Anthropotechnological analysis of industrial accidents in Brazil

The Brazilian Ministry of Labour has been attempting to modify the norms us ed to analyse industrial accidents in the country. For this purpose, in 199 4 it tried to make compulsory use of the causal tree approach to accident a nalysis, an approach developed in France during the 1970s,without having pr eviously determined whether it is suitable for use under the industrial saf ety conditions that prevail in most Brazilian firms. In addition, appositio n from Brazilian employers has blocked the proposed changes to the norms. T he present study employed anthropotechnology to analyse experimental applic ation of the causal tree method to work-related accidents in industrial fir ms in the region of Botucatu, Sao Paulo. Three work-related accidents were examined in three industrial firms representative of local, national and mu ltinational companies. On the basis of the accidents analysed in this study , the rationale for the use of the causal tree method in Brazil can be summ arized for each type of firm as follows:the method is redundant if there is a predominance of the type of risk whose elimination or neutralization req uires adoption of conventional industrial safety measures (firm representat ive of local enterprises); the method is worth while if the company's speci fic technical risks have already largely been eliminated (firm representati ve of national enterprises); and the method is particularly appropriate if the firm has a good safety record and the causes of accidents are primarily related to industrial organization and management (multinational enterpris e).