An Investigation on the Causes of Work-Related Accidents in Electricity Distribution Centers in Iran

Every year, work-related accidents cause death and injury to thousands of people in the world. In addition to human losses, these accidents also cause huge economic losses to companies and organizations. Likewise, based on reports from Iranian organizations in charge, namely the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Health, a significant number of the staff of companies and organizations in the country are injured or dead each year as a result of work-related accidents. Among these companies and organizations are electricity distribution companies which due to the nature of their work, are particularly faced with work-related accidents and suffer large human losses. This research tries to identify the factors causing work-related accidents, and if possible, provide ways to reduce the probability of such accidents. The method used is causal and field studies have been carried out. Study of existing documentation on past events suggests safety equipment defects, inadequate training, lack of proper supervision and lack of coordination among executive units as the main factors causing work-related accidents in electricity distribution centers. As obtaining the expert's opinion on those factors could help us determine the relation between them through a holistic approach, as opposed to collecting the documentation about the causes of accidents, which was a component-oriented approach, we obtained expert views using a questionnaire and interpreted them using the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) mathematical technique to determine those relations. Based on the results from this method, inadequate training has been the main cause of work-related accidents in the electricity distribution centers in Iran. This paper provides strategies with regard to reducing the impact of the factors, prioritizes those strategies and points out the most important strategies.