Abstract
Occupational safety is a major concern these days because it is an important social issue promoting financial implications for organisations, employees, and society. But while occupational safety is an important concern, the top management of organizations usually prioritize waste and cost reduction. Therefore, there is a need for a technique that reduces waste and simultaneously improves occupational safety. Lean has been effective in reducing waste and costs. Some researchers have shown that Lean can also improve occupational safety. The objective of this work was to determine wether, in organizations where Lean tools were implemented, if there was an improvement in occupational safety conditions, namely in the reduction of accident rates, and to verify which Lean tools contributed the most to that improvement. A survey was conducted by sending a questionnaire to Portuguese organizations, from north to south and islands, who had potentially Lean tools implemented. In total, 189 answers have been obtained from organizations, 59 of which had Lean tools implemented, being considered valid answers for the study. Through statistical analysis of the data obtained, it was found that no organisations had worsened their safety indicators, some had maintained the same level and a reasonable number stated that their indicators had improved. Of these, the vast majority said that their accident rates had decreased by 20%, this being the figure that statistically showed the best results in terms of change.
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The work of the author Vanda Lima is supported by national funds, through the FCT— Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UIDB/04728/2020.
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Sá, J.C., Dinis-Carvalho, J., Fraga, H., Lima, V., Silva, F.J.G., Bastos, J. (2023). The Impact of Lean on Occupational Safety in Organisations. In: McDermott, O., Rosa, A., Sá, J.C., Toner, A. (eds) Lean, Green and Sustainability. ELEC 2022. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 668. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25741-4_16
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