Managing Occupational Health and Safety in SMEs: An Evolutionary Web-based Tool

Even though several guidelines have been proposed by public organizations about how to design an Occupational Health and Safety management system (OHSMS) customized to Small- and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs), an approach integrating and OHSMS with the risk assessment under a unified and shared logic still misses. This paper presents an evolutionary OHS tool for SMEs that combines the advantages of a simplified procedure to develop a risk analysis and outline a set of risk prevention and protection measures at workplace, such as the one proposed by the Italian legislation, with the advantages of a simplified OHS management model. It is assumed that a software tool could be the preferential way to allow a wide diffusion and an effective application of this model. The online structure also enables distributing OHS-related information directly from institutional databases. This information, provided within the same software tool used for risk assessment and OHS management, can significantly support in particular SMEs with a poor experience.