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

Accountability for safety

In an article in Safety Center on accountability for safety, Bob Lapidus, Safety Management Specialist gave following five steps.

1. Create written safety policies and procedures
2. Train employees on the safety policies and procedures
3. Provide all the necessary equipment to do the assigned work
4. Hold everyone accountable for compliance
5. Both supervisors and employees provide feedback as to how work is being done Corrective action is taken as necessary

Accountability means, in his words, praising when correct things done and correcting when things are done the improperly. It should not be like knee jerk reaction to punish people when something goes wrong.
While writing safety policy and safety procedures, I feel, it should be written by involving all concerned employees. If it is written by manager or consultant in his office without interaction and active participation of employees, the ownership for the document will not exist with the concerned shopfloor employees and it is likely that they may not like to read and follow.
 

Safety education - at what level it can be started?

I attended a one-day seminar on occupational hazards. The chief guest for the programme was Secretary for the Labour Ministry of the state government. In his address, he talked about various safety issues and finally he came to the subject of safety education. He advised the organizers of the event to coordinate with his senior staff and also of education department to introduce safety subject from school level onwards. He promised to talk to the secretaries of other departments for work in this direction. A noble promise indeed.

I never studied about safety, accident prevention, etc in my entire period of education. When I joined in the job, safety was touched upon during the training but there was no separte paper. Now for last few years, I am seeing that my children are having a chapter on road safety and environment protection. My juniors in the organization are having separte papers in their training programme on industrial safety and environment protection and I am taking classes for them on industrial safety. Really, a good development in our organization. Without studying safety subject, people are not aware of importance of safety and its benefits to the organizations.
In internet, we do have access to lot of information on safety, can see thousands of videos on selected topics. I feel that these videos as appropriate should be shown to children from high school level onwards and are discussed by teachers. At college level, videos on accidents (particularly those of CSB, WORKSAFEBC, HSE, etc) are to be shown and students should be asked to comeout with their own ideas and suggestions for preventing such accidents including design changes. US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) is doing a great service to the world and they even send DVDs of videos free of cost whichever part of the world you are.

The pass mark for safety subject should be atleast same as that for other papers and it should be compulsory subject and not an optional subject.

If a person does not study about safety during his education years, then he will not understand the importance of safety in his employment years and he will be moulded by his workplace seniors in such a way that safety will not a priority to say the least. He may even think that safety procedures are an obstruction to his career growth, to his bonuses, etc till he lands in an accident or accident case depending upon his level of employment. I found this type of attitude when I discussed with my fellow safety professionals from various industries and the story is same. Not many care for safety or advise of safety professionals.

Therefore introduction of safety subject from school level is VERY IMPORTANT and should be continued upto degree level and specializations can be introduced at post graduation level.

Whether safety procedures cause stress at workplace

Sometimes I hear shopfloor people grumbling at safety supervisors that by seeing them, B.P. increases in shopfloor workers. Others say that they are afraid that safety manager will come to them to enquire on some issue. Shopfloor supervisors advise safety persons not to approach their workers directly to avoid undue stress. All such talk or apprehensions appear to be unwarranted unless people do not follow safety procedures or the safety man talks in a dominating manner.
Some safety professionals too think that they get truth, if they pose like a  tough guy. But, with my own experience, I can say that this is not true. Whatever the shopfloor person is willing to tell will escape from the scene next time as soon as he sees the tough talking safety guy. The smooth talking safety supervisors also should be careful that they are not taken for granted. They have to develop friendly networks in all departments so that before entering the shopfloor to enquire about unsafe conditions or investigate accidents / incidents, full information is obtained through these friendly networks.
When someone gives information on phone, safety person should not insist to know the name of the person so that he will feel secured and will have peace of mind. If he is willing, then safety person can declare his sources and also recommend for some appreciation and reward.
Stress will be felt by safety guys also when all shopfloor people surround him questioning his failure to identify and communicate hazards. This, I think should be handled by being visible in the shopfloor through frequent inspections,giving pep talks as often as it warrants and making the people to know about their responsibilities under law. Then, safety department persons will be viewed as their friends and get their help to solve safety issues at the shopfloor.
Workers will be stressed for other reasons also as it was mentioned in a news paper article today that spouse causes more stress than the boss. Again, males cause more stress to their spouse than the female. Other reasons for stress can be ill health, unfulfilled ambitions,  family issues, etc