Summer Fires

This year, it appears summer started in January itself. As the weeks progress, already less crowds are seen on the roads in the afternoon.

Wild vegetation on the roadside, around industrial plants, chemical storages, along the railway tracks, etc is a cause of concern as it becomes dry. In the beginning of this month, there was a news item that a rail compartment parked in a scrap yard caught fire and was totally burnt. The fire was attributed to the waste material stored around the area.

The source of fire can be anything, starting from cigarette butt. Even oil soaked cotton rags, when left as such, or wet grass under sun can be subjected to bacterial action and this results in slow heating of the matter and gradually with increase in day time temperature, it can catch fire.

Few (9-10) years back, there were a series of reports about fires in ammunition depots during summer. The reason attributed at that time was that many of the material are covered under tarpaulin cloth and the heat trapped inside caused increase in temperature and finally lead to fire.

Legislations also say to keep all plant / storage surroundings to be free from combustibles so that even if fire starts, it will not affect plant / storage areas. It is better, if atleast 6 m around these areas is maintained free of wild vegetation, trees, etc by paving the areas so that recurring work of grass cutting, etc can be avoided and no one needs to be reminded for these jobs.

Similarly, if HT wires are going above, the area below should be free from wild vegetation, as any spark can start fire below and this happened at many places. It is a common sight to see growth of creepers around HT towers. These also can catch fire during summer as they become dry.

Public also behave irresponsibly by dumping all the waste around the HT towers, transformers, street light poles. Even if municipal waste bins are available, people throw the matter near the bin, instead of dumping into the bin.

Thought there is talk of 'Behaviour Based Safety Processes (BBSP)', I am unable to think of what we can do to educate the persons, as everybody says that they know the hazard, when we explain them, but keep repeating it. We can compare this attitude with wearing of helmet. The reaction of the persons is, 'Yes, we know that we can break our head without helmet, but, oh, that nasty thing, it irritates'.

What type of movement is required to drive the persons to follow safe practices, without loosing our patience. If anybody sees this article, may kindly suggest.

Experience in Safety implementation

There is a saying that "Experience makes a man wise". Yes, this is true, but not in all respects. Sometimes, it is good if we do not get experience, for example, tasting a food item that is made by a first timer, or, learning 2-wheeler driving where there is every possibility of fall of person.

I like to taste a mango once again rather than getting injured first time or next time also.

The greatest safety professional, Mr. Kletz said in one of his books on industrial safety that, it is better to learn from others mistakes rather than experiencing all those by ourselves. By this, we can ensure a safe work for ourselves and our colleagues and public.

Information on accidents is available in various books, news papers, journals, websites. We should be interested in searching and getting all those information and then applying the lessons learnt to our work place.

Still, it is surprising to see that we do not learn from the accidents, leave those at other places, even from our own work place accidents, we refuse to learn. We are so lethargic and self centered that we do not want even to inform the people in our work place about accidents that are likely to occur. Every thing we leave it the wisdom of the shopfloor workers or Know Your Self way.

However, when an injury occurs, it is likely that the injured apart from pain has also be ready to receive admonishing from superiors by way of a memo / advise letter / explanation seeking letter for the injury. What the works manager or his supervisor does during regular plant visits is known only to the GOD, I suppose.

It is to be noted by all that apart from penalties (financial as well as sitting in a jail) listed in the Factories Act, there are provision listed even in the Constitution where by way of negligence, when failure to take protective measures is established, concerned in-charges are likely to be punished under constitution also.

Hence, one should not be relaxed that their work place does not come under Factories Act. Constitution contains all to see that persons are protected.

Sometimes, when safety supervisor / officer gives advise on safe acts / practices or stops an activity that is carried out in an unsafe manner, then the production in-charge asks the safety person to do the work or he will try to shift the safety person to that production activity or sees that he is removed. Of course, removal is not possible in a government organization, but it is always possible to shift safety person to production line as a punishment or teach a lesson for advising on safety.

The production fails to see why a safety person advises so. It is production in-charge who has to face questions, in case of an accident and he may have to be prepared even for a possible arrest by police. Instead of seeing or visualizing the situation, production in-charge questions safety department like, are you not belonging to the organization, don't you want a good name for the General Manger, etc.

Chief Executive / General Manger who is designated as Occupier should be careful against people like the above who want to get production somehow and want to claim for the production but not about the injuries. Such people should be thrown out of the organization or they should be sent to training programmes compulsorily on the statutory requirements with stress on penalties so that they MAY be able to see the implications. Even then if they do not learnt, better they are removed from the job itself so that workers will be protected and organization's name is not spoiled.

Mr Om P Kharbanda in one of his writings mentioned that SAFETY IS NOT ONLY FREE, BUT IT ALSO PAYS. Like quality brings down the cost of production, similarly safety also is cost reducing proposition. However, safety brings more tangible benefits when it is thought and implemented during the design stage itself. If it is implemented later as an ADD ON feature, then people may resist to follow unless until they see the reason clearly.

Though people say penalties do not have much effect in safety, I feel strongly that safety department should be given the authority to impose cash penalties where safety advisor can caution once and if the problem persists, then he can take evidence by photograph or other means and also impose penalty straight away. The penalty amount should be deducted from the concerned production department / agency Head of the Account to Safety Department which can be used as fund for safety promotion. Again, the facility in-charge should seek explanation from the concerned production department where penalty is recovered for the safety lapse.
When managers are questioned on penalties and is shown as a negative aspect, then only production mangers will realize the importance of safety.

Stopping the work by safety person will not have impact, because once the safety person leaves the shopfloor after advise / instruction, the work will be resumed in the same manner. This is true in most of the cases.

Sometimes, when shopfloor persons are questioned about unsafe practices, like doing maintenance on a running machine, or not wearing PPE, etc, they start complaining about the knowledge of the safety person or quality of PPE or need for getting an item of a particular brand, etc without justification so that safety person can be undermined and will be made to leave the place. It should be known that PPE of good quality meeting standards only will be recommended by safety person but not of brands. If there are more suppliers meeting the required standards, then supplier of the item meeting standards at lowest cost only will be recommended for purchase.

Sometimes, when workmen face problem with overtime, they they call safety persons on the pretext of unsafe conditions in the shopfloor. Once the manager agrees for giving overtime, then workmen forget about safety aspects and everybody disappears. At the end, you may see shopfloor in-charge and safety person arguing on the unsafe conditions, that may not be existing at all which were complained by workmen.

Workmen also should realize that if they do not follow safety, they can be punished under various provisions.

Finally, safety implementation requires commitment by shopfloor people and the production department. If they follow advise by Safety Department, then they can get benefited more. Else, it is they who have suffer the pain, not the safety persons.

Lab Safety

Safety is freedom the danger, risk, hazard, so is the meaning found in dictionaries. All of us are concerned about our wellbeing and of others, (mostly) known and (sometimes) unknown.

While doing an activity, consciously and / or unconsciously we keep assessing the dangers in that activity and we take appropriate measures for overcoming those dangers. However, to assess / know the hazards / dangers in a work, we should have knowledge about the nature of work, the materials to be handled both manually and mechanically, the work procedure, the skills required, the persons involved, etc. Apart from these, we also should know about the area at which the work is to be done, the surroundings, the layout, the type of help that will be available in case of emergency, the exit routes, the rules and regulations of the land, etc. So, it requires lot of information to carryout a work safely so that nobody will be exposed to the dangers before, during and after the work. We give lot of importance and attention on activities in plant operations, fabrication shops, workshops, transportation, etc.

However, little attention is paid to safety during various activities in laboratory. Laboratory is a place, where we do research on small scale to establish a process, analyse various materials to know the composition, etc. Laboratory plays an important role in the establishment and various chemicals are handled for which we may not know about the dangers in handling them. The dangers can be in the form of toxicity, fire or explosion. Similarly there are dangers due to electricity, which will be used for heating, mixing, ventilation, illumination, etc. Then, big laboratories will have associated workshops to meet their various requirements, because standard equipment may not be available in the market and therefore they have to be made to the requirement of the researcher or analyst. The dangers in workshop are due to material handling, electrical and from the machines like lathes, grinders, welding sets, cutting machines and cranes and hoists. When, we start thinking about safety in lab, slowly and progressively we start identifying hazards that are present in scaled up plants and we realize that we can’t ignore safety of the people working in laboratories.

This leads us to think big and draw up a safety plan for laboratory. So what is required?

1. A well planned layout for lab, with marked locations of rooms, equipment, office rooms, storage area, air handling units for supply and exhaust ventilation, transformers, power distribution boards (PDBs), emergency exits, fire extinguishers, first aid rooms, workshop, change rooms, etc.

2. Material safety data sheets (MSDS) of the chemicals to be handled, which are available in internet in web sites like www.ilo.org, etc or if not available consult with the supplier of the chemicals. MSDS gives information about physical and chemical properties, non-compatible reactions, transportation of chemicals, measures to be taken for safety during handling and in case of emergency, spillages, etc.
3. Types and quantities of various wastes generated, storage and handling and their disposal procedure.
4. Storage of chemicals at lab stores and in the lab.
5. Power distribution and their connections to the equipment, rooms, earthing connections of equipment, earth stations / pits, earth pit and grid resistance levels to be maintained, etc.
6. Location and routing of service systems like water, air, etc.
7. Off-gas exhaust system that includes piping / ducting, filters, scrubbers, exhaust fans, discharge location (so that exhaust does not become supply for other building’s ventilation system).
8. Drains, their routing, hazards in mixing of various drains to a common drain.
9. Availability of emergency power, water, ventilation for crucial equipment / rooms.
10.Gas cylinder bank storage, movement trolleys, piping / hoses including connection arrangement, pressure regulators, pressure relief valves, monitors / detectors, exhaust system for storage.
11.Mechanical material handling systems like hoists, cranes, pallet trucks, trolleys, safe working loads (SWL), etc.
12.Location of emergency showers and eye wash fountains, availability of water, their quality, maintenance.
13.Personal protective equipment (PPE) like nose masks, respirators, goggles, face shields, aprons, suits, hand gloves, shoes, helmets.
14.In Service Inspection (ISI) requirement for various equipment like furnaces, hoods, supply and exhaust system, PDBs, process and service piping, etc.
15.Maintenance and testing procedures for equipment, electrical systems, fire extinguishers, etc.
16.Minimum inventory of chemicals, essential spares for equipment, tools, etc.

The list goes on as one thinks of and this requires constant and continuous assessment of activities for hazards and based on the activities and hazards in it, appropriate corrective measures have to be taken to minimize the hazards to acceptable levels. Some of the corrective measures in the order of priority from first to last are,

Elimination – Stop use or preparation of chemical so that the hazard can be totally avoided.
Substitution – Find an alternate chemical or method by which the level of hazard can be reduced to acceptable levels.
Administrative – Devise and implement administrative controls so that safe handling can be ensured.
Training – Provide training and retraining to people so that they understand what they are doing, hazards in it and protective measures to be followed and what to do in case of any emergency.
PPE – Use of personal protective equipment (PPE) is the last line of defense and PPE as appropriate to the need is to be used correctly so that persons will be protected when all other lines of defense mechanisms fail.

Finally, an emergency plan should be available for meeting all possible situations, mock drills have to be conducted to ensure that every body understands what is their role and responsibility in an emergency and drawbacks found in mock drills are to be corrected so that a fool-proof emergency plan will be in place.

Finally, I want to remind all concerned about Murphy’s Law, which states, “If something can go wrong, it will and what is more, it will probably happen when we are least expecting it. It may also occur at the worst possible moment, when we are least able to react quickly and effectively because, we have our hands already full or our attention is elsewhere”.

And, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - George Santayana”

For those who are interested in safety, a number of e-books are available at www.ebookee.com and www.esnips.com. Apart from these, accident investigation reports are available at www.csb.gov and www.hse.gov.uk.

Wish you all a safe lab experience.

Communication - an important tool to help others to improve safety

Every day we see, hear, read and may experience accidents. But, how much time we spend on thinking about those accidents and what can be done to prevent such accidents. As we think more and more on the subject, our thoughts will be streamlined and a day will come when it becomes a part of life.

True, we need safety. But, normally we just leave it as such, as we have more important things to do (so as we assume).

Do we leave things as they were, if it is our children involved in such activities. A BIG NO. We tell a hundred times about how to proceed with a task, if it is to be done by our child. We also ensure some sort of supervision or keep watch on them.

The way we communicate with our children, we have to do it with our colleagues or partners in the work area also. BECAUSE, safety is a team work.

We may follow safety rules. But, we can't be sure of a safe work place, unless all those involved in the work also follow those safety rules.

Do not say later on that I told you so / I did but why you did not. Say it before taking up the task.

Communication should be simpler, straight, easy to understand, written and confirm it by asking questions.

If there is any doubt, get it cleared at once. You may be called Doubtfire. It doesn't matter. Because it is 'I' or 'Me' who is going to be involved in the job and even a wrong step can cause danger to others also.