Abstract
Every year, there are about 10 fatal occupational accidents, and about 250 accidents involving at least 4 days of lost work time, that involved mixing and crushing machines. However, the degrees to which accidents are critical, and the degree of risk, have not been determined for different industries, machine types and work types. Therefore an attempt was made to quantify these risks by calculating the total work-days lost for these items using a technique for quantitative risk evaluation based on work-days lost. The analysis results showed that the total number of work-days lost for all mixing and crushing machines was 131.6×103 days/year. Industries with the highest risk were, in order; cleaning/slaughter, chemicals, food product manufacturing, and stone and clay product manufacturing. These 4 industries accounted for about 68% of the total work-days lost. The highest risk by machine type were, in order; crushing machines, stirring/mixing machines, grinding machines, food processing machines, and kneading machines. These accounted for about 80% of the total. By work type, risk was highest for cleaning, followed by, in order: maintenance/inspection/repair, raw material loading, operation/manufacturing, and obstruction removal. These types of work accounted for 75% of the total.
