment and on workers’ safety and health in all the different production stages, not only during usual working activities, but also in case of accidents or unexpected failure of the equipment. In particular, the usage of hazardous chemical substances both in the process and as components of the final product, is one of the most important features that contribute to make this type of plants interesting to analyse and study. METHOD The authors aim to propose a case study on the automation of some stages of the industrial process producing storage batteries. The paper illustrates a decision support methodology for multi-criteria analysis of that kind of factory automation, which involves the development of a framework of costs and benefits hierarchically structured for the successive use of the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). FINDINGS The authors applied to three productive processes, differing in the degree of automation, the most known and powerful methods of risk evaluation. The risks considered was mostly the ones related with anthropometric and biomechanical aspects and physical environment. The results show that automation contributes significantly to risk reduction. CONCLUSIONS The study highlights the real benefits that automation of some stages of the industrial process generates on safety and health of working conditions. Moreover, thanks to the use of AHP, that is a multi-criteria methodology, has been possible to evaluate jointly not only safety and health benefits, but also other type of effects on the whole production system.