Improvement of Occupational Safety: Investigation on the correlation of Ergonomic Conditions on Workplace Accidents in the automotive industry

Abstract

This quantitative study aims to investigate a possible link between improving the ergonomic conditions at the workplace and reducing the number of accidents. The study will be based on a review of accident reports and using an ergonomic assessment tool to collect relevant data. To ensure the reliability of the individual variables, they were tested for multicollinearity. It was investigated which factors correlate with one another using a correlation matrix. Three of the original seven variables were found to have substantial multicollinearity. These three variables were eliminated from the data to decrease multicollinearity and increase the stability of the data analysis. Using a linear regression model without a constant term is justified. A model reliability of over 60% was achieved by identifying four significant variables and choosing the correct model approach. Thus, this work provides the first approach in the automotive industry to demonstrate that ergonomic evaluation of workstations impacts accident frequency. The results show parallels with existing studies in the literature, even though the study relates to a different industry.