Importance and Effectiveness of Different Safety Training Methods and their Application in Iron Ore Pelletizing Plants

Iron ore pelletizing plants present several types of hazards and risks that can contribute to occupational incidents and material losses. Hazard Identification and Risk assessment is a process to identify causes and consequences including significance level considering both probability and consequences of occurrences. Henceforth, preventive and mitigation measures are established, communicated, and verified to prevent unwanted incidents and events. In 1950 the National Safety Council introduced the hierarchy of controls inspired by a philosophy that controlling exposures to occupational hazards is the fundamental method of protecting workers. The hierarchy of control was established to prove that design, elimination, substitution, and engineering controls should be the most effective when applied in preventing occupational incidents followed by administrative controls and Personal Protective Equipment. Safety training is one of the important preventive measures falling under the category of administrative controls. However, training effectiveness shall be considered in all phases such as training design, delivery, and post-training monitoring. In this paper, the main iron ore pelletizing safety hazards and risks such as the conveyor belt system will be reviewed and a discussion on the effectiveness, barriers, and constraints of traditional safety training programs and the consideration of advantages and challenges of the immersive training program in ensuring the effectiveness in improving risk perception, safe behavior and reducing occupational safety incidents.