The first research question was, "What are the different kinds of risks, accidents, and injuries occurring in the metal industry?" In order to answer the first research question, secondary data were surveyed. The metal manufacturing business experienced greater issues than other types of industries, according to Shikdar & Sawaqed (2003). A significant public health concern is the high prevalence of occupational injuries in the metal fabrication industry. Eyes, fingers, ankles, and feet were mentioned, in addition to compression and crush occurrences (Gulhan et al., 2012). According to a study by Miwano et al., (2018) the category of chemical and biological risks has the highest exposure rate, followed by the category of physical hazards. The study's findings showed that psychosocial and ergonomic dangers had lower percentages .In the section on literature reviews, this subject is more succinctly covered and answered
Research Question Two asked, “What are the factors that affect Occupational Safety and Health Practices at Akaki basic metal industry?”
Factors that affect Occupational Safety and Health Practices at Akaki basic metal industry are as follow.
This study discovered a strong positive relationship between safety leadership and safety performance. According to Kheni's (2008) research, when management places a high priority on workplace health and safety, employees understand that the employer values their lives. As a result, people work more safely and strive to act more safely at work. The study also demonstrates that employees are more willing to contribute to workplace health and safety when they feel free to discuss issues or suggestions for improvements in workplace safety with management or supervisors. Additionally, staff members are more likely to act safely when asked about safety at sessions about workplace safety and health. To ensure the efficient and successful administration of workplace health and safety, good leadership is required. These leaders' traits include tenacity, a desire to see health and safety improve, a willingness to collaborate with others to promote health and safety, and an understanding that good health and safety result from others' cooperation and efforts. This indicates that effective leadership enhances workplace performance in terms of occupational safety and health. Previous studies have noted the significance of safety leadership on employee safety performance
Research Question four asked, “What Industrial Occupational Safety and Health Model is Appropriate for Akaki Basic Metal Industry?” The Akaki Basic Metal Industry's occupational safety and health model was created based on the principles of the preceding chapter, as evidenced by the structural model output. Based on the data gathered from the earlier analysis carried out in this research, this part has developed an OSH improvement model. The section has also sought to evaluate the relevance of each OSH element and the suggested model to the study's overall aims. Safety culture was the first component of the model element, which was intended to increase firm productivity. The adoption of a safety policy was the second measure taken to increase firm productivity. The safety climate, which aims to increase firm productivity, made up the third component of the model element. The final two components, safety promotion and safety leadership, were linked to safety performance in order to improve success factors, and firm productivity was linked to safety performance. Jilcha, (2020) discovered in earlier studies that the model for improving industrial workplace safety and health has good effects in the direction of sustainable development. The outcomes represent achievements in lowering work-related accidents, diseases, and costs as well as in creating long-lasting workplace safety and health management systems. Making the development of the OSH strategic plan, the team of steering committees, the allocation of funding and enforcement, the development of policy, and the establishment of management standards as the most important aspects for OSH improvements a priority
Research Question three asked, “To what extents do factors that affect firm productivity at the work place?” The investigation also revealed the magnitude of the factors influencing corporate productivity. The results reveal that there has been a significant impact, but that the beneficial influence on safety culture, safety laws, and the climate has outweighed the negative impact on firm productivity and safety performance. The magnitudes of the factor loading coefficients for the health and safety variables in the multiple regression models showed that this was the case. The results of the study showed that safety culture, safety police, and safety atmosphere all had levels of factors that affected company production that ranged from greater to lower factor loading coefficients. Safety performance increases by 0.519 for every increase in safety leadership and by 0.185 for every increase in safety promotion. According to this, safety promotion and leadership had a favorable impact on safety performance, but when safety performance increased, firm productivity decreased by 0.186, making safety performance a negative determinant of firm productivity. When safety culture increases by 1, firm productivity increases by 0.612, by 0.3 when safety police increases by 1, and by 0.246 when safety climate increases by 1, indicating that safety culture, safety police, and safety climate were, respectively, the degree of factor loading coefficients for firm productivity. Employee productivity is impacted by the aforementioned variables. According to a prior study by [22], analyzing employee performance is crucial to understanding organizational performance. The ability of employees to work productively and boost the company's competitive edge is significantly influenced by organizational performance.
5.1. Qualitative Result
The following findings were presented in light of employee interviews, workplace observations, and an open-ended study question: Due to a lack of safety guards, industrial workers were exposed to heat and flying materials. Lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and improper ventilation in the forging and surface treatment rooms Workers in the furnace area of the Founder work shop were exposed to smoke, and the majority of them didn't wear chemical masks or gauze to guard against dust and fire. Additionally, when workers were observed in several working areas, they were found operating without PPE and only wearing overcoats. The safety signs that were posted were insufficient, and some of them were worn and hard to read. For the employment of ray welding and cutting machines, there is no personal protective equipment (PPE) to shield the radiation from harming the fertility of both male and female workers in the fabrication work shop. Workers also complained that the company lacks an occupational safety and health department as a result; there is no responsible department to gather and record employee injury data from the company clinic; there is no department for safety planning; to offer training; to promote communication; to control; to monitor; to review; and to manage safety hazards in the workplace. The other employees complained that they were paid very little or had poor earnings from the company. Employees who are paid poor wages are not happy with their jobs. there was an elevated risk of occupational injury in Ethiopia due to a lack of personal protective equipment, supervision, and training in occupational health and safety. According to the earlier study [2], it is impossible to expect a society to achieve its development goals without healthy workers, safe workplaces, and contented citizens. To put it another way, un well workers cannot perform at the levels of productivity and efficiency that are expected of them. According to the aforementioned respondents, there is a knowledge gap among firm employees regarding their level of comprehension of the components of the worker safety and health management system and their participation in it. Because of this, the model analysis's surprising conclusion was to exclude these factors. Therefore, it is suggested that the corporation and the local government officials who are responsible for the issue take corrective action.
5.2. Conclusions
The following conclusions were made based on the study findings of Occupational Safety and Health Model Development in Manufacturing in the Akaki Basic Metal Industry. To meet the general objective of the study, it has followed a well-structured research design. This study has also hypothesized and cross-validated the complex associations between indicators of twenty-one observed variables and latent factors in a developing region. A developed questionnaire was used to gather information (n = 215) on variables of interest from Akaki Basic Metal Industry. To test and validate the hypothesized model, CFA was conducted on both the calibration and validation using AMOS. The CFA results offered a perfect understanding of the causal relationship among various constructs. As the developed model achieved the desired GOF indices, construct reliability, and convergent and divergent validities. Construct dependability, convergent and divergent validities, and the requisite GOF indices were all obtained by the constructed model.
The metal industry has a variety of accidents and injuries, including those to the eyes, fingers, ankles, and feet, as well as compression and crush. The metal industry is most exposed to physical dangers, followed by chemical and biological threats. According to the findings, safety leadership, climate, policy, promotion, culture, performance, and firm productivity are the elements that have an impact on occupational safety and health practices at Akaki Basic Metal Industry. In the analysis, these variables have a strong association and are significant. The other factors, including safety hazard management, safety communication and awareness, safety control, monitoring and review, safety planning, and safety training, did not significantly affect the results. Those variables do not, according to our findings, influence occupational safety and health practices at Akaka’s basic metal business. According to the qualitative discussion in the previous chapter, the case company did not have an occupational safety and health department, and the majority of respondents gave the answers 1 and 2 (strongly disagree and disagree), which suggests that those variables were not important. However, they are crucial to the practice of occupational safety and health. However, by integrating occupational safety and health in the workplace, the organization enhances these factors. The findings of this study suggest that safety leadership and safety promotion are, respectively, the most critical elements that influence safety performance. In order to decrease workplace accidents and injuries and enhance employee performance and firm productivity, safety culture, safety police, and safety climate evaluation are also significant critical variables that influence firm productivity. The Akaki Basic Metal Industry's best model is identified by a previous finding. The model variables employed to enhance the state of firm productivity were safety culture, safety policy, and safety climate. In order to enhance safety performance, the final two components safety promotion and safety leadership were combined. However, safety performance has a negative correlation with firm production.
The involvement of metal employees in workplace safety and health increases their performance in terms of safety, which is one of this study's significant contributions. Additionally, unless management is strongly committed to workplace safety, safety procedures and rules will not be effective on their own. As a result, how the company facilitates a safety climate and safety culture at work has a big impact on how people behave when it comes to safety. Employees will be more eager to abide by safety rules if they believe that administrative personnel are concerned about their OHS. A program for workplace safety and health has also been established and put into place. However, if employers and employees do not carry out their respective obligations, a successful occupational health and safety program cannot exist.
5.3. RECOMMENDATIONS
Given the results of the study and the conclusions presented above, the following advice is provided
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Management must implement occupational safety and health in order to enhance the management of occupational safety and health and other elements that lower workplace accidents and injuries.
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The management of Akaki Basic Metal Industry should organize and hold routine workshops, seminars, and refresher trainings on workplace health and safety, monitor health and safety concerns, release safety-related documents, and take numerous other actions to instill a sense of safety awareness in workers. Certain accidents might have been avoided if workers had been properly supervised while doing their duties at the job. The management must inform other employers about risks and hazards.
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In order to prevent radiation from harming both male and female employees' fertility, the management supplies personal protective equipment for new employees as well as the use of ray welding and cutting machine processes. A regular monitoring team should be established by management to ensure that workers are donning the provided protective gear before performing their duties, strictly adhering to the safety precautions put in place to prevent accidents, and establishing internal rules and regulations governing working conditions.
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The safety of the workplace can be substantially improved if employees are aware that management and they are both responsible for safety and health procedures. Facilities and systems for the workplace should be adequate, secure, and free from health risks, and management should provide and maintain them.
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Additionally, the government needs to put in place monitoring teams that will visit firms on a regular basis to see if they are adhering to the rules outlined in the nation's labor proclamation. Akaki Basic Metal Industry would be more effective in terms of program evaluation and improvement if it conducted a formal annual review of the workers' safety and health management program and modified the program as necessary to address flaws.
5.4. Limitation of the study and directions for future research
This research has certain limitations there are: First, employee behavior, employee satisfaction and employee income are highly influence in employees productivity also affect firm productivity but this study are not include this factors. Secondly, this study only focused on the Akaki Basic Metal Industry, the results may differ from other industries in Ethiopia or other countries. Finally the researcher used open end questionnaire and observation method among many survey data collection techniques. Based on the research question Amos needs more than 200 research questions to analyze data. But this study used only 215 research questions so that, the data that were collected might not large enough.
The researcher proposes further research to be conducted on organizational safety and health of firm productivity of Akaki Basic Metal Industry to come up with additional measured variable like employee behavior, employee income and employee satisfaction ,therefore future researcher could conduct his/her research based on this gap. The study may be future research extend to other metal factories in the other regions of Ethiopia or another country. It is possible that this may mean testing the model using sample populations drawn from beyond the Akaki Basic Metal Industry (> 215questions).