# Rapid Risk Assessment in Industry: Increasing Awareness of Worker Safety in Industrial Activities
###### Abstract
In the literature, EVASAN has been mentioned as a software developed and applied in Romania; however, the model is specifically designed to be implemented in hospitals and other healthcare institutions [19]. This paper presents a new educational and training methodology for learning, testing, and assessing the skills of engineers and team leaders, as well as risk assessment, named EL-PRAI (Engineering Learning and Professional Risks Assessment in Industry), proven to be very effective in practice. The application that was tested with engineers and team leaders was developed on the basis of the ERAI software V.02.65. The software has been described extensively elsewhere since it was the subject of another article [20] previously published by the authors and attracted interest from numerous companies. However, the business environment has noticed that many engineers and team leaders, both beginners or even those more advanced, enter certain production areas with gaps in health and safety at work. This research aims to address the need for continuous training in this field and to start this training as early as possible in order to create the skills to identify hazards and risks, an essential need in a production environment. As such, a pilot project was carried out in which a number of engineers and team leaders used this application concurrently with on-site visits in production. Subsequently, the knowledge acquired by these engineers and team leaders was evaluated in comparison with another group of engineers and team leaders who did not use this software and methodology. The aim was to verify if the results were favorable in order to expand this learning approach to all the engineers and team leaders from several factories. The EL-PRAI application offered in this paper is meant to clarify the aspects of applying an experiential learning theory [21] in engineering education, focusing on the issues related to teaching the effective prevention of accidents, a systematic and active approach developed through risk management, a scientific tool used in multiple fields of activity, with an important role in enterprise safety management [22; 23; 24; 25; 26]. For the current study, the EL-PRAI methodology was applied in two high-risk industrial fields: metal and automotive industries. The novelty brought by the EL-PRAI methodology lies in the fact that this methodology innovates learning through the following aspects:  
* Implements the learning and training process through practice. * Develops engineers' abilities to perceive hazards and risks in the concrete reality of work situations, essential for the professional development of engineers--especially critical thinking. * The software application implements a relatively simple risk assessment method and aims for users to be able to identify the danger and the risk and correctly estimate the severity of any possible injury and the probability of its occurrence, taking into account the effectiveness of the existing measures (which must also be identified) and the possible occurrence of dangerous scenarios and, at the same time, training the users to develop skills in proposing effective and concrete measures in relation to the evaluated risks. * The learning process is dynamic and interactive and results in the continuous improvement of engineers' skills through immediate feedback provided. * The software application that implements the methodology is necessary, as it manages the entire learning-testing process for all involved engineers and team leaders, eliminating grading errors and providing immediate results. In the following, the EL-PRAI methodology and the results obtained following the application of this methodology in high-risk industrial fields, such as the metal and automotive industries, are presented. For an easy understanding of the applied method and to follow a logical sequence, we first present the common methods used in employee training, followed by the specifics of the EL-PRAI method, which is based on experiential learning.