- Project number: F 2505
- Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
- Status: Completed Project
Description:
As part of the BAuA focus program "Occupational Safety and Health in the Digital World of Work", a systematic consideration of both the technical and organisational occupational health and safety has taken place in this programme component. The objective was to identify challenges and adaptation requirements for the system of occupational safety and health by taking a systematic, joint look at the influences of digital change on technical and organizational occupational safety and health. To this end, a mix of methods was used, including literature reviews and project analyses, systematic web based research and drawing on the experience of experts.
In the area of technical occupational health and safety, the separate legal areas for risk assessment of machines and occupational risk assessment require the development of new assessment methods that can also be easily implemented in operational practice - especially considering increasingly networked machines and systems. In addition, the increasing proportion of software in products is accompanied by further requirements for IT-safety that are not sufficiently taken into account in the existing regulations and standards. With regard to organizational occupational health and safety, it became apparent that a holistic view of technology introduction, technology use and the organization of work is not generally taken. Furthermore, new implementation problems and gaps are emerging with the wide spread of flexible working models. Digital technologies represent both a risk and an opportunity. Provided that they are strongly application-oriented and highly reliable, these technologies have the potential to provide meaningful support for occupational safety and health at both the company and the institutional level. Further research is needed in order to be able to describe conducive framework conditions and conditions of use for digital technologies that address the occupational safety and health at the system level.
