Abstract
The Agrifood Industry is the largest Portuguese Industry, constituted mainly by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It is noted that more than any other type of organization SMEs have their own specificities that make it particularly appropriate to develop tools to facilitate communication and knowledge sharing for employers and workers. To this extent, identifying critical success factors is the key to increase SMEs productivity. Likewise, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in SMEs have their own characteristics, which difficult the prevention strategies implementation and aggravate the problematic of work accidents. This study analyzes a fieldwork in 60 food processing companies in Portugal, related to the dairy, meat processing, bakery and horticultural subsectors, collected in the report “Characterization and Analysis of the Conditions of Safety and Health at Work in Agrifood Enterprises”. The analysis of the results allowed to identify that, at the national and regional level, the main failures are concerned with (1) lack of risk assessments regarding occupational noise, lighting, thermal environment and vibrations; (2) safety signaling, the circulation ways are not identified with appropriate safety colors; (3) general lighting, with too many shade areas and finally (4) complementary presence of associated risks to falls at the same level, falling of objects, thermal burns, the use of machines and equipment, fire, mechanical, ergonomic hazards and incorrect body postures. The present study aims to interpret the requirements that are in the ideal pattern of work through literature review regarding reality in the fields of OSH, in the Agrifood Industry, with the aim of contributing to the improvement of OSH management and accident prevention of work accidents.
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Acknowledgements
The authors were funded in part by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under project UID/EMS/00151/2013 C-MAST, with reference POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007718.
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Lourenço, M., Lima, T.M., Gaspar, P.D., Santos, F.C. (2019). Assessment and Improvement Opportunities for Occupational Health and Safety in the Portuguese Food Processing Industry. In: Arezes, P., et al. Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 202. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14730-3_76
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