Acme Automotive Parts: 4 Short Answer Questions

Answer

Acme Automotive Parts: 4 Short Answer Questions

Analysis of hazards across 8 departments at Acme Automotive Parts is conducted on the basis of Mehrdad’s (2020) categorizations of occupational hazards as biological, chemical, physical, ergonomic, psychological agents, and accidents (safety hazards).

Question 1

Anticipated Hazards, Categories, and Possible Routes of Exposure in Various Departments

The shipping/receiving process presents physical hazards from physical injury and death from surreal issues such as collisions, shipwrecks (Meyer, Characklis, Brown & Moody, 2016). The most probable route of exposure is dermal contact.

Similarly, hydraulic press could cause physical hazards from hydraulic presses. These include  “overheating, flying debris, and damaged parts”. Susceptibility to oil leaks and pressure losses, may subject operators to physical injury through dermal contact.

Correspondingly, Metalworking procedures such as polishing, buffering and related processes produce clouds of dust. Lee, Park and Ha (2018) delimit chromium dust and some 249 chemical hazards as leading causes of respiratory and neurological diseases. Route of ingestion is inhalation and possible ingestion.

Equally, safety hazards from robotic welding are related to non-routine activities such as programming, testing and maintenance. Route of exposure is dermal contact.

By the same token, hand-welding exposes workers to chemical hazards from fumes and gases. These fumes emanate from melting of base metal, base-metal coatings, and metal oxide complexes (Wang, Zhan, Liu, & Li, 2017). Route of exposure is inhalation.

Likewise, paint booths escalate exposure to chemical hazards and may cause poisoning, respiratory issues, allergic reactions, and cancer. Principal route of exposure is inhalation and possible ingestion.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) Laboratory could expose workers to ergonometric hazards from poorly adjusted workspaces and seats, recurrent lifting, bad posture, and jerky activities from frequent vibration. Route of exposure is dermal contact.

Finally, Inspection Area stage presents psychological hazards due to work-related stress. Exertion and overwork, external threats of violence, and verbal abuse could be induced through auditory senses.

Question 2

Recognition of hazard Tasks in Robotic Welding Stations

A cross-sequential study by Long, Wonsick and Padir (2018) proposes a risk informed task planning framework for humanoid robots in hazardous environments. Specifically, the study credits the suggested framework for allowing the operator an opportunity to relate occupational hazards with actions. This is achieved by defining nonspecific failure events where every event is ascribed both “probability and severity functions” (Long, Wonsick & Padir, 2018). The consequential “risk metric” is delineated as a distinct quantitative measure of monetary unit which is further linked to contextual costs of failure. Similarly, Long, Wonsick and Padir (2018) have demonstrated by virtual reality how the methods that the risk metrics as a binding predictive pointer for “high severity failures”. Moreover, the exploratory work, notwithstanding its limitations, seems to authenticate the aforementioned metrics. Granting, the listing of failure events is described as a laborious activity, contemporary work emphasizes on three common failure events, namely, “collision, falling and torque limit avoidance” (Long, Wonsick and Padir, 2018). Further works on robotic welding pursue programmed documentation of failure event prospects and gravity. To this end, hazard recognition aims to evaluate the performance of the system under direct control by a skilled operator. To conclude, the decreasing of total cost through reactive control is pursued.

Question 3

Important Information for Anticipating Health Hazards and Source of Information

In the shipping/receiving process validated data from “parameters of a maritime ferry transportation system” process related to Operating Environment Threats (OET) and Extreme Weather Hazards (EWH) at the Baltic Sea area as important predictor of shipping hazards Bogalecka et al. (2016). The recommended source of information is the Annual report on shipping accidents in the Baltic Sea.  

Also, hazards from hydraulic presses can be anticipated from assessment of power-to-mass ratio, stiffness, and load capacity of Hydraulic Press Machines is critical for predicting contemporaneous hazards and can be obtained from press manufacturers’ manuals (Yan, 2019). Similarly, Metal Working Lines data from “exposure characteristics” of chemical hazards in metalworking lines using employee exposure assessment database have been proposed by Lee, Park and Ha (2018). The authors delimit data sources as state regulatory agencies, notably, the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHEA).

Hazards in the Robotic-welding Stations can be anticipated from studying the annual turnover data of Dress Park (Carlson et al., 2016). Data source are periodicals from Fraunhofer-Chalmers Centre, Chalmers Science Park, SE-41288 Gothenburg, Sweden, and Volvo Car Corporation, SE-405 31 Gothenburg, Sweden.

Anticipation of hand-welding hazards can be demarcated from data on “photochemical injury mechanisms such as erythema, photokeratitis, and blue light retinal maladjustment” through the Exposure report in a Tailpipe Assembly Facility (Biddle, 2017).

Furthermore, Paint Booth hazards can be delimited from poor air conditioning data (Ayaz & Aygül, 2019). Important source of paint booth data is the American Scientific Publishers publication.

Moreover, hazards at the QA/QC Laboratory can be analysed from data on human daytime fatigue as revealed by exhaustion, lethargy, lack of enthusiasm, from Keystroke logging data (Ulinskas, Damaševičius, Maskeliūnas & Woźniak, 2018).

Finally, inspection Area hazards may be inferred from psychometric data from disparate settings. Publications from American Psychological Association could be useful in this regard.

4.0 Assessment of improvements that Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 provided to control exposures to health hazards for workers in a plant like AAP.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act, 1970) gave workers and their agents’ significant privileges, including the right to complain of hazardous environments, request onsite reviews, accessing information, and pursuit of new protective standards. Approximately half a century later, work-related fatalities have decreased radically, from14 000 in 1970 or nearly 38 deaths per day to 5250 deaths in 2018, a 63% reduction in the period under review (Seminario, 2020; Harris, 2020). Similar reductions have been observed in work-related injuries and exposure to main poisonous constituents such as asbestos and benzene. OSHA principles are credited for intense transformation of practices. Today, OSH Act prescribes the management of asbestos, with requirements for “enclosures, full body personal protective equipment, and more” in contrast to pre-OSH Act years where little protection was proffered. Similarly, OSHA implementation has transformed work-related activities and improved settings, especially targeted at “high-hazard industries” such as meat packaging and processing of poultry products and checks at discrete workstations with elevated risk of injury and complaints (Seminario, 2020). Extant data documents the benefits of OSHA reviews to attain improved conditions, reduction of exposure and injury. With a focused leadership, OSHA has concerted its efforts to making actual and enduring contribution notwithstanding the sustained resistance from industry.