Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

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Safety Science
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci

The accident early warning system for iron and steel enterprises based
on combination weighting and Grey Prediction Model GM (1, 1)
Cuiping Li a,b, Jiexuan Qin a,b, Jiajie Li c,, Qian Hou d
a

School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, No. 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, PR China
Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of High Efficiency Mining and Safety for Metal Mines, University of Science and Technology Beijing, No. 30 Xueyuan Road, Haidian
District, Beijing 100083, PR China
c
Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, 517-6350 Stores Road, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4, Canada
d
China Association of Work Safety, No. 21 North Hepingli Road, Dongcheng District, Beijing 100713, PR China
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 22 June 2015
Received in revised form 27 October 2015
Accepted 27 May 2016

Keywords:
Iron and steel enterprise
Risk early warning
Early warning index system
Combination weighting
GM (1, 1) early warning model

a b s t r a c t
In order to prevent the occurrence of accidents in iron and steel enterprises, it is essential to change the
risk management pattern from post-emergency response to hazard control and prevention. Based on the
characteristics of iron and steel enterprises, this paper investigates the early warning system for
accidents for iron and steel enterprises, aiming for the adoption of accident prevention and hazard control. An early warning index system and an early warning model were constructed based on production
types and accident statistics of the enterprises. On account of the factors that influence accidents, this
early warning index system contains 3 hierarchies with 5 composite indexes and 22 thematic indexes.
The indexes have been quantified, regularized, and their weights were determined using a combination
weighting method based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process and the Entropy Weight Method. The early
warning index model was established according to Grey System Theory GM (1, 1), and the comprehensive
early warning indexes were calculated by Multi-objective Linear Weighted Function. The thresholds were
then determined, the early warning levels were identified, and the early warning signals were output
accordingly. The feasibility and validity of the proposed early warning model was tested and verified
through its application in a functioning industrial plant.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The iron and steel industry is one of the most basic and
important industries in China. It holds a pivotal strategic position
of supporting and promoting related industries within the national
economy. The production of crude steel in China has grown
continuously at a rate of 21.1% annually and has occupied first
place in worldwide production since the 21st century
(Worldsteel Association, 2015). However, steel production in China
is a high-risk industry since the process of production involves
many hazards, including high temperature and gas operations,
and poor working environments (Yang, 2010). Accidents in the iron
and steel industry have led to tremendous pain and loss for both
individuals and society. For example, 32 people died and 6 people
were injured when a ladle used to transport molten steel capsized
in an accident at a steel corporation in China on April 18th, 2007.
According to statistics, 2762 accidents in the iron and steel
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: cpli@ustb.edu.cn (C. Li), fdqinq@163.com (J. Qin), jiajie.
li@alumni.ubc.ca (J. Li), houqian126@126.com (Q. Hou).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2016.05.015
0925-7535/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

industry occurred in China between 2003 and 2012, with a death

toll of 2780 (SAWS, 2013). Obviously, work safety in the iron and
steel industry is in a serious concern. Therefore, investigation into
Early Warning Systems (EWS) to prevent accidents within iron and
steel enterprises is of high priority in order to enhance levels of
safety management and render the work conducted in these
enterprises to be safe, systematical, effective, comprehensive and
controllable.
Research regarding EWS originates in the macro economy of
western countries, and has gradually been applied in various fields
such as the micro economy, natural disasters, health, and network
(Quansah and Engel, 2010). Some progress has been made with
respect to EWS in the area of work safety (Hou et al., 2013), especially for high-risk industries such as coal mining (Li and Xie,
2014), construction (Han, 2014) and transportation (Duan et al.,
2013; Wang, 2007). Research regarding EWS for the iron and steel
industry remains in its infancy. The theories and technologies used
have primarily been taken from traditional EWS for economic, the
adaptability of which is limited. Therefore, it is essential to conduct
research regarding EWS for accidents specifically for iron and steel
enterprises.

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C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

Generally, there are three methods through which to construct

an early warning model, namely, index warning, statistical warning and model warning (Dai and Chen, 2011). Up until currently,
various methods have been adopted to study early warning with
respect to accidents in many fields. Risk assessment and EWS for
industrial facilities in seismic zones has been studied using fragility
analysis and structural modeling (Salzano et al., 2009). A psychosocial risk EWS study for the oil and gas industry has been developed
using a performance indicator (Bergh et al., 2014). An EWS for the
coal mining industry has been developed based on a selforganizing neural networks (Niu et al., 2006). A fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method has been adopted to develop an EWS for
on-line public opinion (Wang et al., 2012). An EWS for ecological
safety in Lanzhou has been established by a Grey Prediction Model
GM (1, 1) (Zhou and Liu, 2011). Additionally, some integrated
methods such as a fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) have
been used to study EWS regarding safety in enterprises (Hu
et al., 2010; Yu et al., 2013; Zheng et al., 2012). Each method has
its own applicabilities and its own shortcomes.
The objective of this study is to (a) adequately reflect the extent
and sensitivity of the indexes with respect to accidents, (b) effectively analyze the relevance among causes of accidents, (c) objectively and quantitatively present for the EWS with respect to
accidents in iron and steel enterprises. This study adopts an combination weighting method with APH and Entropy Weight Method to
determine the weight of index subjectively and objectively, and
integrates the Grey Prediction Theory to build an early warning
model. It is expected that the EWS could be effectively used for
pre-prevent and control future accidents in iron and steel
enterprises.
2. Methodology
The production system in iron and steel enterprises is complex
and interrelated, and leads to various types of accidents with many
influential factors. The relationships among these factors are complicated. In order to construct a scientific and reliable EWS for the
enterprises, a comprehensive and dynamic risk early warning
index system needs to be built in advance.
Early warning indexes were derived from many sources, such as
(a) existing laws, regulations, standards, and accident cases, (b)
information obtained through observation and inspection, and (c)
monitoring information of corresponding instrumentation. An
early warning index was determined through comprehensive analyzing the risks, hidden dangers, and causes during the production
of the iron and steel enterprises, and extracting the most important
and relevant factors. Based on the ways of information collection,
indexes can be divided into qualitative indexes and quantitative
indexes. In order to make the indexes with different properties
comparable, the indexes were quantified and regularized. The
index weights of influence factors were obtained by AHP and
Entropy Weight Method. The index weights were then used as
the influence coefficients, which were applied in multi-objective
linear weighted method to get the work safety status index of
enterprise. Afterwards, an early warning model was established
using the Grey Prediction Model GM (1, 1) to predict the early
warning index in a further time point. Ultimately, the work safe
status at present and in the future was evaluated. The structure
of the accident early warning for iron and steel enterprises is
shown in Fig. 1.
2.1. Statistical analysis of accidents
The China Association of Work Safety (CAWS) reports that 43,
39 and 43 large-scale iron and steel enterprises were in operation

Index
Index selection
selection
Early
warning
Early warning
index
index system
system

Index
Index quantification
quantification and
and
regularization
regularization
Index
weights determination
determination
Index weights
Model
Model structure
structure design
design

Early
Early warning
warning
model
model

Accidents
Accidents
early
early
warning
warning for
for
iron
iron and
and
steel
steel
enterprises
enterprises

Model
Model parameters
parameters determination
determination
Early
Early warning
warning signal
signal output
output

Fig. 1. The structure of accident risk early warning in iron and steel enterprises.

in China in 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. Fig. 2(a) indicates

the number of accidents that occurred in major large-scale iron
and steel enterprises, including minor accidents, serious accidents
and fatal accidents. The injury and death toll is shown in Fig. 2(b).
As seen in Fig. 2, the number of accidents are decreasing, and the
injury and death toll have been declining year by year. Minor accidents in particular, have been effectively prevented.
Accidents in iron and steel enterprises have historically been
classified statistically according to the production process, accident
type and causes.
(1) Classification according to production processes
The casualties incurred in accidents classified according to
production processes from 2010 to 2012 are shown in Fig. 3. In
general, accidents mainly occurred in auxiliary production procedures, as well as the main production processes of steel-making,
iron-making, and rolling, as a result of the complex processes, various equipment, and dangerous operations that are involved. Additionally, many accidents also occurred during the processes of
building and mining, owing to their unique production conditions
and characteristics. Moreover, fewer accidents took place in power,
oxygen and refractory processes.
(2) Classification according to accident types
According to the Classification Standard for the Casualty Accidents of Enterprise Staff and Workers (GB 6441-86), iron and steel
accidents can be divided into twenty categories. Statistics regarding the casualties incurred in accidents classified by accident types
from 2010 to 2012 are shown in Fig. 4. The most frequent types of
accidents involved machinery injuries, strucks by objects, falls and
crane injuries, which accounted for more than 50% of accidents in
total. Yearly comparisons indicate that the number of strucks by
objects, vehicle injuries, and poison and asphyxia have sharply
declined, and that the number of scalds and falls have steadily
decreased. Statistics regarding other types of injuries including
machinery injuries and electronic shocks have fluctuated. Additionally, poison and asphyxia are likely to cause mass death and
casualty and could, by and large, be prevented.
(3) Classification according to causes
The causes that generally affect accidents can be classified into
four categories including the unsafe behavior of people, the unsafe
status of objects, the unfavorable environment and improper
management. The casualties for accidents classified according to
these causes from 2010 to 2012 are illustrated in Fig. 5. The violation of operating regulations was the main cause of casualties in

C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

21

Fig. 2. Personal accidents in iron and steel enterprises in China from 2010 to 2012. Footnote: Minor accidents means one or more person are slightly injured and the treatment
time is less than 105 business days; Serious accidents means one or more person are seriously injured and the treatment time is more than 105 business days.

Fig. 3. Accidents in iron and steel enterprises in China classified by production processes.

accidents, accounting for 84%, 71% and 77% in 2010, 2011 and
2012, respectively. The next are defects in equipments and instruments, absence or defects in personal protective equipment, and
lack of safety training. Yearly comparisons show that accidents
caused by defects in equipments and facilities and absence or
defects in safety facilities have declined, while accidents caused
by defects in technologies and designs, and absence or defects in
safety regulations have increased. In addition, accidents caused
by the violation of operating regulations have continued to grow,
reflecting the importance of strictly controlling human factors.
2.2. Accident early warning index system
According to the statistical analysis of accidents in the iron and
steel industry, we developing the early warning index system, took

into account the basic factors influencing accidents, and the principles of index determination. The principles of index determination
included the comprehensiveness, the scientificity, a combination of
qualitative and quantitative analysis, and a combination of dynamics with statics (Hu, 2010).
2.2.1. Index selection
Generally, there are four main factors influencing accidents
including humans, objects, environment and management (Hou
et al., 2013). In iron and steel enterprises, the adverse environmental factors were mainly the result of chaotic management and the
unsafe behavior of people, both of which can be observed and rectified in a timely manner by troubleshooting the hidden dangers.
Therefore, the environmental factor was not treated as a separate
index factor in this study. The factor of hidden dangers reflects

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C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

Fig. 4. Accidents in iron and steel enterprises in China classified by accident types.

Fig. 5. Accidents in iron and steel enterprises in China classified by causes.

safety status timely and is an important part for safety production.

The occurrence and the influence extent of the accidents factor can
directly affect the safety status of enterprises. Hence, the hidden
dangers factor and the accidents factor were put forward as the first
level of the factor indexes. The proposed index system with its three
levels of hierarchy is shown in Table 1. The first level is the composite index hierarchy consisting of 5 indexes, including human,
objects, hidden danger, management and accidents. The second
level contains 22 thematic indexes, and the third level has 15 individual indexes. These represent the refinements of the second level.
2.2.2. Index quantification and regularization
Based on the methods of data collection, indexes can be divided
into qualitative indexes and quantitative indexes. In order to

render the indexes with different properties comparable, it is necessary to quantify and regularize the indexes.
The regularization of early warning indexes includes both
dimensionless treatment and consistency treatment. Consistency
treatment functions to unify the types of indexes, assisting in the
assessment of the results in the same direction. We established
that the regularized indexes had a positive effect on the results.
As such, the greater the index values, the higher the degree of danger. Otherwise, the degree of danger is lower.
2.2.3. Index weights determination
AHP and Entropy Weight Method were combined to determine
the subjective weights and objective weights of the index, as well
as to combine the weights. The calculation process of AHP is shown

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C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

Table 1
Accident early warning index system for iron and steel enterprises.
Composite
index

Thematic index

Humans (A1)

Occupational skill level (B1)

Age (B2)
Seniority in the enterprise (B3)
Education (B4)
Working time (B5)
Labor intensity (B6)

Objects (A2)

Rate of intact function equipment

(B7)

Individual index

Inspection rate of
special equipment (C1)
Inspection rate of safety
equipment (C2)

Achievement rate of equipment

maintenance (B8)
Unscheduled equipment
maintenance (B9)
Running time and numbers of
overloaded equipment (B10)
Hidden
danger
(A3)

Management
(A4)

Accidents
(A5)

Hidden danger assessment (B11)

Completion rate of hidden danger
rectification (B12)
Hidden danger category (B13)

Regulation violation
(C3)
Gas danger (C4)
High temperature
equipment danger (C5)
Other equipment
danger (C6)
Working environment
danger (C7)
Other hidden danger
(C8)

Ratio of safety management

professionals (B14)
Ratio of external labor (B15)
Safety training (B16)
Ratio of certification holder (B17)
Investment rate of safety
production (B18)
Frequency of job mobility (B19)
Frequency of dangerous work
(B20)
Personal injuries and casualties
(B21)

Production equipment accidents

(B22)

Fig. 6. Flow chart of Analytic Hierarchy Process.

rijk

maxk fxijk g  xijk

maxk fxijk g  mink fxijk g

where xijk is the jth thematic index of the ith composite index of the
kth evaluated object. r ijk is the standardized value of xijk .
The information entropy eij is then defined as follows,

eij 

l
1 X
p ln pijk
ln l k1 ijk

where l is the number of evaluated objects, and pijk can be described

as:

,
pijk r ijk

l
X
r ijk

k1

Omen of accidents (C9)

Recordable accidents
(C10)
Minor accidents (C11)
Severe accidents (C12)
Fatal accidents (C13)
Equipment accidents
(C14)
Production accidents
(C15)

in Fig. 6. An Expert Scoring Method was used to determine the

indexs relative weights when constructing the judgment matrix
A. Thirty professionals from the State Administration of Work
Safety, China Academy of Safety Science and Technology, China
Association of Safe Production, universities and iron and steel
enterprises were consulted for scoring. Based on the hierarchy
structure, layer-by-layer pairwise comparisons on the indexes
were used to determine the relative weights among factors. Afterwards, a geometric mean method was used to process the scoring
sheets. Through matrix calculation and consistency checking, the
index weights of each hierarchy, as well as the overall weights,
were obtained.
Entropy Weight Method was applied to determine the index
weight by the judgment matrix and involves evaluating indexes
in the objective condition. This can eliminate the subjectivity of
the various factors weights. To employ the Entropy Weight
Method, the indexes of the original data initially need to be standardized as follows:

As such, the difference degree g ij is defined by the following

formula:

g ij

1  eij
m
X
m
eij

j1

The entropy weight wij can then be calculated as follows:

wij g ij

,
m
X

g ij

j1

Generally speaking, in a comprehensive evaluation, the bigger

of the variation of an index value is, the smaller of the corresponding information entropy. This provides a greater amount of information, and the index weight factor should be either big or small.
After getting the subjective and objective weights, the hybrid
weights can be described as:

wi uwoi 1  uwsi

i 1; 2; . . . n

where u is the coefficient, 0 6 u 6 1, which represents that the relative importance between the subjective weights and the objective
ones. In the paper, the value of u is 0.5.
The thematic index weights, as well as the composite index
weights were obtained as shown in Tables 2 and 3. It is obvious
from this information that the influential factors of accidents in
iron and steel enterprises, successively are human, objects,

24

C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

management, hidden danger and accidents, with overall weights of

0.44, 0.24, 0.14, 0.12, and 0.06 respectively.
2.3. Accident early warning model
2.3.1. Comprehensive work safety status index
To better express the comprehensive early warning results and
the work safety status, a comprehensive work safety status index L
was proposed to present the work safety status of an enterprise at
a time point. This was quantified through data, analysis, modeling
and calculation, and was also treated as the original data for the
Grey Prediction Model.
To calculate L, a multi-objective linear weighted function was
adopted, as shown by Eq. (7).

m
X
i1

n
X
W i Iij  W ij i 1  m; j 1  n

j1

where Iij is the score of the jth index in the ith index level, Wi is the
overall weight of the ith index level, Wij is the weight of the jth
index in the ith principle level, m is the number of the principle
levels, and n is the number of the indexes in the ith principle level.
2.3.2. Construction of the Grey Prediction Model GM (1, 1)
The Grey Prediction Model GM (1, 1) model was constructed
based on Grey System Theory, which is a first order differential
equation with one variable.
Step 1: Data Generation. The monthly work safety status
indexes were obtained from an iron and steel enterprise and are
set as the original sequence X(0), which is expressed by Eq. (8). To
enhance the inherent laws, an accumulative Eq. (9) is used to make
the original chaotic sequence X(0) into a regular one X(1) (see Eq.
(10)).

fX 1; X 2; . . . ; X ng

fX 1; X 2; . . . ; X ng
(

n
X
X 1; X 1 X 2; . . . ;
X 0 i
0

Subjective weights

Objective weights

Blend weights

A1
A2
A3
A4
A5

0.38
0.17
0.14
0.20
0.11

0.49
0.31
0.10
0.08
0.01

0.44
0.24
0.12
0.14
0.06

Step 2: Grey Model Construction. Once X(1) is obtained, a grey

first-order differential equation can be built (see Eq. (11)), which
is so called a GM (1, 1) Model.
1

dX =dt aX 1 u

10

i1

11

where a is the developing coefficient and u is the grey input. Both of

these are parameters to be determined.
By solving Eq. (11), the time response equation (Eq. (12)) can be
obtained as

X 1 k 1 X 1 1  u=aeak u=a

1

^ BT B BT yn
a

13

where B is a matrix with the generated data and yn is a single matrix

with the original data. They can be calculated using the following
equations:

1=2X 1 1 X 1 2

B
B @

Thematic index

Subjective weights

Objective weights

Blend weights

B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
B11
B12
B13
B14
B15
B16
B17
B18
B19
B20
B21
B22

0.27
0.11
0.15
0.16
0.16
0.16
0.45
0.20
0.17
0.17
0.43
0.37
0.20
0.20
0.11
0.16
0.17
0.16
0.09
0.11
0.76
0.24

0.34
0.01
0.01
0.30
0.04
0.29
0.48
0.47
0.03
0.02
0.04
0.88
0.08
0.13
0.35
0.10
0.10
0.13
0.10
0.08
0.58
0.42

0.305
0.060
0.080
0.230
0.100
0.225
0.465
0.335
0.100
0.095
0.235
0.625
0.140
0.165
0.230
0.130
0.135
0.145
0.095
0.095
0.670
0.330

C
1A

14

1=2X n  1 X n 1
X 0 2

C
B 0
B X 3 C
C
yn B
C
B
A
@
0
X n

15

Bringing the resolved a and u into Eq. (12), the prediction values
of the generated sequence can be obtained and presented as the
following data column

^ 1 1; X
^ 1 2; . . . ; X
^ 1 kg
^ 1 fX
X

Table 2
Thematic index weights of the early warning index system.

12

 
^ as a parameter vector to be estimated. a
^ a , can be
Set a
u
^ is
solved by the least square method. The result of a

i1
1

Composite index

(
)
k
X
1
0
X ijk 1; 2; . . . n
X k
1

Table 3
Composite index weights of the early warning index system.

16

By conducting subtraction, the values of the (k + 1)th column of

the original data sequence can be obtained. In other words, the
prediction values of the original work safety status index can be
expressed as

^ 0 k 1 X
^ 1 k 1  X
^ 1 k
X

17

Step 3: Accuracy Test. Generally, there are three tests for grey
prediction accuracy, including the residual test, the correlation test
and the posterior difference test. This paper adopts the posterior
difference test method by calculating the posteriori difference ratio
C (Eq. (18)) and the small error probability P (Eq. (19)).

q
S22 =S21

j < 0:6745S1 g
P Pfjqk  q

18
19

^ 0 and X 0 in the kth

where q(k) is the residual error between X
 is the average value for residual errors. S1 is the variance
month. q
, S1 and S2 can be calcuof X 0 and S2 is the variance of q(k). q(k), q
lated using the following equations:

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C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

Table 4
Predicted accuracy levels for the posterior difference test.

Table 6
Original data from the iron and steel enterprise.

Accuracy level

Small error frequency P

Posteriori difference ratio C

Good
Qualified
Barely qualified
Disqualified

P0.95
P0.8
P0.7
<0.7

60.35
60.5
60.65
>0.65

Table 5
Early warning levels for accidents in iron and steel enterprises.
Early warning level

Safety

Attention

Warning

Danger

Early warning result L

L 6 10

10 < L 6 15

15 < L 6 20

20 < L

Note: L denotes the comprehensive early warning index.

^ 0 k  X 0 k
qk X

q

n
1X
qk
n k1

20
21

S21

n
2
1X
X 0 k  X
n k1

22

S22

n
1X
 2
qk  q
n k1

23

The index
value

Jan,
2013

Feb,
2013

Mar,
2013

Apr,
2013

May,
2013

B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
B9
B10
B11
B12
B13
B14
B15
B16
B17
B18
B19
B20
B21
B22
L

7.12
2.72
3.49
4.68
8
4.77
2.08
1
2
1
206
1
29
1
23.5
1
1
3
2
1
0
0
17.83

7.12
2.72
3.49
4.68
8
4.77
2.18
1
1
0
92
1
13
1
23.5
1
1
1
2
2
2
1
15.73

7.12
2.72
3.49
4.68
8
4.77
2.18
1
1
0
135
1
32
1
23.5
1
1
1
6
1
0
0
14.90

7.12
2.72
3.49
4.68
8
4.77
2.18
1
2
0
218
1
50
1
23.63
1
1
1
4
15
0
0
15.86

7.12
2.72
3.49
4.68
8
4.77
2.18
1
2
0
166
1
31
1
23.77
1
1
1
3
1
0
0
16.96

through which to construct the early warning model. The monthly

index data and the actual comprehensive work safety status index
are shown in Table 6.

where X 0 k represents the original work safety status index of the

^ 0 k represents the prediction value of the kth month,
kth month, X
and X represents the average value of X 0 . X can be calculated by
the following equation:
n
1X
X
X 0 k
n k1

24

According to the prediction accuracy grade table (Table 4), the

values of C and P can be determined and the accuracy grade can
be obtained.
Step 4: Residual Correction. If the established grey model is disqualified after the posterior difference test, a residual model can be
built to modify the original model as per the steps above.
2.3.3. Early warning signal output
The comprehensive early warning index L at a future point in
time can be calculated based on the early warning model. Four
levels of the work safety status, including safe, attention, warning
and danger (as shown in Table 5), can be divided according to the
warning threshold. The thresholds were determined by examining
the average levels of the iron and steel industry, expert scoring and
in reference to the relevant literature and data.
The work safety status of the enterprise can be determined
through a comparison of the comprehensive early warning index
with the thresholds. Then the green, yellow, orange and red signals
can be output to give the corresponding early warning information.

3.2. Model construction and results

Based on the early warning model and the original data, the
comprehensive early warning indexes of the five months were
obtained. To compare the actual value with the prediction value,
a posterior difference test was applied by calculating the posteriori
difference ratio C and small error probability P using Eq. (18) and
(19) respectively. The results are shown in Table 7.
As shown in Table 7, the posteriori difference ratio C was 0.44
and the small error probability P was 0.8. Compared to the standards shown in Table 4, the prediction accuracy was qualified.
The constructed model was deemed to be reasonable. Therefore,
the early warning model for the enterprise can be shown as
follows:

X 1 k 1 479:24e0:03103k  461:414

25

The accident early warning for the enterprise can be achieved,

and the signals were obtained according to the early warning
model. In the output figure, the horizontal axis is the time (month)
and the vertical axis is the comprehensive index. Fig. 7 shows the
early warning curve graph of the enterprise from January 2011 to

Table 7
Predicted results of the early warning model.

3. Results

The comprehensive index

Jan,
2013

Feb,
2013

Mar,
2013

Apr,
2013

May,
2013

3.1. Original data

Comprehensive work
safety status index
Comprehensive early
warning index
Residual q(k)

17.83

15.73

14.90

15.86

16.96

17.83

15.11

15.58

16.07

16.60

0.62

0.68

0.21

0.36

Posteriori difference ratio C

Small error probability P

0.44
0.8

In order to test and verify the early warning model, this paper
performed a case study by making use of actual data from an iron
and steel enterprise. Based on index data from February, March,
April, and May 2013, the comprehensive work safety status index
was calculated by Eq. (7) and then used as the original data

26

C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

Fig. 7. The enterprises early warning curve graph.

May 2013. Both the actual data (comprehensive work safety status
indexes) and the predicted data (comprehensive early warning
index) are presented in Fig. 7.
4. Discussion
From May to October 2011, the comprehensive work safety status indices of the enterprise kept growing steadily, and the work
safety situation was quite serious. The comprehensive early warning index curve was consistent with the comprehensive work
safety status index curve, but the values were higher, as shown
in Fig. 7. During this period, the local average temperature was
29.1 C. Adverse environmental factors, such as high temperatures,
high humidity, and continuous rain, can cause fatigue, poor mental
state, and lack of concentration in personnel, and can result in
accidents. Thus, the actual comprehensive work safety status index
value is quite high. It was also during this period that early warning work was commenced, and the enterprise adopted some measures to coordinate with the project. It is for this reason that the
actual values of the comprehensive work safety status index are
smaller than perdicted.
Beginning in October 2011, the enterprises managers devoted
greater effort towards improving their safety status, including
through enhancing the intensity of checking and creating rules
and procedures regarding various hidden dangers, increasing their
financial investment towards work safety, and strengthening
safety training for staff. The measures they undertook increased
rectification completion rates and gradually formed a normalized
state. As such, the comprehensive work safety status index values
were gradually decreased. As the early warning index values are
based on the original data of the former four months, the early
warning index values are higher than the actual ones. Thus, the
comprehensive early warning index curve appears to have an
inconsistent trend with the comprehensive work safety status
index curve.
From January 2012 to December 2012, some of the enterprises
production lines were shut down due to the international financial
crisis. The hidden dangers reduced accordingly. The trend of the
comprehensive early warning index curve and the comprehensive
work safety status index curve were relative consistent. After January 2013, the production lines were gradually resumed, and this
was accompanied by increasing employee turnover rate in workplace and malfunctions in some part of the equipment, which lead
to a transient increase in the comprehensive early warning index

values. As the employee turnover became normal, and production

began to operate stably, the comprehensive early warning indexes
and the comprehensive work safety status indexes resumed at normal levels.
From the analysis above, it becomes clear that this study on
EWS regarding accident has good practical applications. Early
warning results are primarily affected by early warning indexes.
There is variation in the extent of the influence that each index factor over different periods has on the early warning results.
Although the overall comprehensive early warning index values
are higher than the values of the comprehensive work safety status
index values, the changing trends of comprehensive early warning
index curve is consistent with the comprehensive work safety status index curve, which indicating a good early warning result.
Studies on accident EWS in iron and steel enterprises remain in
their infancy. The early warning model in this paper can accomplish the early warning task, but its accuracy has yet to be
enhanced. Further research could focus on the initialization of original data, the construction of background value, and the constructor to improving and finalizing the EWS.
5. Conclusion
This study establishes an EWS for iron and steel enterprises,
include an early warning index system and an early warning
model. The favorable results from the application of proposed
EWS in an industrial plant verifies the feasibility and validity of
this research. The proposed EWS can be used to effectively forecast
the safety status levels in iron and steel enterprises.
(1) The established early warning index system improves the
traditional safety management elements by suggesting and
considering 3 levels of index. The first level includes 5 composite index, including human, objects, hidden danger, management and accidents. The second level contains 22
thematic indexes, and the third level has 15 individual
indexes. This provides a quantitative standard for the early
warning indexes that are applicable to the iron and steel
industry in China.
(2) The combination weighting method applies AHP and
entropy weight method to determine the subjective and
objective weights of the indexes. The weights for accidents
in the iron and steel enterprises of human, objects, hidden
danger, management and accidents were 0.435 0.240,

C. Li et al. / Safety Science 89 (2016) 1927

0.140, 0.120, 0.060, respectively. Human was found to be the

primary factor that impacts the safety of iron and steel
enterprises.
(3) The comprehensive work safety status index is defined and
its value is determined using the multi-objective linear
weighting function method. The value characterizes the
safety status of an iron and steel enterprise. Then, the early
warning model for the enterprise is established based on
GM (1, 1). The model is used to predict the early warning
index in an future time point, and establish the early warning
threshold. The work safety status of the system is divided into
4 levels, include safe, attention, warning and danger, which
output green, yellow, orange and red signals, respectively.
(4) The established EWS is applied in a Chinese iron and steel
enterprise and obtains a model as X 1 k 1
479:24e0:03103k  461:414. The trend of the early warning
index curve conforms to that of the actual work safety status,
which verifies the accuracy and validity of the proposed early
warning model.

Acknowledgements
The research presented in this paper was supported by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (51174032), the
Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET10-0225) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities (FRF-TP-09-001A).
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