Occupational hazards management using a grey-based decision-making approach

The objective of this paper is to present and verify the decision-making model which makes it possible to streamline the occupational hazards that tend to occur in the work environment, according to the adopted decision-making criteria. In this way, it will be possible to reduce inconsistencies of decision-makers deciding to focus their preventive measures upon the most important hazards, in the situation when the same assessments for hazards are obtained using classical matrix techniques. Within this model, a grey approach was proposed, which makes it possible for experts to use linguistic variables in such assessments. The following three risk assessment parameters were used as the criteria: probability of occurrence of hazards, level of their consequences, and a possibility to avoid them. The model was verified in a furniture manufacturing company on the basis of 17 key hazards assessment, which had been carried out by: an executive officer, a direct supervision employee, a work health and safety officer, and an expert coming from outside the company. This paper remedies some shortcomings in using the grey theory in occupational risk management, and constitutes an original application of this concept in the work safety area.