Development and application of a quantitative index for predicting unsafe behavior of shop floor workers integrating cognitive failure reports and best worst method

Abstract

The reliability of shop floor workers, who are often as the final level of a socio-technical system, has been identified as a crucial factor in complex systems. This study aimed to develop and apply a quantitative and practical method to help safety practitioners manage unsafe behavior in industrial systems. This study is a descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional research conducted in an Iranian manufacturing company. A questionnaire containing six primary scales of unsafe behavior was used to evaluate the participants' scores for unsafe behavior. Since the impact of each of the six scales on the occurrence of unsafe behavior varied, the scales were weighted using the best–worst method (BWM). Finally, to quantify the workers' unsafe behavior, the total unsafe behavior index (USBITotal) score was calculated. The mean scores for routine violations (RVs) and exceptional violations (EVs) were 10.68 and 5.09, respectively, indicating the highest and lowest values. The present study introduces an innovative proactive tool to provide safety practitioners with a practical method for predicting cognitive unsafe behavior of shop floor workers. This tool is cost-effective, accessible, and utilizes quantitative measures. The developed method seems to be a suitable tool for measuring the frequency of slips, lapses, and mistakes, as well as various types of violations. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024.