Supervision

In any sport like football, hockey, or cricket, the players after entering the field gather together briefly, possibly getting instructions/strategy for the game ahead.

In the workplace also, I felt this is required, particularly for contract labor with instructions from the supervisor for the work. The supervisor will not be able to be present at all times in all works, but his instructions about the work, work procedure, hazards, protective measures, etc will help in the execution of the work safely.

People find excuses for not being able to monitor the work, complain about the workload, non-cooperation, etc. But, it is the supervisor's responsibility to ensure safety and should have proper plan for it.

Importance of readily available data for preventing disasters - an article

Recently, I came across an article from Kinsmen Group, as given below. It discussed the importance of readily available data on workplace activities and incidents to prevent workplace disasters and protect the employees. It is called smart data, in the news item. 

Following are some of the issues and observations made (data seems to be for USA):

1. As per OSHA and Labour department, in the year 2019, more than 5000 persons died 9,00,000 were injured at workplace.
2. Companies spend an average USD 7,500 for each lost-time workplace injury (we can call this as direct cost). Other costs consist of replacement of damaged equipment, reconstruction of facilities, compensation, etc. (As per theory, direct cost is only like a tip of the iceberg. And, cost of preventing an accident will be only about one fourth of the direct cost).
3. As per National Safety Council, cost of workplace injuries in the year 2018 was USD 170 billion.
4. Each fatality costs USD 1.0 million in medical costs, employer costs, and wage losses
5. In a fatal fire and explosion incident, it seems, the emergency personnel do not have information of chemicals involved, otherwise, they could have saved the lives. 
6. Digitization and availability of data easily is not yet compulsory by many certification agencies. Organizations follow data retrieval in general age old methods like physical search instead of going for easy methods by using the computer/cloud technology/internet
7. Data should be latest

Many of us definitely would have spent a lot of time in search of some information. It is my personal experience that on most of the occasions, I spent more than two hours to retrieve, and sometimes more than one person was engaged for information retrieval. And, on some occasions, I didn't find what I want. Availability of signed information will help us to support what remember/believe and use it to convince others for implementation of safety or whatever we would like to.

Digitizing the records with a provision to search will be helpful for us and our future generation. Some believe digitization means scanning the documents. But scanning without search option makes it useless. It is a primitive form. Instead of paper search, we have to search in computer page by page. Indexing these types of scanned pages may make life somewhat better. But, if scanning of documents is in readable text form to enable search with key words, and is available in encrypted form in cloud, like dropbox, mega, onedrive, pcloud, etc and is accessible with password protection to prevent unauthorized access, it will help a lot for productive use. 

Searchable scanned records helped us greatly in the analysis of similar incidents and find suitable solutions to prevent recurrence of the incidents for a safe workplace  

Updating of data is a continuous process. 

Knowledge management is very important and critical to ensure safe productivity. World renowned safety professional Dr Trevor Kletz stated in one of his books (What Went Wrong) that incidents keep repeating either in the same or different similar organizations. We have to learn from them and implement measures to prevent recurrence.

Another safety professional Mr O.P.Kharbanda stated in a booklet about Bhopal accident, that Safety is not costly. In fact, it is free. What we need is the will to implement. 

In one of the investigation reports, EPA made an observation which states, it is not the lack of knowledge that is responsible for the accident. It is the lack of use of the available information that is responsible for the accident.

How we can get the information at first place. If it is made available in a readily searchable form and is known the personnel how to use it, then this information management will help to achieve what we intended to.

Qualified technologies and personnel should be assigned for this and definitely organizations will reap the benefits from this.

https://www.prweb.com/releases/two_strategies_help_prevent_workplace_disasters_protect_employees_with_smart_data/prweb17681313.htm

Industrial safety and lockdown - An analysis from ORFONLINE

The following weblink is about subject topic from Observer Research Foundation (orfonline.org). 

The article is about analysis of few accidents that took place when plants were preparing for operation after government gave permission. The article ends with advice for betterment.

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/industrial-safety-and-lockdown-the-cause-behind-visakhapatnam-gas-leak-tragedy-67339/?amp

End of financial year - some to do listing

As the end of March month is approaching, industrial establishments will be working at frantic pace to meet their annual financial year production targets. It is likely that here and there safety requirements are skipped thereby increasing the risk.

It is better to plan testing of equipment like cranes, hoists, other material handling equipment, pressure vessels, safety relief valves, calibration of instruments,  inspection and repairs of structures and buildings, painting of equipment/piping/structures, preventive maintenance of equipment, load centres, transformers, PDBs, DG sets; cleaning of drains, etc in the beginning of the financial year at which time stress levels are supposed to be low compared to the last quarter of a financial year. Even refresher courses can be planned and conducted wherein managers will relieve their staff to attend the programmes. 

This will facilitate ensuring readiness of men and machinery and other infrastructure for safe work without accidents, incidents.

Safety monitoring should be done more stringently during peak production periods which will indicate the safety culture of the organization in times of pressures all around.

Safety norms thrown to winds at pharma, chemical units?

Safety norms thrown to winds at pharma, chemical units?: “All the three versions will be clubbed and submitted to the District Collector for action,” said Joint Collector-2 D.V. Reddy, who had come to inspect the accident site at Srikar Laboratories.“Firstl

LINK

Accidents, injuries, loss of property, some causes

As per a report, many accidents are happening in China due to poor safety conditions, lack of implementation of regulations and inspections, lack of training, etc.

If enforcement is not strengthened as per the needs of growing economy, it becomes very difficult for regulators to monitor the activities of lakhs of industrial units. The situation may be such that it becomes difficult even to inspect atleast once in lifetime because of huge number of factories, and dismal number of inspectors.

http://www.scmp.com/video/asia/1849125/huge-explosions-rock-tianjin-northeast-china

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/13/tianjin-explosions-china-sends-troops-cleanup

Leader's behavior drives safety culture

At a Fleet Safety Conference, Shell Global Road Safety Manager stated in an address that leader's behavior drives safety culture in the organization. He repeated a quote from former CEO of Royal Dutch Shell that poor safety reflects lack of leadership.

It is of no use if one has a policy which is not followed. Display of policy may create good impression to visitors. But, not following it will lead to poor culture leading to unsafe behaviors, accidents and will eventually pull down the organization's image.

It is said that a good safety culture means the way we work safely even when nobody else is watching. Our conscience is our witness. If we try fool others when we behave one way in front of others and the other way in the absence of others, finally we only get into accidents. It is our life that is at risk.  One may get good pat on the back but we should pat ourselves that we are doing a good job.

Shell's 12 life saving rules can be found here. Though these are not exhaustive, but still these can save lives of workers. 

For information - safety statistics by ILO from The Nation, Nigeria

The link to the information is here.

http://thenationonlineng.net/new/6000-die-daily-in-work-related-accidents/

As per ILO, following are the work place related injuries, deaths, accidents and loss.

1. Every second 15 persons die, 6000 a day and 2 million a year due to accidents/diseases. This data is from reported data. There can be many more.
2. In addition, 268 million non-fatal accidents and 160 million new cases of work related illness also occur.
3. The direct and indirect loss due to accidents and diseases is 4% of global gross domestic product or USD 2.8 trillion.

Lessons learnt from process safety accidents - an article from insurancenewsnet.com

A good article is found on the above title, narrating lessons from five less known accidents. The lessons are,

1. containment of water from fire fighting operations to avoid contamination of water sources in the rundown 
2. to consider all auxiliary equipment also as important as main plant equipment for understanding hazards
3. not to ignore hazards and need for monitoring even during shutdown 
4. positive isolation, purging and checking for hazardous atmospheres (using flame is not a correct check for presence of flammable atmosphere)
5. follow written approval system to override interlocks
6. follow safety permit procedures
7. identify the correct equipment before taking up work
8. communicate with clear identification while handing over the equipment for maintenance
9. ensure physical check by another agency before permitting equipment operation/maintenance
10. hazards from dust, propagation of dust explosions
11. preparation of emergency response management, with detailed instructions for every type of emergency
12. good house keeping
13. establish process safety management procedures
14. inculcate good safety culture, starting from the top management

Accident prevention - sharing of information between the Japan factories

A news item on the above subject is interesting to read.

A good effort by Japanese factories to share information to prevent accidents. It is worth emulating by others also. Only that, the participants should not criticize the speakers for sharing the information about the accidents in their facilities. The speakers and their factory management should be appreciated that they came out boldly to tell about accidents  and the lessons learnt to others with a godly view of preventing such accidents in other facilities.

Safety Rules and Regulations - there will be blood stains behind

It is quite common for safety professionals to be at receiving end, bombarded with questions, when suggestion / advice is given based on rules and regulations. Leave apart general advice when given, safety professionals are questioned for the basis. 

But, everybody should remember that nobody is interested in slowing down the work pace. Nobody is interested in doing additional work. Nobody wants to take blame, knowing fully well that any safety advice communicated will have questions directed back to them. Still, it is rendered for the reasons of doing their mandated job. A safety professional is not a namesake fellow  to be shown to factory inspectors during their visits. There are some good organizations, national and multinational, who follow safety in toto. And, they proved that in the end, safety aids in increased production. 

But, to realize this, we have to sweat initially, should have thinking and application in the conceptual and design stage itself. Okay, it is not there initially. Then, let us struggle for some extra time, to implement during operational stage. 

But, during this stage, if incharge sees this work of implementing safety retards production during his period and he will not be recognized, then it should be made known to this incharge by top management that goals will be set considering all factors. Give, sometime for seeing the results of implementation of safety procedures (if implemented late, not required if implemented during design stage itself). Do not encourage the ideas of shopfloor employees to bypass safety systems for achieving higher production in a short time. This will be shortsightedness. One will get higher production initially for some time, as there may not be deterioration of culture quickly. However, with time, with changing mindset and taking roots, joining of new recruits who learn such bad practices from first day, one can see the signs of near misses and later accidents resulting in injuries and property damage.

Study of such accidents leads to internal regulations which when published and / or goes to the notice of regulators, will turn into legislations. Slowly, one forgets the reasons for a rule or regulation and then questioning of basis for such rule begins (wheel needs to reinvented).

This becomes like one chanting mantras and then getting involved in all acts against the meaning of these great mantras (pseudoism).

Accident prevention - enforcement by mandatory publishing of safety data on product labels

Reasons for accident prevention, as quoted by experts, are humanitarian, economic and legal. Thus, organizations have to invest sensibly for implementation of occupational health and safety (OHS) in their organizations.
Further, it is stated that the reputation is also one of the factors  for ensuring safety in the organization.

The reasons listed above, for investment in OHS are correct. However, I am not sure how many will see the reputation of the company with regards to OHS aspects, while buying its products.

Job aspirants and organizations engaging the services of organizations may take a step back and think before joining or using the services as they do not want to harm themselves or see delay of their projects. But, for this OHS data should be available before taking the decision.

I am doubtful about reputation aspect while buying a product as it does not make economic sense for anybody to pay more to products of another company because of poor reputation (on OHS management).

To drive home the message about OHS issues, may be, it should be made mandatory to display the safety statistics (readable font size and color) on their product labels. For example, 100 g of xxx biscuit packet contains 2 g calcium, 1 g iron, .......; and 2 persons injured in accidents during the making of this biscuit batch during the period ----.  It is like blood stain on the product, made to be visible in the form of data display.

A rating system also may be thought off by governments or independent rating agencies that can be displayed and seen easily to enable quick decision by conscious public.

Nobody likes to display such information and thus may be more interested to ensure health and safety. And, once it is mandatory to display safety data or rating on the product labels, definitely, it will make manufacturers to be more sensitive (atleast to sell their products) to OHS issues.

Bank employee takes a nap on keyboard, transfers millions | The Hindu

Bank employee takes a nap on keyboard, transfers millions | The Hindu

293 million US dollars were transferred by a bank employee who was asleep while on the job. Imagine what can happen if somebody on the job in the control room of a chemical plant sleeps.

All plant employees should be healthy, and had sufficient rest before attending their duty. In some plants, workers have long working hours and on few occasions, they have to continue if reliever does not come, doing overtime.

Legislations specify number of working hours (8-9.5 hr) with rest in between and also the number of hours which a person can work continuously in a day and number of hours in a week, quarter and so on to ensure that they get sufficient rest and are not forced or lured for extra money they get. It is not possible to work more hours continuously and this will lead to mistakes and accidents.

Safety work permit - violation of conditions

 Safety work permits are issued after ensuring that the site conditions are suitable for safe work. Check points are verified and are certified for start of work. However, still sometimes accidents take place indicating that either job hazard analysis is not done properly, conditions are altered during the course of work, workmen are not briefed about hazards and measures to be taken, many times they are not aware of what is written in the permit and simply do the work as they were told or as they can do, lack of supervision, etc.
In a huge manufacturing facility, a number of works will be going on and generally, the supervisor will be monitoring more than one work at any given time. In such a condition, at least, emphasis should be given to training to the persons engaged. All are not of superman category.
But, when earnings are motive, all other aspects take back seat. Many times, procedure for selection of the contractor or agency to do the outsourced work is the culprit. If selection is made without assessing the competency of the person/agency for safe execution of work, without checking the credentials, without giving proper description of the work, then we will get a wrong person in most of the cases.
In some cases, trainees are placed directly on to the job without proper class room training and supervision. This also leads to accidents as they are in the organization to learn, initially in the class room and then to have on the job training under supervision. Sometimes, these trainees even will be manning the shifts, particularly at night times when availability of regular work force is less and may be when nobody watches. Though, this is disastrous, shop floor managers take such decisions without taking the concurrence of higher ups. If seniors also give consent, then it is silly and such persons should be terminated or they should be asked to supervise instead of posting trainees for manning the shifts / works.

ATTENTION ONLY TO PRODUCTION CAN LEAD TO DETENTION.
ATTENTION TO SAFE PRODUCTION WILL SURELY LEAD TO CONGRATULATIONS.

Let us thank those who find our mistakes

We will be hurt and get irritated too when somebody points out our mistakes. This happens in our annual performance assessment report, audits, discussions (arguments?) with colleagues / partners / spouse / children / etc.

However, there is a saying, "It is easy to find mistakes in others, Difficult to find our own mistakes".

When we take it positively, look at it with a peace of mind, we feel we should thank those who find our mistakes because they have done our job.

As per another saying, " a problem found is as good as half of the work is done, we only have to find a solution". The problem is our inability to find the problem.

Recently, I watched a movie titled, "Hot Shots! Part Deux" in TV. A dialogue in the movie is, 'we all have permission to make mistakes. It is called learning".

A long time patient sometimes, is better than a doctor.

Learning from past accidents (mistakes) is what we should do. Like we can't have life long schooling, we can't be continuous learners, making same mistakes again and again. We have to learn from our mistakes and those of others who suffered.

Safety officers/inspectors during inspection / audit find the deficiencies and communicate to plant in-charges. Plant in-charges should thank these lot for finding the deficiencies and for helping them to work for a better workplace.

Ego - obstacle to safe practices

Generally, safety professionals have advisory role. Any advise from company's safety professional(s) may be taken with good heart, reluctantly accepted because of pressure from top management or will be rejected vehemently. Sometimes, safety professionals will be questioned about their knowledge/experience/capability in matters of production activities and production managers try to draw a line saying that they are more capable of taking care of their work and also of safety in their work place and that they do not need any advise from safety professionals.
However, when some incident happens, safety professional of the company will become the first target of these production managers, saying that they were not sufficiently warned about the hazard, that the safety professional slept without doing his job, and so on. This will be the case even if there were some incidents in the work place.
Surprisingly, sometimes, even regulators too question safety professionals of the company instead of engaging the production managers for safety related lapses in the work place.
The ego in the minds of production managers (and down below) is an obstacle to listen to the voice of safety professional and this endangers safety of employees in the work place. They do not accept the fact that there is something (mindset to see the dangers and to learn lessons from events) missing on their part leading to occurrence of nearmisses, incidents and accidents. Any occurrence is taken as onetime affair and is not acknowledged for system deficiencies. Even efforts will be made to cover up the issues or not to bring to the notice of safety professional for investigation and thus do not want to learn lessons.
The case studies, lessons from occurrence that are freely available in the internet are taken as too theoretical or that these are not applicable to their work place. Nobody can help such managers and those working under them will only become easy prey to the hidden dangers.

New year resolutions - Incident reporting culture

Wish you all a healthy, happy and safe new year.

Everybody will be cheerful and resolve to do so many to have a good year. At the end of the year, when we review, there may be some misses and some are forgotten. Everybody wishes for zero accident status in every sphere of work. But, this is possible only when there is a good system of reporting each and every incident whether it involves or not, of injury, property damage and environment damage.
It is reported widely and is also observed that many incidents do not come to the notice of  colleagues, supervisors and managers. This can be due to the fear of rebuke, chiding and becoming a fool in the eyes of others. Sometimes, an enthusiastic employee is dissuaded from reporting. If the employee reporting the incident is issued notice for occurrence of incidents, then he will try to cover from next time. Or, if warned, to ensure that there are no incidents, then also he will not report, though he may try to take some measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents, or he will take care that it will not go to the notice of superiors.
I feel that unless the problem of not reporting all incidents, however minor in nature they are, is not addressed, there will not be any improvement in shop floor safety. And, this is possible and can be done only with the whole hearted commitment and support from the top man of the organization. Though, critics question getting results from the action of one person (i.e top man), being in-charge of all affairs and with his powers, he is the only person who can influence the thought process of all persons down below for a safe production.
One can ask why incidents should be reported? When an incident is reported, it will be investigated by a team comprising production, maintenance, safety and other experts and analyzed for root cause and suggest measures to be taken. If it is not reported, then it may not be investigated, and even if investigated, it will be the individual or his friends which may not lead to effective investigation. Then, each work place should have a mechanism for periodical review on action taken on  recommendations. There should not be any delay in implementing the recommendations. Otherwise, improvement can't be achieved and we will see repetition of incidents again and again.
Sometimes, it appears so simple to take action but will find inordinate delay in implementation. This reflects lack of concern for safety of persons and generally reflects organization's poor safety culture.
When performance of individuals is reviewed, inputs on number of incidents occurred, number of incidents reported, measures taken to prevent incidents at the work place, extra work done to ensure safe place in areas not of his concern also should be obtained along with production figures by the assessor, which will send strong signals to all employees about the intention of the management for a safe work place.
Else, employees will be bothered about reaching production targets without caring for preventive measures to ensure safety of persons and environment.
Jobs done routinely i.e accident investigation after occurrence will yield only limited results whereas a paradigm shift in thinking of the decision makers will help in achieving good results in improving safety culture and ensuring a safe work place.

28 years after Bhopal accident - lessons not learnt by others

It is 28 years now after the occurrence of Bhopal accident on 2/3 Dec 1984. As is widely reported, it happened because of,

1. engaging no so well versed technicians at the time of the incident
2. no proper training to employees, local government agencies including health department, nearby residents
3. storage of excessive quantities of MIC
4. non-availability / switching off of safety systems, like, refrigeration to maintain at 2 deg C temperature, maintenance taken up for scrubber and flare systems
5. starting of cleaning of lines also during the non-availability of emergency systems
6. any safety permit was taken for cleaning of lines (is not known)

Murphy's law was proved in this accident. None of us learnt the lessons from this accident. Though, there was initial euphoria, it did not last long. Though the scale of the accidents is not like Bhopal accident, we read / learnt about occurrence of so many accidents.

We continue to engage cheap labour, without providing them any training. Most of the labour are daily workers. A person coming today may not be coming tomorrow or next week. The safety systems provided are not tested, or, they are only show pieces for regulatory agencies. The large number of accidents that appear in media is a proof of this as in many of the organizations in which accidents occur engage short term workers. The reasons for many of these accidents are also simple and are avoidable. It is not that some complex and unknown thing happened leading to such accidents.

We also continue to discharge effluents / offgases / solid wastes into environment. Large quantities of dangerous materials are transported through public domain, probably, without the knowledge of local government agencies. All these can affect the health of the people if not immediately, but over a long period of time.

The most common finding of CSB during their investigations is lack of training. Training and retraining programmes should be established and examinations should be conducted for the employees to put them in to service. It is not sufficient to cut the incentive which is paid for acquiring and renewing operators' licence after passing out the examinations. Such failed employees should not be engaged for plant operations till they pass out. And while evaluating the performance, it should be ensured that they answer all questions and not that because they answered 50% or so, they can be passed. Because, any mistake can lead to accidents greatly affecting the people and environment.

Plants should have policy of not operating the plant in case of failure of any of the safety systems. And ensure monitoring of the plant even when it is under shutdown.

Plants should realise that safety department alone can't guaranty safety as they are not operating the plant and they do not have the knowledge as good as actual plant operators. Further, how many organisations give serious thought to the advice of safety department. Many times, they are projected as hindrance for production and any production loss is attributed to as obstacles from safety department.

Government and regulators should make start a website with different categories and or key words for publishing all accidents, investigation reports from both the concerned company as well as regulators/government agencies. Governments should encourage all companies to upload about accidents and incidents in government website as per the category and should assure that those who reveal accidents immediately after occurrence in the website and also upload investigation reports say within 3-6 months will not be prosecuted for criminal proceedings. But penalties and compensation as applicable have to be borne by the company.
We can't expect organisations to run for charity, but they should ensure safety of their employees, public and environment and in this process they should not bypass safety procedures. 

Can we have better surveillance cameras to monitor secured areas?

It is common to see CCTV cameras at important places to monitor the movements of suspicious persons. These are located in super markets, restricted areas, traffic zones, bus stations, railway stations, airports, etc. On many occasions, after the occurrence of an incident, the footage from these helped to nab the culprits. But, the videos that we see in TVs are of poor resolution and less speed. It is beyond my knowledge why it is so and why high resolution cameras can't be installed for surveillance. Normally, the domestic cameras which we use provide good pictures of objects that are at distance, when we zoom. No doubt, the memory occupied by these high resolution pictures will be more and thus require large storage space, but it is affordable and cost should not be an issue when it is with regards to security and safety.
During accidents / incidents, cameras installed at important and critical operation areas also show how they occurred, even if the employees lie about them fearing punishment. This will help in accident investigation and help the organization to take preventive measures.

Charge the vehicle owners for parking on the roads

At many places, people park their vehicles in front of their houses on the roads, leading to narrowing of roads and accidents. It is mandatory to leave sufficient space (about 10 ft or more depending upon the plot area) in front of the house upto their compound wall. But, hardly this norm is followed. Overcome by greed, people leave little space and construct the houses upto their boundary, and may be sometimes encroaching their neighbour's area or public road. Naturally, this leads to no parking space and occupants park their vehicles on the roads. All such vehicles should be taken over by local authorities and charge heavy penalties. If there is no response within specified period (say two weeks), the vehicle should be put up for auction. There are thousands of vehicles of all categories that are parked on the roads and I feel this brings sufficient income for the local authorities and also bring discipline among the greedy.