An Examination of Occupational Health and Safety Risk Factors Affecting Production Management Efforts in Food Manufacturing

Food manufacturing sectors have sensitive and complex production processes due to the use of perishable products, labor-intensive production infrastructure, and hygiene requirements. Factors threatening occupational health and safety, such as chemicals used to reduce contamination and infection risks during product preparation, processing, and handling, irregular working environments, the use of cutting mechanical tools, and insufficient protective equipment, can cause disruptions to production schedules and imbalances in production. Non-ergonomic work arrangements reduce overall production performance, while work accidents resulting from occupational health and safety risks disrupt workforce continuity. In manufacturing environments where occupational health and safety risks are high, decreased capacity utilization rates, production plan revisions, and order delays become inevitable. This study aims to identify occupational health and safety risk factors that may lead to revisions in production management plans in food manufacturing and to reveal the relationship between these risk factors. In this study, occupational health and safety factors are examined from the perspective of production and ergonomics, and the cause-and-effect relationship between the factors is investigated. Considering the qualitative and uncertain nature of the factors, fuzzy DEMATEL was chosen as the analysis method. The findings indicate that risks arising from protective equipment shortages and a disorganized workplace have direct impacts on the emergence of all other risks.