Assessing the impact of processes on the Occupational Safety and Health Management System’s effectiveness using the fuzzy cognitive maps approach

Abstract

The paper presents research in which the fuzzy cognitive maps (FCM) approach was applied in examining the impact of individual processes in the Occupational Safety and Health Management System (OSH MS) on the effectiveness of this System. For this purpose, an FCM OSH MS model comprising 16 objects has been developed. Fifteen of those objects corresponded to the processes in the OSH MS and one object corresponded to safety performance. Then a series of simulations was carried out, in which it was successively predicted how the improvement of individual processes affected overall safety performance. It was finally proven that safety performance increased most significantly under the influence of improvement of the leadership process. This proves that among all processes in the system, leadership has the greatest positive impact on its effectiveness. Practical implications of such simulation results are discussed herein, and further, extended application of FCM to improve effectiveness of OSH MSs is suggested.