Abstract:
In this study, a novel scheme is proposed for occupational safety improvement by leveraging the concepts of Virtual Reality (VR), Safety Function Deployment (SFD), TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving) and capital budgeting approach. This integrated approach helped in identifying safety interventions, which added a new dimension to the safety intervention design in the operational study at the workplace. By observing the effectiveness of the immersive safety training in identifying the accident path elements such as hazards and initiating mechanisms, a three-dimensional (3D) VR environment is created for safety training of Electric Overhead Travelling (EOT) crane operators of the studied manufacturing industry. This study is carried out in two phases based on accident path elements identified before and after safety training in the VR platform. Three House of Safety (HoSs) are used in this study to establish a relationship between tasks and hazards, hazards and initiating mechanism, and initiating mechanism and safety interventions. Priority weight of interventions in the last HoS is fed as input to the capital budgeting methodology for the selection of an optimal number of interventions for safety improvement. 0–1 multi-dimensional knapsack model is used in capital budgeting considering safety budget and cost of each intervention. We have introduced Z- number approach in capital budgeting methodology to characterize the reliability of experts’ opinion considered in this process. A 15% improvement in safety performance is observed after safety training. Further, it is observed that technology-based interventions (laser scanner, smart helmet, smart jacket, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) to monitor Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), immersive safety training) are having more weightage than traditional safety interventions after safety training.