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Abstract:The debate concerning occupational safety and health (OSH) interventions has recently focused on the need of improving the evaluation of interventions, and in particular on the need of providing information about why the intervention worked or not, under what circumstances, and in which context. Key concepts in the analysis of the context are the drivers, i.e., those factors enabling, fostering, or facilitating OSH interventions. However, the concept of driver for an OSH intervention is both confused and contested. Although the term is widely used, there is little consensus on how drivers should be understood, how important they are in different contexts, and how they can facilitate interventions. This exploratory study based on interviews with the owner-managers and the safety officers of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) gives an overview of the most characteristic drivers for OSH interventions. The results will be used to make an initial evaluation of SMEs needs, and will help orient interventions and future research.

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This study aims to analyse the relationship between safety climate and the level of risk acceptance, as well as its relationship with workplace safety performance. The sample includes 14 companies and 403 workers. The safety climate assessment was performed by the application of a Safety Climate in Wood Industries questionnaire and safety performance was assessed with a checklist. Judgements about risk acceptance were measured through questionnaires together with four other variables: trust, risk perception, benefit perception and emotion. Safety climate was found to be correlated with workgroup safety performance, and it also plays an important role in workers' risk acceptance levels. Risk acceptance tends to be lower when safety climate scores of workgroups are high, and subsequently, their safety performance is better. These findings seem to be relevant, as they provide Occupational, Safety and Health practitioners with a better understanding of workers' risk acceptance levels and of the differences among workgroups.

Despite being considered sufficiently precise and reliable for certain applications (e.g. apparel industry), the 3D scanner tested showed, for almost every anthropometric measurement, a different result than the manual technique. Many companies design their products based on data obtained from 3D scanners, hence, understanding the precision and reliability of the equipment used is essential to obtain feasible results.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to compare the well-known value stream mapping (VSM) with a recent tool named waste identification diagram (WID), regarding the capacity of information representation and easiness of interpretation. Design/methodology/approach The work begins with a brief literature review comparing the main tools for representation of production units, with special emphasis on VSM and WID, in terms of ability to identify several types of waste. Then, the authors developed the VSM and the WID of a specific production unit and after that several groups composed by students of Industrial Engineering (IE) and/or professionals from industry were asked to analyse/interpret only one of these diagrams. Finally, a questionnaire with closed and open questions was applied to the groups to evaluate the analysed tool. Findings In general, the results revealed that WID is more effective than VSM and participants recognized that most of the WID elements are relevant. Specifically, a measure coined overall effectiveness was applied (based on the response time and percentage of correct interpretations), indicating a clear advantage of WID (22 per cent of correct interpretations per minute) compared to VSM (9 per cent of correct interpretations per minute). The main drawback pointed to the WID is the lack of representation of the information flow. Originality/value This work contributes to the IE field by revealing WID as a new promising graphical tool for representation of production units, especially in terms of identification/quantification of wastes. The tool was quantitative and qualitatively evaluated by persons both from academia and industry.

Abstract-This paper presents the first developments of an industrial network laboratory prototype. In the Automation Laboratory several kits have been implemented for local and remote control tests. The approach includes the design and implementation of an industrial network where the common communications protocols can be tested: the Automation Network Locker (ANL). To facilitate the monitoring and control of the network, WALC (Web Assisted Laboratory for Control Engineering on-line Education) interface platform was developed. This allows the remote monitoring and control of the pedagogic kits to complement the teaching/learning automation to undergraduate engineering students. The security of network access is also taken into account in order to limit and control the number of users that can access it. An on-line questionnaire accessed at the end of each semester, allows an actualization and to follow the students' feedback.