Discussion of the social system and regulations related to safety of machinery in Japan

Abstract

An advantage of Japan is that high-quality safety management and production technologies have been implemented at worksites by workers, managers and production engineers. If European technologies and social systems for safety of machinery are appropriately implemented on the basis of these “onsite capabilities,” a new technology and social system framework based on Japan’s own onsite capabilities may be created. This study examined the laws, regulations, and social systems that are favorable for safety of machinery in Japan. In maximizing onsite capabilities for safety management, the following four activities were presumed important: (1) the positioning of safety as an investment for new value creation, not a cost; (2) the sharing of a strong sense of ownership and common values for building a safe workplace among involved individuals; (3) the changes in strategies from prevention of recurrence to proactive prevention and from considering the number of accidents to considering the severity of accident; and (4) the consideration of unexpected problems. In addition to the aforementioned activities, the basic principles of machine safety and accident prevention in Europe were considered particularly important for spreading and promotion among corporate executives and machine designers. These principles are the (1) risk reduction strategies provided by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 12100); (2) conformity assessments that use a modular approach and marking aimed at conveying information about declarations of conformity; (3) validity confirmation when using a machine based on marking information; and (4) feedback regarding disaster information for the design and manufacturing stages of a machine.