<![CDATA[Occupational safety and process reliability in manufacturing are increasingly interdependent, yet conventional risk assessment tools such as Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) often rely heavily on expert judgment and fail to capture causal interactions among contributing factors. This study develops an integrated risk-based framework that systematically combines empirical workplace observations with FMEA and Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) to identify, prioritize, and mitigate safety failure s. The framework was applied to a footwear outsole manufacturing facility, where unsafe conditions were measured through environmental assessments and unsafe actions were documented via direct observation of production activities. These empirical indicators were mapped to 21 failure modes, assessed using traditional and fuzzy RPN (Risk Priority Number) with a symmetric spread of ±1 and centroid defuzzification. Six high-risk failure modes were identified, with "inhalation of paint and thinner vapors" (R-12) ranking highest (defuzzified RPN = 229.33). Fuzzy RPN analysis produced a consistent risk ranking, confirming the robustness of the prioritization. FTA of R-12 identified supervisory failure as a fundamental root cause and revealed 20 minimal cut sets of order 2, meaning that any single vapor source combined with any single control failure is sufficient to trigger the top event. Mitigation strategies were formulated using the hierarchy of controls, prioritizing local exhaust ventilation and supervision enhancement. The framework demonstrates that empirically based risk identification improves ecological validity compared to expert-judgment-dependent approaches, though quantitative FTA extensions remain for future work.]]>
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