Industrial safety refers to the condition of being protected from physical, chemical and biological hazards that are likely to occur in any industry. Safety could be achieved by controlling the hazards or harm up to the tolerance level that are recognised. These preventive measures minimises the economical losses as well as health losses to a maximum extend.
TERMS RELATED TO SAFETY
Security: state of being free from danger or threat
Risk: (ISO 31000) the effect of uncertainty on objectives, whether positive or negative
Failure: Lack of success
Damage: Physical harm caused to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function.
Error: state or condition of being wrong; mistake
Accidents: unplanned incident which positive or negative
Safety: Absence of risk
Near Miss: unplanned event that had a potential to cause damage
Hazard: something that can cause harm if not controlled
Outcome: harm that results from an uncontrolled hazard
LIMITATIONS OF SAFETY
Safety can be brought to an extend on a relative basis rather than giving scent percentage assurance of its non occurrence. The surety of safety is framed on the basis of working environment, equipment, personnel, economic value and standard and norms that the company follows. Hence safety is defined as the situation where the injuries or damage made by hazard or risk is low and manageable.
TYPES OF SAFETY
Normative safety: offered to products that meet design standard and protection.
Substantive safety: also called objective safety, where protection is offered whether standards are met or not.
Perceived safety: subjective safety where various methods are opted based on previous risks or accident met.
IMPORTANCE OF SAFETY
Taking into consideration the moral, legal and financial criteria of an industry, its safety and protection are of greater importance. It is the responsibility of every organization to ensure the safety and protection of employees and personnel who are involved or affected by the activities of an organization, which is defined as duty of care of the organization. The social consideration such as employee’s lives and health are included in moral duty of care where as compensation or preventive or punitive effect of law is made in legal obligations. Every accident or damage is associated with direct or indirect costs.
ORGANIZATION FOR SAFETY STANDARDS
American Society of Safety Engineers
Board of Certified Safety Professionals
System Safety Society
The Safety and Reliability Society
Canadian Society of Safety Engineering
Consumer Product Safety Commission (USA)
Environmental Protection Agency or EPA (USA)
Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile or FIA (France)
Food and Drug Administration or FDA (USA)
Health and Safety Executive (UK)
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (USA)
National Public Safety Commission (Japan)
National Transportation Safety Board or NTSB (USA)
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (USA)
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (UK)
European Aviation Safety Agency or EASA (Europe)
Trading Standards Services (UK)
SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSYTEM
Various organizations were framed to assist and encourage industry for continual improvement in employee health and safety, achieved via a constant process of policy, organization, planning & implementation, evaluation, and action for improvement, all supported by constant auditing to determine the success of effective actions. One such guideline is given by International Labor Organization (ILO) ILO-OSH 2001, also titled Guidelines a on occupational safety and health management systems.
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SAFETY POLICY
It is the basic safety policy of an organisation that no activity or duty is so important that an employee must violate a safety rule or take a risk of injury or illness in order to get the job done. Employees are required to comply with all safety rules and are encouraged to actively participate in identifying ways to make working environment a safer place to work. Supervisors or qualified personnel are responsible for the safety of their employees and as a part of daily duties must check the workplace for unsafe conditions, watch employees for unsafe actions and take prompt action to eliminate any hazards.
SAFETY AND HEALTH RESPONSIBILITIES
The responsibilities are distributed among managers, supervisors and employee that are being planned, executed, evaluated and modified.
Manager Responsibilities
Ensures that safety authority committee is formed and requisite actions are taken such as sufficient employee time, supervisor support and funds are budgeted for safety equipment, training and safety program. Supervisors are evaluated on the basis of their efficiency in investigation and corrective action taken to prevent hazards condition and proper record keeping.
Supervisor Responsibility
Ensure that employees are competent and initial orientation is provided of which records are maintained for all the activities, so that any change in practices that would bring improvement in employee safety could be communicated to higher authority and necessary actions taken. It is also the responsibility of supervisor to check whether all employee have received PPE for an activity requiring PPE, whether the working environment are safe and corrections are made then and there.
Employee Responsibility
Responsibility of employee is to strictly follow the safety rules framed and report the respective personnel about any unsafe conditions or actions, injuries regardless of its severity and any near-miss incidents. Creating a positive attitude towards safety among co-workers, and suggestions that would bring better safety conditions to higher level personnel.
SAFETY COMMITTEE
A safety committee is formed to help employees and management work together to identify safety problems, develop solutions, review incident reports and evaluate the effectiveness of safety program in a company. The committee holds management-designated representatives and one employee-elected representative each from department, factory and outside sales divisions of company whom are selected on election among themselves. If there is only one volunteer or nomination, the employees will approve the person by voice vote at a short meeting called for that purpose. Elected representatives will serve for a planned duration before being re-elected or replaced. In addition to the employee-elected representatives, management will designate no more than three representatives but a minimum of one who will serve until replaced by management. A chairperson will be selected by majority vote of the committee members each year if any exception the same method will be used to select a replacement.
RISK MANAGEMENT
It is the identification, assessment, and prioritization of risks followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities. The strategies to manage risk typically include avoiding the risk, transferring the risk to another party, reducing probability of the risk or the negative effect, or even accepting some or all of the potential or actual consequences of a particular risk.
The method opted are as follows:
identify, characterize hazards or threats
assess the vulnerability of critical assets to specific threats
determine the risk
identify ways to tackle or prevent or reduce those risks
prioritize risk reduction measures based on a strategy
ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES
Analysis techniques are categorized into two: qualitative and quantitative methods. The main objective is to find causal dependencies between a hazard on system level and failures of individual components. Qualitative approaches focus on the cause of risk while quantitative methods aim at estimations about probabilities, rates and/or severity of consequences. Traditional methods for safety analysis, safety, rely solely on skill and expertise of the safety engineer that include failure mode and effects analysis and fault tree analysis. In contrast model-based techniques try to derive relationships between causes and consequences from model of the system.
HAZARD PREVENTION AND CONTROL
Eliminating Workplace Hazards
Basic Safety Rules
Job Related Safety Rules
Disciplinary Policy
Equipment Maintenance
Emergency Planning
Safety and Health Training and Education
MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION
Monitoring and measurement – General
It should be made sure that they work, risk control measures need to be checked and criteria may include:
1. monitoring hazardous processes to ensure that implemented controls are effective
2. inspection of plant, e.g. pressure vessels to ensure conformity with regulatory requirements
3. inspection and discussion in work areas where administrative controls are used
4. identification of necessary maintenance of buildings and facilities and
5. using equipment for monitoring and measurement of health and safety risks, that are identified, calibrated, maintained and stored in accordance with the manufacturer’s specifications.
Monitoring and measurement – Health surveillance
Monitoring the health of persons potentially exposed to hazardous substances and work environment hazards to detect adverse changes to health caused by occupational exposure to certain environmental conditions. This in turn help to evaluate the effectiveness of risk controls and include the following:
1.biological testing, e.g. determination of the presence of substances or their metabolites in blood, urine or expired air
2.specific medical tests, such as lung function tests
3. general medical examinations
4.hearing tests
Incident investigation and corrective action
It is important to report accidents and incidents so that an investigation can be carried out since hazards still exist and accidents and incidents can still occur even with the most proactive health and safety management system. Corrective action is to be made to remove or minimise the hazard to prevent a recurrence. Basic elements that should be included are:
1.identifying the cause of accidents
2.identifying and implementing the necessary corrective action
3. modifying controls necessary to avoid repetition of the incident
4. recording any changes in written procedures resulting from the corrective action.
Records and records management
It is necessary for an organization to keep records to demonstrate compliance with legislative requirements and conformance to health and safety management system requirements. Health and safety records may include: external ( legal) and internal (health and safety performance) requirements, health and safety management plans, hazard identification, risk assessments and risk control, health and safety training records, permits to work, employee qualification information, information about process, product equipment, equipment inspection, maintenance and calibration records, monitoring data, pertinent contractor and supplier information, details of incidents, complaints and follow-up action, information of emergency preparedness and response, audit results and management reviews.
Health and safety management-system audit
Auditing is a systematic and structured method of verifying that activities conform with planned arrangements and monitors their effectiveness to ensure that the health and safety management system is functioning effectively, regular reviews must be undertaken. The audit program and procedures should cover the following:
1.the activities and areas to be evaluated in audits
2.the frequency of audits
3. the responsibilities associated with managing and conducting audits
4.the communication of audit findings
5.auditor selection and competence
6. how audits will be conducted.
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