(41a) Labor Accidents and the Relation with Human Error and Factors : Case: Braskem – Raw Material Unit – Bahia

Statistical data disclosed by private and governmental institutions have pointed out the high and preoccupying rate of work accidents in industrial installations, affecting several governmental, civil society and private enterprise sectors. In the first case, the high costs of workers compensations and injury recovery expenses compromise, many times, funds to be applied in preventive actions and in workers' social welfare. Secondly, accidents leading to non-fatal injuries, and, in some cases, fatal injuries leading to death bring the family irreversible losses. At last, private initiative has lost a great deal of investments on its workers, apart from losses in terms of installations and processes resulting from accidents. Despite technological evolution observed in system and equipment components, resulting from investments in terms of reliable and high performance systems, in spite of their being automatized and capable of minimizing and even eliminating operational failures, the need for man's interface adjustment remains. In this sense, unfortunately, equivalent advances have not been observed in terms of research and tools for minimizing the probability of human failure in systems and equipment operation which can preserve adequate work conditions and human values in work environments. In this work, an assessment is made of the influence of human failure in accident occurrences in Braskem's Raw Material Basic Unit, and a methodology for human failure assessment and tools for risk and accident analysis are proposed. Human factors involved in project creation are also to be considered, so as to enable systems and equipment to be projected in safer and more reliable ways, aiming at decreasing the probability of accidents involving people, installations and environment. It is expected that this research might contribute to fostering workers' going back home as they came to work, i.e., with their physical, psychological and emotional integrity preserved.