Control Strategy for Industrial Safety Based on Dynamic Modeling of Safety Budget-Industrial Accidents Relationship

Abstract

Abstract : This study focuses on the control strategy for industrial safety in Korea. Specifically, the effect of safety budget such as the industrial accident prevention fund on the safety performance to prevent and reduce industrial ac-cidents is statistically examined first and modeled as a second order system. The effectiveness of such a dynamic model is also explained with a simple PI control mechanism in a feedback loop. The simulated model, however, suggests that, without improving the efficiency of the safety system, extra safety budget needed to decrease the accident rate to a level in advanced countries is far beyond the social consensus. An efficient way of reducing industrial accidents based on such a dynamic model with more internal damping but with less elastic nature in a feedback loop framework needs to be implemented. Key Words : safety assessment, safety budget, accident rate, PI control 1. Introduction * Safety activities by government, industries and non- government organizations(NGOs), in general, require a safety budget whose source may vary depending on the types of their activities. Design of the safety-gua-ranteed industrial environment is, in particular, important since it determines the ultimate outcomes of industrial activities involving safety of workers. Looking back the past 20 years, the accident rate in Korea was drasti-cally reduced to less than half of that 20 years ago. Despite the increasing efforts these days to prevent and reduce the industrial accidents, however, the accident rate has stayed almost constant over the last few years. Table 1 shows this point clearly. Since the year 1997, the rate has not improved much from a value between 0.7% and 0.8%.Safety policies and safety management in industrial work places in Korea are known to be non-systematic