Malaysia is blessed with oil and gas resources, which form raw materials for the petrochemical industry. The petrochemical industry creates added value to this resource and is an important contributor to the national economy. The petrochemical industry however also creates hazards of which fire or explosions and chemical release are of special concern. These hazards pose a risk not only to workers but also to the surrounding population and environment. To ensure industry is prepared to cope with emergencies, a comprehensive emergency response programme is necessary. This is inline with both the Malaysian Occupational Safety and Health (Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards) Regulations 1996 and the Responsible Care initiative of the chemical industry. This paper describes elements to be considered in an emergency response programme for industry such as the concept of emergency management, organisation, duties and responsibilities, emergency system, training and mutual aid plans and agreements. We shall provide related examples based on a multinational petrochemical company practice.
There are disturbing trends of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, globally and locally thus giving it a real cause of concern. These include diseases by agents hitherto unknown in human such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Ebola; those that were purely zoonoses but had now affected man such as bovine spongioform encephalitis (BSE) in United Kingdom and avian influenza in Vietnam and Thailand; those that were thought to be eliminated but reappeared such as plague in India and those that begun to show reverse trends such as tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. Malaysia is no exception. Viral fever EV71, Chinkugunya, Conjunctivitis C24 variant or Nipah encephalitis were local examples of unknown or exotic infectious diseases occurring in recent years. In this age of globalization with expanding air travel and industrial trade, Malaysia is vulnerable to a wide array of new and resurgent infectious diseases. Apart from the direct health consequences on morbidity, mortality and its staggering cost, these infections also have far reaching implications upon sustainable development, psychosocial, economic, political and global security.
communication, full compliance and good behavior) as among the crucial elements required to be possessed by the principal employers in three sectors, namely manufacturing, public services and construction. In relation to this, this paper will describe the development and validation of instruments prior to the measurement of principal employers’ roles and responsibilities in the implementation of OSH. Three assessment tools were developed, namely the Benchmarking Interview, Questionnaire and Workplace Inspection. Fifteen companies were selected for the benchmarking interview, 50 employers conveniently selected for the survey interview (covering three sectors) and 90 employers selected for the workplace inspection (30 respondents for each sector). The development of benchmarking interview and workplace inspection scores are briefly discussed while the main focus is on the validation of the survey constructs (or items). The reliability check on 53 items representing four elements (i.e., Commitment, Communication, Compliance, Behaviour) of employers’ roles and responsibilities in the implementation of OSH showed that the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is more than 0.90 which indicates that the internal consistency is extremely reliable. It also indicates that the set of items in each element are closely related and well understood by the respondents. Validity check on the items based on the Rasch measurement infit and outfit mean square statistics and standardized z-score found that nine items had misfitting values and finally corrected for further analysis. This study had shown that a valid and reliable instruments are important in ensuring that accurate and precise findings are obtained in measuring the roles and responsibilities of principal employer in the implementation of OSH.
The Department of Occupational Safety and Health Malaysia (DOSH) is the authority responsible to safeguard the occupational safety, health and welfare of workers in Malaysia. Occupational noise-related hearing disorders are the leading type of occupational diseases recorded by DOSH every year. Occupational Health Doctor (OHD) is a competency recognized by DOSH and their scope of duties in industries is currently confined to conduct medical surveillance for workers with hazardous chemical exposure and confined space medical fitness examination. The duties of OHD are good to be expanded by empowering more of their roles in industrial activities involving other legislations under DOSH. The noise exposure regulation under the Factories and Machinery Act (FMA) 1967 has been governing the worker’s exposure to hazardous industrial noise and preventing noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) since 1989. However, the provisions of the regulation need to be strengthened in some essential medical elements of the Hearing Conservation Programme (HCP) for a comprehensive prevention of NIHL at the workplace. Recently enacted Occupational Safety and Health (Noise Exposure) Regulations 2019 offer a wider coverage of workers in ten sectors of industries applicable under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) 1994. The current regulatory requirements for management of workplace noise have many improvements compared to the existing law. Enhancement in the medical requirements of industrial audiometry is made prominent by involving OHDs to interpret audiograms and conduct medical examination for workers. The reporting of occupational noise-related hearing disorders to DOSH is outlined better in the new regulation. The occurrence of NIHL and other related hearing disorders are expected to reduce eventually after the introduction of Occupational Safety and Health (Noise Exposure) Regulations 2019. The OHDs will play a pivotal role in industrial audiometry and prevention of hearing disorders among the working population.
This paper presents the use of factorial experiments and response surface methodology to determine the best workstation design configuration of an existing electronic industry. The aim is to find the value of physical dimensions that gives the best performance for the workstation. Four performance measures are selected; the cycle time, the metabolic energy expenditure, worker’s posture during the task and lifting limitations. The methodology used in this study consists of two parts. The first part is based on factorial experiments and handles discrete search over combinations of factor-levels for improving the initial solution. In the second part, the solution that was obtained earlier is further refined by changing the continuous factors by using response surface methodology. The result of this optimization study shows that the optimum value of physical dimensions gives a significant improvement for the performance measures of the workstation.
Safety behaviour is important in preventing industrial accident.
Safety leadership attribute by the supervisors is one of the determinants of safety
behaviour among the employees. This study aimed to determine the influence of
employer’s safety leadership towards worker’s safety behaviour within Small and
Medium Enterprises (SME)-Manufacturing in Negeri Sembilan. Three independent
variables representing safety leadership namely safety motivation, safety concern
and safety policy were selected whilst safety compliance and safety participation
were the dimensions used to measure safety behaviour. Self-administered
questionnaire were distributed and answered by 210 employees of Negeri
Sembilan’s SME-Manufacturing. The results revealed that safety concern and safety
policy had significantly influenced safety compliance. Whilst, safety motivation and
safety concern determined the workers’ safety participation. No significant influence
found by safety motivation towards safety compliance as well as safety policy
towards safety participation. Safety concern was the important component of safety
leadership as it consistently explained the variance in all dimensions of safety
behaviour.
BASF has a long and comprehensive experience in exposure assessment of hazardous chemicals, and of health
surveillance, including human biomonitoring (HBM). This article provides a summary on exposure analysis by HBM
and health surveillance for mercury at the BASF Verbund site in Ludwigshafen, Germany: the company’s occupational
health resources, related legal requirements, code of practice and directives, sources of potential mercury exposure,
and how health surveillance is conducted. It shares BASF’s experience in analyzing and controlling exposure to
mercury. The paper discusses the similarities and differences of the BASF Ludwigshafen approach with respect to
health surveillance practice for mercury in Malaysia.
Exposure to traffic air pollutant have shown a significant health effect on respiratory systems and decreased in lung function among traffic policemen. The main objective of this study was to determine the relationships between personal exposure levels to PM2.5 and respiratory health among traffic policemen working at Traffic Police Station in Kuala Lumpur and general duty policemen attached to Police Headquarters, Bukit Aman. A cross sectional comparative study was conducted among 50 traffic policemen from Traffic Police Station Kuala Lumpur and 50 general duty policemen from Police Headquarters Bukit Aman as comparative group. A purposive sampling method was used to select the respondents based on inclusive criteria such as age between 25 to 60 years, no history of respiratory disease and working not less than 3 years as traffic policemen. Questionnaire based on ATS (1978) was used to collect information on socio-demographic and respiratory symptoms. Spirometer (Spirolab II Model) was used to perform lung function tests. Personal Air Sampling Pump (Aircheck 52) was used to measure personal exposure level to PM2.5. The mean exposure level of PM2.5 among the traffic policemen was 22.33 ± 8.54μg/m³ compared to only 5.60 ± 4.29μg/m³ for comparative group. There was a significant difference in all lung function parameters between the exposed group and comparative group.From the finding, it shows that there was significant relationship between working duration (years) and lung function parameters among both exposed and comparative group. The result from this research shows that traffic policemen were determined as having lower lung function parameters due to their nature of work and the environment. Also, there was a significant association between exposure to fine particle (PM2.5) and lung function among the exposed group. Finding from this study indicated that exposure to elevated concentration level to traffic related air pollutant was the risk factors in the development of respiratory diseases as shown by the higher prevalence of respiratory symptoms and the reduction in lung function among traffic policemen.
Brush cutting is a commonly performed activity occupationally as well as recreationally in Malaysia. There are various occupational injuries reported related to brush cutting, for example foreign body penetration. There were 11 reported cases of foreign body penetrated in leg of brush cutting workers admitted to orthopaedic ward in Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun from the period of January till October 2009. Among the cases, 4 were surgically removed under local anaesthesia and 7 cases performed under general anesthesia. 2 cases reported foreign body penetrated into tibia bone. There were many contributing factors to the injury, which include lack of protective measures for workers, engineering property of brush cutting machine and education on handling of equipment. It is vital to study the factors separately in order to determine and recommend useful preventive measures. However, the actual numbers of cases are under reported and awareness of the problem is undermined.
Company A is a brownfield refinery that had been in service for over 25 years and has its own system to generate GOX for its needed utility usage. Noting of the hazards of GOX and in consideration of an aged refinery, this research is of the intent to evaluate the risk of GOX in the aspect of personnel and process safety; and to provide recommendation or mitigations planning with regards to Company A’s existing hardware through Bow Tie review. The analysis was done taking into consideration the data compiled as well as the inherited Process Safety Assessment (PSA) findings of Company A that served as secondary data to this research. It was observed that Company A personnel are well versed with the risk and hazards of GOX system and through the plant rejuvenation and material upgrade works, the hazards were mitigated to a lower risk within the risk matrix. The implementation and upgrade works had served to add more barriers to the left side of the bow tie as well as ensuring that the aged complex is well equipped with needed safeguarding strategies (from inherent safer design, passive & active safeguarding and procedural controls) to avoid the occurrence of potential oxygen fire or explosion incident.
Solar thermal system or solar water heater system is one of the applications used to produce hot water in the residential sector. This paper describes HAZOP analysis and reliability assessment to evaluates the potential hazard and system probability for the closed loop solar thermal system applied for the residential area. Hazard identification for the main system components is analyzed while Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) and Weibull distributions performed to determine the reliability for the overall system. The result shows that there are 49 potential hazards for the system with failure probability at 0.23822 and the reliability is 0.9693. Subsequently, this study determined the potential hazards for the system which can be anticipated by the residential consumer for the safety aspect. Furthermore, the evaluated reliability result shows that the application of closed loop type solar water heater system at residential premises is highly recommended due to its long lasting operational condition.
The objective of this research is to analyze and evaluate the hand arm vibration exposure of hand held grass
cutter machines during their normal operation time. On-site field measurement for five different types of hand held
grass cutter machines. In this research, the hand arm vibration exposure levels of different machines were measured
at practical cutting condition in accordance to guidelines on occupational vibration which are presented in the
occupational safety and health standard manual. The hand arm vibration level on the worker’s both right and left
handles of the grass cutter machine were measured and analyzed, respectively. The vibration frequency weighting
acceleration was calculated by using h-weighting. The hand arm vibration acceleration value was expressed in the
root-mean-square (rms) combination of all three major axis (ahwx, ahwy & ahwz). The estimated daily vibration exposure,
A(8) were differ between 2.1 to 20.7 ms-2 for right hand while 2.7 to 29.1 ms -2 for left hand. In short, worker will
induce fingers blanching in 10% of the exposed person after less than 3.7 years exposed to hand arm vibration.
Comparative cross sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of hearing impairment among workers in one of the airport in Malaysia and the factors associated with it. A total of 248 subjects comprising 175 from the exposed group and the remaining control group were sampled. The main tools used in this study were validated questionnaire on hearing assessment and pure tone audiometric test. Response rate was 94%. Both area and personal exposure monitoring have exceeded action level for 8 Hrs TWA in the exposed group but within normal limit in the control group. The prevalence of hearing impairment was 88% among the noise exposed group and 11% in the control group with prevalence odds ratio (POR) 3.569 (95%CI 1.210-10.53, p
This retrospective study was conducted at the audiology clinic of UKM in the year 2000. It was intended to detect the effect of walkman on the hearing system of its users and to investigate whether distortion product otoacoustic emission test can provide an early and reliable sign of cochlear damage or not. Distortion product otoacoustic emission test helps to determine the function of outer hair cell. Outer hair cells get damaged with exposure to loud sound, drugs and aging. Thirty subjects (20 in the study group and 10 in the control group), between the ages of 19-25 years, who fulfilled all the criteria of selection, were investigated. There were two sets of criteria (general and specific). Anyone, in the control or study group, failing in any of these criteria was excluded from the study. According to the general criteria, it was essential for all the subjects to have clean ear canals, normal hearing at all the frequencies (250Hz- 8000Hz), normal middle ear function (Type A tympanogram), no middle ear problem, not used/using any ototoxic medicine, no family history of hearing loss, no history of ear surgery, not exposed to any form of loud noise like disco, concert, F1 racing or gun shooting. According to the special criteria it was essential for the subjects in the control group to have never used a walkman and those in the study group must have been using a walkman for at least 6 months. Comparison of distortion product emission levels between control and study groups revealed that emissions were significantly lower in the study group, across all the frequencies, suggesting outer hair cell damage in the walkman users. These differences reached level of statistical significance (p<0.05) at 2, 4, 6 and 8kHz. Using walkman at an intensity unsafe for hearing and a duration longer than recommended is suspected for the outer hair cell damage in our study group. Those using walkman for longer duration and higher intensity manifested much lower emission levels. Our study supports the literature that distortion product emission test is a much sensitive test than pure-tone audiometry, as it can detect cochlear damage long before it appears in an audiogram. It is recommended that people who are exposed to loud noise regularly should be monitored with distortion product emission test. It is suggested that the use of walkman.
Study site: Audiology clinic, Pusat Perubatan Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Heat stress is considered to be the sum of heat generated in the body (metabolic heat) plus the heat gained from the environment (environmental heat) minus the heat lost from the body to the environment. The consequences of heat stress can caused heat disorder such as heat stroke, heat syncope, heat exhaustion, heat cramps and other heat related diseases. The objective of this study was to compare the pattern of heat stress in each section. A crosssectional study was carried out in two sections (Paintshop A and Bodyshop B) in a selected automotive assembly plant in Selangor to monitor the environmental heat stress. The environmental heat monitoring was done on 89 March 2005. Heat stress monitor (Model: QUESTemp o 34 Thermal Environment Monitor, Quest Technologies, USA) was used to record the pattern of heat exposure in the workplace over a period of eight hours. Heat parameters such as dry temperature, wet temperature, globe temperature and relative humidity were measured. Wet Bulb Globe Temperature index (WBGT) and workload evaluation were used to compare both sections. Heat parameters such as timeweighted average wet bulb globe temperature for indoor setting (TWAWBGT indoor ), dry temperature (DB), natural wet bulb temperature (WB), globe temperature (GB) in Paintshop A were higher than those in Bodyshop B. The relative humidity in Paintshop A was hotdry compared to Bodyshop B which is hotwarm. Paintshop A was considered a hot area compared to Bodyshop B which is normal. Workers in both sections were not faced with heat stress problems because they were worked under acceptable condition according to American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists standard. Both sections in the automotive assembly plant exhibited acceptable working condition for workers in a tropical environment.
This study illustrates about the most hazardous and risky activities associated with well drilling operation at on and offshore
oil and gas drilling sites by adopting exploratory research design (quantitative leading to qualitative). In this study researcher has
targeted three oil and gas industries each from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for the identification of associated hazards
and nature of hazardous activities faced by drilling crew during well drilling operation. Eighty (80) drilling crew members have
been randomly selected for answering the survey questionnaire. Likewise, nine (09) drilling health and safety officials have been
conveniently selected based on their safety expertise in oil and gas drilling field for semi structured in-depth interview. For analyzing
quantitative findings descriptive statistical methods has been used. While for qualitative section thematic analysis approach has
been utilized. Based on the findings, respondents from Malaysian oil and gas industries reported starting drilling activity as highly
hazardous at onshore well drilling, while handling drilling pipe has been considered more hazardous activity at offshore domain.
Similarly, in the context of Saudi Arabia, respondents highlighted that the handling drilling pipes are cause of major injuries at onshore
well drilling site. Whereas drilling fluid preparation and coring process is considered harmful at offshore sites. In contrast, participant
from Pakistan indicated coring process as a highly hazardous activity at on and offshore well drilling operation. According to overall
results based on the participant response, oil and gas well drilling operation at onshore domain is considered more hazardous
at Pakistani oil and gas industry as compare to other targeted industries with mean range 3.42. While for offshore well drilling,
Malaysian industry is recorded highly hazardous as compare to others leading with mean value 3.39 and related with chemical and
safety hazards in well drilling activities.
Digital Millennials (i.e., people born from 1980 to 2004) have often been portrayed as quick to embrace emerging technologies. The envisioned future of Industry 4.0 entails the blending of hardware, software, and people to complete work; and given their affinity for digital resources, technology, and social networking applications, the Millennials could be regarded as a much-needed asset in this future workforce. However, systematic research on how this cohort understands and reacts to safety issues surrounding the use of technologies has been lacking. In particular, behaviours such as impulsivity, online disinhibition, and risk-taking among them remain unclear. The present study investigated this gap with a sample of 203 Millennials of various nationality groups. Using the short version of the Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, and Positive Urgency (Short UPPS-P) scale, the Revised Online Disinhibition Scale, and the Online Risky Behaviour scale, the results indicated that the most significant predictors of online risk-taking behaviours are lack of premeditation, positive urgency, and toxic disinhibition. Interestingly, though not hypothesised, was gender as a significant predictor of the outcome. The findings implied that these variables might be the most relevant target areas for interventions that could modify risky behaviours in cyberspace. The study’s findings are discussed in relation to the key challenges associated with e-safety where the future trends would be heading towards the gig economy and crowd-working.
The indoor air contaminations in the buildings are normally contributed by causes from humans, animals and air
borne fungi. These factors greatly cause the problem of sick building syndrome and indoor air pollutant. This study
was undertaken to discover the potential efficiency of biocide potassium sorbate to remediate the indoor air fungal
especially on wood material. Samples of fungal were collected according to NIOSH Method (NMAM 0800). The total
amount of fungi and bacteria were enumerated at 806 cfu/m3 and 280 cfu/m3, respectively in a lecturer’s room. The
study also revealed that the growth of fungi was at the minimum when incorporated with a biocide treatment according
to ASTM D559000 standard. This biocide has been proven to be effective and able to reduce the growth rate of indoor
fungi. Overall results showed that this type of biocide is effective to overcome the fungal problem on wood material
in the buildings.
Individual factors have been considered to be a key issue to organizations’ performance and survival. Specifically, previous studies provide evidence that individual factors are closely associated with accidents in the workplace. Therefore, this study seeks to investigate the relationship between individual factors and workplace safety. 50 respondents have been randomly chosen from a manufacturing company in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Data are collected using a survey and are analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. A descriptive statistic, cross tabulation, independent sample t-test and one-way between groups ANOVA are employed to interpret findings of the study. Findings show that employees’ perception on safety performance is at high level (Mean= 115, Standard Deviation= 17.73). Furthermore, the results of cross tabulation demonstrate that individual factors play a key role to determine the organization safety performance level. Another significant finding reveals that there is a significant difference of safety performance mean to two of individual factors namely gender and tenure of service. Individual factors namely gender, age, tenure of service and academic qualification give a significant impact to employees’ perception on safety performance.
Concerns toward Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in office building tend to risen since most people spend their working hours
indoors compare to outdoors. Exposure to indoor pollutants is a considerable problem. Therefore, there is a need to monitor IAQ in
order to deter further air quality deterioration in the workplace. The objective of this study is to determine the level of IAQ parameter
in selected academic office. The important IAQ parameters considered in this study were the air temperature, air velocity, relative
humidity, CO2, CO, TVOC, formaldehyde and respirable particulate matter. Measurements were conducted using commercial IAQ
instruments. From the study it was found that the levels of TVOC and respirable particulate matter were higher than the recommended
limit during photocopying activities. The formaldehyde, CO2 and CO level were observed to be acceptable for an office based on
Industry code of practice on indoor air quality (ICOP-IAQ 2010). Results shows that the temperature and air velocity are located at
acceptable value of 22-25 ºC and 0.1-0.1 m/s. Findings also show high relative humidity that exceeded the requirement level of 40%-
70%. Detail investigations are needed in order to provide certain guidance in improvement of IAQ conditions in office environment.