Abstract
Objective: The aim of this study is to understand the industrial accident characteristics related to machine safeguarding and to present basic guidelines applying suitable machine safeguarding. Background: Inadequate machine safeguarding can often lead to fatal injuries and deaths. Injury statistics from Korea occupational safety and health agency indicates that there are approximately eleven percent of inadequate machine safeguarding during 2014. Furthermore, the incidence rates in 2014 shows larger incidence rates than 2012. Therefore, the safeguarding should be considered very carefully in terms of industrial types, accident patterns and causing factors. Method: This study analyzed the data of industrial injuries and deaths of 8,624 workers that have been approved as on-duty industrial accidents in 2014. The accident characteristics have been examined by each industrial type, accident pattern and causing factor which has been categorized by safeguarding equipped or not. Results: The characteristics of industrial accidents by types of industry, accident pattern, causing factors showed that there were differences in terms of accident rates between safeguarding equipped and not-equipped. Moreover, there were differences in terms of accident rates with safeguarding equipped between industrial accidents in 2012 and 2014. Conclusion: Machine safeguarding is the first thing to eliminate the hazards from the workplace that can lead the greatest impact on severity of harm. For this purpose, safety climate should be considered that safety is not only responsible for the safety supervisor but also responsible for all workers, especially in construction and manufacturing industries. Application: The results of this study can be used as baseline data to establish the systematic preventative guidelines and policies for machine safeguarding in occupational safety and health.