Safety for whom - safety officer or plant

Some plant people think that safety officer gives advise / points out unsafe conditions only to show his existence or to protect his job. Protecting job may be correct but it applies to all. We are not here to do some social service. Obliging safety officer is again not to satisfy him or his ego but to protect the people, property and environment in the plant and surroundings and creat a safe work place. This also protects themselves from hassles of occupier and/or regulator from possible penal actions. Because of such thinking by plant people, appointment of safety officer was made mandatory and those organizations which listened to safety officer have shown improvement in working conditions and seen visible and invisible returns in financial terms. Even in these organizations, when there are no accidents for some reasonable period, the memory fades and finance people think that investment on safety is waste till some accident occurs.

It must be remembered that when accident occurs, it occurs after giving sufficient warnings in the form of nearmisses. Thus accidents, though do not assume any human form are like persons with good heart that they warn us sufficiently. And, we the real human beings do not want to see and take corrective actions leave alone preventive actions.

Finally, when accident occurs, it happens with a BANG and everbody questions everybody. Some drama also can be seen. We pretend to have woken up from slumber and soon slip into sleep again.

Though, it has become common to question regulators for their failure to inspect, it impossible task for any regulator to inspect a factory, understand the systems and find hazards or violations. If the sufferer in case of an accident do not want to learn, then nobody can can correct the system. These organizations are destined to suffer and regulators only have to listen some unpleasant things for sometime in the media, because the samething repeats.
Only self control will save the organizations and all other controls are helpful to improve the system, not to correct the system.

If strict regulation is to be done, then governments have to appoint one inspector for every industrial zone containing say 10-15 factories and any violations are to be dealt with strictly by penalties and other forms. When such appointment of regulators is done, financial outgo will be very high and therefore, government has to collect monthly fees from these factories to pay for the regulators and running the regulator's office. Then, may be, safe conditions can be created in the work place.

Safety - headache now or later?

I heard someone saying that following safety principles is a headache but had to be lived with. If such a statement comes from a factory manager, it got more serious repurcussions i.e there will not be any wholehearted commitment and involvement by plant persons. Only lip service will be paid by the shopfloor supervisors and workers. Those who do not understand the evils of not following safety and only live under threat of being questioned by regulators can have such opinions and nobody can help organizations with such people. Not even GOD.

Learning from others-blogs or accidents whatever it is!

I used to write a lot in my earlier posts. However, it's my feeling that these are lengthy. I also saw posts of some bloggers which are brief. So I decided to write only to the point. If I want to explain, I can do it in different posts. This is what I learned from others. Similar thing we can do in learning mistakes done by others when they had accidents or near misses and avoid the same.

Safety legislations - management support

Sometimes, it becomes very difficult when production people question the safety officer about the basis for particular requirement mentioned in legislations or good practices. For example, 15 meter distance between hot work area and combustibles, or 1.05 m extension of ladder above landing, or 4:1 for vertical to horizontal of a ladder, etc. Though one can explain about flying of sparks / proper support for the person to walk on to the landing / prevent fall of persons as reason for these requirements, still one questions in meeting the requirements exactly. Similarly, testing of equipment in the specified period, say once in four years for pressure vessels. Questions will be like, whether pressure vessel will fail, if not tested after 4 years. Such questions look silly and safety professional will loose control of his patience. Further with his role as advisor, he can't reply authoritatively unless top management supports safety officer. If such support is extended, then whatever safety officer says will be obliged, though production people will be unhappy internally. So, legislations alone will not help in improving safety culture in an organization. Legislations or not,what is required is top management support expressed in public and supported to the core.

Don't Relax after peak production in March - examine all your systems for safety

Normally, the month of March is peak production period for meeting the targets of production for manufacturers, financial expenditure for those who ordered various machinery, etc so that they will not receive any flak from Board Directors or Finance Department.

The month of April will be somewhat a lean period, having met the targets and waiting for good news of bonus / pay increase, etc. However, it is good if all establishments plan their annual shutdowns for maintenance in April, test their equipment / vessels / material handling equipment / earthpits, etc as per statutory requirements in this month so that there will not be any question of non-availability of particular system for testing. Production department will be reluctant to release the system for examination in the second half of the year. Thus, April-May is the best period for statutory examinations and annual mainatenance.

Spark arrestors for vehicles entering flammable areas

Last week, when I was driving my motor cycle, I heard bursting soundings most possibly from my bike. Initially, I looked around other vehicles but as I did not see anything unusual, I thought that the sound is from my bike exhaust. Earlier also I saw similar bursting sounds from other vehicles exhaust pipe along with short duration flame.

Imagine if vehicles like fire tender or ambulance with such exhaust enter flammable areas. Instead of saving the property or rescuing the persons, the sparks from these vehicles can initiate fire and explosion.

Safety culture

Recently, I heard a person questioning about preaching of safety culture. He questioned about the credentials of the culture of the preacher saying that the person does not wear helmet while driving from home to office and he preaches about safety culture to others.

Yes, the person is wrong that he is not using helmet. But, by his act, he will be at risk of getting injured. But, in a plant, if the Manager can't inculcate safety culture, then entire staff of the concerned plant as well as those in the vicinity will be affected. By saying you are wrong will not make my wrong act a RIGHT. A wrong act is always a wrong act only. By telling the safety man that your acts outside are wrong and you can't tell me how I should do is not a correct statement at all. These types of arguments are like shadow boxing and will not help in improving safety at the plant.

Another example is a theft has occurred in the house when the occupant is not in the house. Suppose the neighbour informs about the same to the occupant. If occupant replies not bother about what is happening in his house and advises to look into his own house affairs, who will be the loser. Obviously, the occupant. Similarly, in a factory the plant manager will be loser and will be responsible for acts and deeds and may be charged by the regulator depending upon the seriousness of the violations. At that time, plant manager can't tell the regulator that regulator is not wearing shoe or not using the helmet. Before such a thing occurs, the internal safety officer monitors and advises the plant manager for suitable action so that plant manager can avoid embarrasing and difficult situations from his employees as well as the regulator.

Static Electricity - my experiences

I am into the field of industrial safety for the last 10 1/2 years. Before that, I was involved in process equipment design. When, I joined safety department, I started reading about various topics in safety and one such topic is static electricity. For first few years, I had only book knowledge and no experience of what it is.

What already read in books is that static charge will be generated, when we

- comb our hair
- wear synthetic dress
- walk on wool carpets, etc

Following are my practical experiences

- when I approached TV, the hair on the forearm attracted to the picture tube
- After travelling, to get down, I tried to open the vehicle door by lifting the knob on door outside and I received shock
- my friend took out pen drive from his shirt pocket and when he inserted in the USB port, cracking sound came
- when I touched the monitor of desktop computer, I heard noise


- one night, I got up and went to bathroom for pressure relief. I saw some flash from my dhoti ( a cloth worn around instead of knickers / shorts ). I thought it is light reflection because of someone outside my apartment switched ON the light in his house or some vehicle light from ground floor. I had some fear also thinking it as some ghost, as a person died in the house above my house in the apartment block (though I don't believe, but a serious discussion on the issue before sleep with my family members and my denial of existence of ghosts made me to think that something of such sort is there). Then, next day while thinking about the flash in my dhothi, suddenly it occurred to me that my dhothi is synthetic and as it is in two layers, friction between layers might have caused charge accumulation and discharge in the form of flash. After reaching home from office, I waited for night and then closed window and door of my room, covered the window with thick curtain and blanket. Then, I took the same dhothi and rubbed fast and saw flashes generated. Then, I repeated the same and showed to my wife and children. The flashes were light green in colour. I don't know the reason for the colour of the flash, which I has to explore or search.

The last one narrated above is the one which I want to share with all and the lesson is that we should not wear synthetic dress when we work on or near flammable solvents / pyrophoric materials. The practical application of this information is that we should not wear synthetic dress when we go for petrol / gas filling. As we travel for sometime before we reach the pump, charge would have accumulated on the synthetic dress and it is likely that the discharge in the form of spark can initiate fire in the petrol pump station.

Is Safety Training Helpful?

Is Safety Training Helpful?

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Safety Practioner: A Pessimist? or A Visionary!!

A safety officer’s main role in the organization to help in hazard identification and thus he will have a hawk’s eye for hazards. The conditions which are normal for the plant personnel will be hazards in the eyes of safety man and thus when he tells shop floor persons about hazard and need for elimination, the safety man will be seen as a negative minded person. He may be scolded, chided and will be at receiving end depending upon the safety culture of the organization. If the safety officer is having thick skin, then he will not bother and will continue his work. If not, after sometime he may stop cautioning about hazards. If some unusual incident occurs, then again same safety person will be blamed for not identifying the hazard and intimating the concerned. He will be come pessimistic and all his goals / objective in the beginning of a career in safety will lead to total frustration and he will be at cross roads to do what. He will be stressful and it is not possible for any person to be optimistic for ever. Though pessimistic attitude is good for a safety man in hazard identification, when this reach his mind and carried to home, it may spoil his home life also. Over a period of time, he will be at peace neither at work place nor at home and will be blamed all around.

Therefore, it is important for safety professional to stay positive and exercise like walking will help him to stay fit, physically and mentally. Listening to music, attending cultural programmes and book reading are some of the activities which can help the person to lead a peaceful life. Similarly, visiting new places, monumental or religious or others, will fresh up the life.

If it is not possible to continue in the safety department, he can think of change of job. However, I know some persons who left their organizations in frustration continue to be frustrated and are frequent job changers.

There are many programmes available to take care of different professionals, but professionals who help the organizations to identify hazards are helped in identifying their hazards. These safety professionals have to take care of themselves and safe guard their health and life beyond office.

Once the person overcomes his stressful life because of his profession, still keeping his pessimistic approach, he can be helpful to the organization in hazard identification. A safety officer in an organization will have the moral responsibility of ensuring a safe work place and also see that management will not take wrong decisions because of his work methods. He has to envisage what can go wrong and provide feed back to the management in the form of reports regularly. He has to convey hazards along with the statutory requirments under which these are seen as violations and for thick skinned persons, safety officer should not hesitate in telling about the penalties / punishments one deserves for the violations. Though, punishments or penalties are seen as last resort and people say they are not helpful in straightening the organization, as we see the occurrence of incidents in well advanced countries and the penalties imposed by the regulators in these countries, there is no other solution.

In fact, organizations should develop their own penalty structure in terms of cash fine or reduced pay or suspension of the employee from work and termination as last resort. Then, everybody will have the fear of following safety priniciples which the management wants to follow. Of course, nothing can be done, if the management it self pays only lip service to safety.