Trends and Opportunities of Tertiary Education in Safety Engineering Moving towards Safety 4.0

Vendula Laciok,Ales Bernatik,Katerina Sikorova,Bruno Fabiano

doi:10.3390/su13020524

Vendula Laciok, Ales Bernatik + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020524

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Abstract

Industry and related work and workplaces are constantly changing as a result of the implementation of new technologies, substances and work processes, changes in the composition of the workforce and the labor market, and new forms of employment and work organization. The implementation of new technologies represents certain ambivalence. Next to the positive impact on workers’ health, new risks and challenges can arise in the area of process and occupational safety and health of people at work. On these bases, it follows the need for predicting and handling the new risks, in order to ensure safe and healthy workplaces in the future. The aim of most forecasting studies is not only to identify new emerging risks, but also to foresee changes that could affect occupational safety and health. However, a number of questions still require proper investigation, i.e., “What impact do new emerging risks have on tertiary education in the area of Safety engineering? Has tertiary education already reacted to progress in science and research and does it have these innovations in its syllabus? How are tertiary graduates prepared for the real world of new technologies?” This paper represents a first attempt in the literature to provide answers to the raised questions, by a survey approach involving academics, Health Safety and Environment (HSE) industrial experts and university students in the Czech Republic. Even if statistical evaluation is limited to a single Country and to a small sample size, the obtained results allow suggesting practical recommendations that can contribute to ensuring new challenges in the area of education by addressing relevant culture issues needed to support new workplace realities according to the newly defined Safety 4.0.

Highlights

The developmental process in the management of manufacturing, processing, and chain production was quite recently defined by Schwab [1] as “Industry 4.0”, while referring to the convergence of manufacturing and processing with the digital revolution, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, and with every smart device
Analyzing the current situation on the labor market, it is evident that the approach towards Industry
The ambivalent attitude toward new technologies stems from the conflict of negative and positive expected impacts and technological advances in industrial activities can give rise to improvement in productivity and in occupational health and safety, but not necessarily simultaneously [13]

Summary

Introduction

The developmental process in the management of manufacturing, processing, and chain production was quite recently defined by Schwab [1] as “Industry 4.0”, while referring to the convergence of manufacturing and processing with the digital revolution, artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, and with every smart device. In this regard, companies are entering into a new phase of development. Sustainability 2021, 13, 524 place, with which it is difficult to keep up without the appropriate skills [7]. The European Council identified market digital transformation as a pillar of EU recovery in reaction to the various waves of

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Conclusion