A Model Proposal for Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment Based on Multi-Criteria Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets: An Application in Plastics Industry

Abstract

According to the occupational health and safety law, it is necessary to take protective and preventive measures against risks by conducting risk assessment to ensure occupational health and safety in workplaces. Many qualitative or quantitative methods are used in occupational health and safety risk assessment. In this study, which offers a new perspective on the Fine-Kinney method which is widely used in workplaces, "Cost" factor was included in addition to the "Probability", "Frequency", and "Severity" factors and a risk assessment model based on Multi-Criteria Hesitant Fuzzy Linguistic Term Sets (MC-HFLTS) was proposed. The proposed model was implemented in the molding unit of a company operating in the plastics industry. Firstly, the hazards were determined in line with the opinions of the experts, and the weights of factors were determined using MC-HFLTS method. Then the hazards were prioritized on the basis of factors. The most important factor was the "Severity" and the hazard type with the highest weight was determined as "Hazards that may cause fire and explosion". Following the assessment of the hazards, measures that could be taken were weighted and the necessary measure was taken. After improvement, the hazards were reevaluated using the same method and the rankings were compared.