| dc.description.abstract | Small to medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, have been the backbone of economic development and employment providers in many developed and developing countries. However, the risk level of SMEs, according to studies conducted by countries with advanced occupational health and safety management regulations, as high as or even higher than large organization. Because most SMEs employers focus on business operation and the employees lack awareness of workplace health and safety hazards.
International and national management system standards such as OHSAS 18001, ILO-OSH, ANSI/AIHA Z10 and BS 8800 have widely been accepted as the most effective tools for occupational health and safety management. However, because of cost consideration and limited expertise with modern occupational health and safety management systems, most SMEs encounter extreme difficulty in fulfilling the basic requirement of such standards. So this study establishes occupational health and safety management mechanism for SMEs.
A management framework based on the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle is proposed in this study. Similar to OHS management systems, hazard identify, risk assessment and risk control constitute the major activities in the proposed mechanism. Particularly, occupational health and safety management framework comprises corrective and preventive action in order to return to the management processes we have initiated, and then it will redeem management mechanism. In order to facilitate easy adoption by SMEs, supplementary tools such as checklists, flow charts, and implementation instructions are described in great details in this study. Finally, this study conclude that the SMEs occupational health and safety management framework and Taiwan Occupational Safety and health Management System OSHMS guidelines comparison, and detailed instructions to help SMEs that understand difference between them. It is hoped that the proposed health and safety management mechanism will assist Taiwanese SMEs to adopt and implement systems approach toward occupational health and safety management to effectively reduce workplace accidents and occupational diseases.
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