Occupational Accidents analysis in Food and Drink industry, a contribution to Safety and Risk Management

Abstract

Food and Drink Industry (FDI) has a strong contribution to EU-28's economy as reported by Eurostat (2014). FDI involves more than 4,25 millions of workers divided in 289000 companies with a relevant degree of diversification. Far away from the common way of thinking the FDI sector has an accident frequency comparable to those of other industrial sectors. Economic and social consequences of occupational accidents affects clearly FDI efficiency and its competitiveness. The accidents investigation is a crucial field for a safety and prevention management system because understanding how an accident occurred can help to avoid the same type of accident in the future. This paper was intended to give a contribution to Safety Management of FDI industry. A large Database of more than 6000 occupational accidents occurred in FDI Industry was analysed with an innovative coupled numerical method named SKM (S.O.M and K-Mean method) able to identify the occupational accident dynamics more critical and frequent. The information acquired by this research can help analysts to better address the measures to be adopted in a work environment, in order to prevent occupational accidents and give a concrete contribution to Risk Management.