Occupational health and safety assessment based on 5S systematic in the natural gas meter production facility

The Occupational Health and Safety have come out for protect the operation, employees and production from all kinds of hazards. The occupational health and safety main goal is prediction evaluation and elimination of risks. The workplaces are faced with variety of hazards in environment, health and safety. The occupational accident and occupational diseases are seriously increasing due to rapidly growing industrialization, production rate, flurry of response to the consumption, etc. It has emphasized the importance of this issue led to the inclusion of national legislation and regulations relating to occupational health and safety in many countries. Due to the fact that occupational accident is the most important problem in work life all over the world. The awareness of creating work environment without health and security hazards and risks that they may be occur is start to growing effectively in both World and Turkey. The negative results would be minimum with trying to avoid the accident and taking precautions. Due to these reasons, an important tasks fall to government, employers and employees. The occupational accident and diseases rates are increasing day by day. Occupational accidents and occupational diseases in the facilities have required taking legal precautions. Importance of risk assessment becomes even more important because of increasing awareness of occupational health safety and some legal enforcements. In Turkey, Occupational Safety and Health law No. 6331 was come out in the Official Gazette on June 30 in 2012. The law includes some important points such as to prevent workers from accidents, to protect the health of workers from occupational diseases and to layout of the workplace. The most important point in this law is about risk assessment. According to law, risk assessment implications are required in all businesses and facilities. By applying risk assessment in the facilities occupational accidents and diseases can be reduced minimum. People are required to comply with the rule of law in concept of occupational health and safety. Despite this legislation aiming to prevent work accidents have been introduced in facilities, there is a noticeable decrease in the number of occupational accidents and disease. Companies have to use the right risk assessment technique. Thus, the goal is more easily attainable. Occupational accidents and diseases can be reduced and preventable. Legal regulations force facilities to complete their risk assessments considering their danger class in certain time periods. Process changes, new machines and new legislations are forcing facilities to do their risk assessments before its due time. The aim of risk assessment is to describe preparations, precaution and checks which will be able to respond to hazards in facilities. The internal and external physical condition of the workplace is one of the most important factors that affect the job security. Many people spend essential part of time in their workplace. Therefore, workplaces should be regulated according to the employees. The lack of organization of the workplace brings a lot of problems. Messy workplace cause wasting time with searching materials, ordering more or less raw material, and using factory area unproductive and occurance of occupational accidents. Facilities can reduce the cost, increase the productivity, reduce the losses and waste and develop the motivation of occupational health and safety with creating neater, more ordinate and cleaner working area. 5S systematic is a systematic approach for making clean, neat working area properly, organize and standardized workplace. 5S systematic in facilities, contribute to occupational safety, process, product quality, inventory management and increasing the control efficiency of working area. The 5S systematic is a basic approach that works in companies all over the world. 5S systematic consists of five steps. These are sorting, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain. Sort means that removal of all equipments from the workplace that are not needed for production. Thus, irregularity is eliminated. Set in order means that you arranging the items and equipment. Shine is removing dust from the work area and machines. Thus, both employees health and machine can be prevented. Standardize and sustain are used for going on these three steps and keep improving workplace organization. In this study, a comprehensive research has made at the company which produce natural-gas meter in terms of occupational health and safety and also environmental according to the Occupational Health and Safety law no.6331 and all regulations accordingly with this law. The method of Fine Kinney has used while doing risk assessment. The 5S systematic which implemented in the facility is shown to how risk assessment impressed since before and after. The main goal of this thesis is to show the positive impressions of the 5S systematic for risk assessment. The evaluation was done in the facility by using a control list. The list consists of many questions about occupational health and safety. Thus, the status of facility was detected in terms of occupational health and safety. Risk assessment was done for the production line of natural gas meter. Process specific hazards were identified before 5S systematic not implemented. First hazards and their sources, their risks and risk scores were detected in risk assessment. While these scores were determining, Fine Kinney method was established. Frequency and intensity values were determined by using some charts in Fine Kinney method. These three value was multiplied with each other and the risk values were obtained. In the natural gas meter production line, there are more than one hazard with the same risk point. Thus, hazards were put in a list from highest value to lowest value. 5S systematic was implemented in the facility. All employees in natural gas meter production department were educated about 5S methodology. 5S systematic implementation started from the sorting step. Necessary and unnecessary materials have been identified. Useless materials removed from the work area. Due to the fact that unnecessary materials and equipment can cause various problems after a period of time. Also, materials in the wrong places were put on the right places. 5S systematic implementation continue with the set in order step in the natural gas meter production department. All materials organized according to their usages areas. Thus materials and equipment needed can be found in a short time and easily. Shine is one the most important step in the facilities. Due to the fact that cleaning is useful both employees and machine and equipment. Facilities can use clean equipment long term. In this way, lost time for maintenance and repair can reduced. Occupational accident reports of the last three years in the facilities show 28 accident occurred and 22 of the counter of the natural gas meter production process. These accident results are Minor scrapes, cuts, and bruising. Materials from the assembly line they had moved into the basket or cardboard box material with the shape as a result of improper handling during transport handshake event has occurred. During maintenance disassembly of the substance splashes to the eye when cutting plastic parts with side cutter counter parts in the section have occurred. In natural gas meter production line 13 hazard sources were identifed in the risk assessment. From these 13 hazard sources cauese 17 hazard. Before starting implementation of 5S systematic in the facility, in risk assessment 13 very high risk, 3 high risk and 1 susbstantial risk were identified. Then, 5S systematic was implemented. First three steps of 5S systematşc were applied to the natural gas meter production line. After implementation of 5S systematic while calculating risk values, the values of probablity and frequency decreased owing to positive effects of 5S systematic. According to this stuation, in risk assessment 3 very high risk, 7 high risk and 7 substatial risk were identified. The values of 5S systematic before and after show that the positive effects of 5S systematic in the facilities. Only sorting, set in order and shine steps faclities can reduce the risk values easily. Due to the fact that tidiness, many risk can be prevented. Risk values are reduced and hazards are prevented without any cost. Cleaner and safer working areas bring safety. When a work area is clean and organized thazards sources and other dangers are eliminated. Employees like to work in a well-organized and clean work areas. People feel better about their work environment. Also, risk assesment was done for entire facility before 5S systematic implementation. In this risk assessment consist of all facilities, common areas and natural gas meter production line. Some hazards cannot be solved with the application of 5S systematic. In this risk assessment hazards resources, hazards, risks and how to prevent risk are examined and explained.