Health and safety rules

Explain what personal protective equipment (PPE) is, name three common examples in a technology workshop, and indicate which part of the body each protects and against what risk.

The figure shows the pictograms of five items of personal protective equipment, with a question mark below each one, as shown in the figure.

Name the protective equipment represented by each pictogram and explain what risk it prevents. Then, indicate which ones you would use to cut wood with a power saw and why.

Explain the difference between risk (possibility of suffering harm) and accident (harm that has already occurred), giving an example from the workshop for each concept.

What does an FFP2 respirator mask protect against, and in which workshop tasks should you use it (sanding that generates dust, varnishing, soldering)? Explain the difference between it and a surgical mask.

The risk generated by a machine (impacts, cuts, entanglement) is not the same as that generated by a chemical product (burns, fumes). Explain the difference and describe two specific preventive measures for each type of risk.

A student is going to use an angle grinder without a protective guard and without safety goggles. Identify the specific risks (flying particles into eyes, disc breakage, sparks) and describe the necessary measures before and during the work (PPE, inspection of the disc and guard, area clear of people and flammable materials).

Safety signs use standardised colours. Explain what each one indicates: yellow (hazard warning), red (prohibitive or fire-fighting equipment) and green (exits and rescue equipment), and give an example of each type of sign that exists in your school.

Untidiness causes accidents. Explain how (badly stored tools falling, cables on the floor, material scraps causing slips or fires) and write three rules of tidiness and cleanliness for the workshop, indicating the specific risk each one avoids.

Analyse common electrical risks in a workshop (damaged cables, extension leads overloaded with several machines, appliances near water sources) and propose a specific preventive measure for each of these three risks.

During the manual cutting of polymer sheets for a prototype, a student suffers a deep cut to their hand with a utility knife. The preliminary incident report concludes: "Cause of the accident: student recklessness for cutting towards themselves, working in a rush, and not wearing cut-resistant gloves".

1. a) Technically refute this preliminary report based on the theory of accident causation. Apply the root cause tree method differentiating between verifiable objective facts, work variations, and root causes at different levels (tooling/equipment, working method, environment, and workshop organization).
2. b) Explain why blaming the human factor ("carelessness" or "rushing") does not prevent the accident from recurring.
3. c) Design two technical modifications to the tooling or the guiding and clamping system that physically prevent contact between the blade and the operator's hands, making the process intrinsically safe.

In a manufacturing and prototyping workshop, three tasks are performed simultaneously under the following working conditions:

1. Drilling of steel flat bars: 12 operators, 4 hours per day; machine without a chip protective guard or foot-accessible emergency stop; use of cutting fluid without continuous recycling.

2. Degreasing and cleaning of parts with volatile organic solvents: 2 operators, 40 minutes per day in an enclosed room without mechanical ventilation or extraction hood.

3. Soft electronic soldering with tin-lead: 10 students, 2 hours per week; workbenches with shared extraction arms but with saturated filters and without periodic inspection.

1. a) Build a 3 × 3 risk assessment matrix (Probability: Low, Medium, High × Severity: Slight, Serious, Very Serious) and place the main risks of each of the three tasks with justification, based on exposure data and potential harm to health.
2. b) Suppose the workshop management has a limited budget and decides to spend it entirely on buying disposable FFP2 masks for the soldering students because "they are the most numerous". Technically justify why this decision is flawed according to the principles of preventive action and reorganize the investment plan by prioritizing interventions that provide the greatest reduction in overall risk.

In a carpentry and school furniture manufacturing workshop, operators perform dry sanding of particleboard and hardwoods. Occupational hygiene measurements indicate that the respirable fraction of wood dust exceeds the Occupational Exposure Limit (VLA) by 250 %, with the aggravating factor that hardwood dust is classified as a carcinogen. Management decides to give each worker an FFP2 mask at the beginning of the week and consider the problem solved. After two hours of use, many operators pull the mask down to their necks claiming breathing difficulty and heat.

1. a) Critically analyze why management's strategy is a preventive and technical failure: explain the intrinsic limitations of PPE against prolonged exposure and why the Occupational Risk Prevention Act establishes a mandatory hierarchy of controls.
2. b) Design a comprehensive action plan structured into the four levels above PPE (elimination, substitution, technical/engineering controls, and organizational measures). Propose at least one concrete, justified, and feasible technical measure for each level, arguing how each contributes to reducing airborne concentration without relying on worker behavior.