Investigating the Impact & Predicting Occupational Safety & Health in Metal Manufacturing Firms: A Case Study of Addis Machine & Spare Parts Manufacturing Industry
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Date
2024-10
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Occupational safety and health practice in the manufacturing industry appears to be relatively low, as evidenced by observations and writings from various scholars regarding the problems in case company working environments. This study aims to examine, the impact of Occupational safety and health (OSH) which ultimately affect the overall performance of metal manufacturing industry. A random sampling method was used to select 147 participants with combination of primary and secondary data sources. The collected data were analyzed & interpreted using IBM SPSS Version 27 software. The study's analysis results indicate that, the impact of OSH challenges includes: 62.1% reporting workplace health and safety issues, 66.3% experiencing high safety exposure rates, 56.5% expressing job dissatisfaction, and 72.6% noting inconsistent use of PPE and lack of safety equipment. Only 27.4% reported adequate provision of PPE in the workplace. Conversely, from 2020 to 2022, there were 405 sick leaves (168 male, 237 female) and 434 absences (112 male, 322 female), attributed to long work hours, frequent machine breakdowns, inadequate use of PPE, worker reluctance, and insufficient health and safety controls. In the same way, based on the observed data of health & safety (HS), the predicted values injury rate range from 1.54 (lower risk) to 3.81 (higher risk), reflecting varying levels of health and safety risk associated with dependent variable. Additionally, the mean predicted injury rate of 2.59 indicates a moderate level of health and safety conditions, with values below 2.59 requiring urgent action. Moreover, study found the dependent variable can be expressed by independent variable with R2 =80.7%, Adjusted R2=79.4%, F-statistics (8, 88) = 61.3, P= 0.001 and giving the number of independent variables providing an explanatory estimate to the model. Furthermore, issues like lower safety & health rules & regulations, lower use of essential equipment, high injury rate on leg, shoulder, head, ear & human resource system problems. The study identified only one statistically significant independent variable among six, yet the cumulative results still yield reliable predictions for health and safety. However, a limitation of the study is that, it did not address the impact of all variables. The overall result of the study might give beginning point for researchers, academicians & policy makers to further elaborate and develop mitigation strategies in enhancing workplace health & safety practice in manufacturing industry. The study emphasizes improvement strategy aiming to create safer & more productive environment, strong safety practice, reduce accidents & enhance safety culture.
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Keywords
Occupational safety & health (OSH), Manufacturing industry, Data analysis, Regression modeling, Injury rate, Strategy & Work environment