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.

Mobile applications for personal safety from Times of India

 The following article lists some applications for android, ios and blackberry based phone users. Somebody below the article brought to the notice of readers about mysecurity android application (free).

Thanks to him and Best of luck to all users.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/gadgets-special/Now-mobile-apps-for-your-safety/articleshow/17733303.cms

Infrared thermography - use it to know about impending electrical fire in your place

Yesterday (14.12.2012) there was an article in The Hindu, about infrared thermography and its use to detect  heating of electrical systems at the point of electrical cable input joints due to over load, loose contacts, improper wiring, etc. The heat emitted is read by the portable device and temperature is displayed to decide about whether it is within or above the limits. I also heard earlier from my colleagues that wall mounted thermography devices are also available to monitor continuously about critical electrical systems.
As most of the fire mishaps are attributed to electrical short circuit (more than 40%) that led to loss of lives, property damage, use of infrared thermography for electrical safety inspections in residential buildings, shops, public places, etc will help in saving us from the perils of fire.
For a long time, I had this question in mind about knowing the health of electrical wiring in my apartment. Fires in apartments, multi storey buildings endanger human lives of all and one should check about electrical safety aspects in the building.
From my electrician, I found that generally, the wiring lasts for 15-20 years, though industrial wiring lasts for more than 30 years as per information from colleagues in power supply department. However, these are theoretical and based on experience limited to specific conditions.
As the author in his article mentioned, over loading is a reason for electrical fires. Wiring gets deteriorated quickly  under excess loads and the general information about life of electrical cable can't be applied universally. And, it is human tendency to add electrical loads with or without knowledge about electrical safety. At least at home front, it is the lack of knowledge on electrical safety that keeps people to add electrically operated kitchenware, electronics, etc. Tripping of MCBs will not lead to thinking by the residents for reasons, and instead, they just put it back and resume with the work.
And, in factories, it is the greed to prolong till it breaks without understanding or may be underestimating the costs to be incurred in case of fire. It is good that insurance companies are giving a thought to electrical safety audits. In many of my posts in this blog and in my comments in newspaper websites, I stressed upon the role of government agencies, regulators and insurance companies for enforcing electrical safety audit without which heavy premiums, penalties and punishments should be the order of the day. Only then, everybody will become aware of electrical safety and other issues and save themselves from fire mishaps and its consequences.
As mentioned in the article, there is company called CSR Impex Private Limited (C.Vidyasagar Reddy, Ph: 040-65212780, 9440066907)  which is involved in use of this technology for the past ten years to inspect electrical panels of various establishments, especially software companies. (I did not check with the company but as I believe in electrical safety audits to know the healthiness of electrical systems, I thought that I can reproduce this information appeared in the newspaper for use by all).

Safety - who cares?

In an article that appeared in The Hindu today (23.12.2012), the author of the article, an Honorary Consultant to Tamilnadu Fire and Rescue Services talked about home safety, school safety, hospital safety, industrial safety, and need for training and engaging trained personnel in various jobs. Though laws, which are knowledge houses, are available, he lamented about the fact that implementation and enforcement is lacking. 

The article ends with the statement that, ' let not accidents teach us safety but at the same time let us learn safety from accidents'.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/why-safety-takes-a-back-seat/article4229877.ece

Safety Management of Contractor Manpower

Outsourcing of various industrial activities is common all over the world. It is rare to find organizations which do not follow this. This is done to overcome shortage of manpower, non-availability of experts in specific field, obligation to reduce permanent staff, financial considerations, etc. The skill sets of persons and duration vary with the requirement. Personnel from suppliers of equipment, instruments, etc too work in the premises for erection, commissioning, maintenance, etc. Thus other than regular employees, organizations deal with contractor manpower for housekeeping, maintenance, plant operations, erection/ commissioning, construction, material handling, canteens, etc in addition to the visitors like vendors, consultants, etc. Also, we find visitors, project students, apprentices, trainees, etc who stay in the organization for some duration.

Ensuring safety of all these persons is as important as regular employees. An analysis of accidents reveals that contractor workers are involved in 30-35% of accidents. The major reason for these accidents is lack of awareness about the hazards, supervision, failure to ensure supply and use of requisite safety gear to the workers both by the contractor and department in-charge.

Most of the occasions, persons engaged by the contractors are not same i.e floating workers and is difficult to ensure availability of same person for specific nature of work. This requires training of newly joined persons almost on weekly basis, if not every day and contractors exhibit resistance to send these newly joined workers for training.

The time needed by security personnel to permit contractor workers inside factory premises generally varies from 30 to 60 minutes depending upon the security level. The time available for work will reduce further after taking into account of time for training. As the attrition of employees is more, the working hours will reduce and this leads to shortcuts to avoid safety training of newly joined contractor workers.

It is observed that the small contractors generally deploy 2-10 persons in most of the works and generally he will have more than one work at site in his hand and he or his supervisor keeps shuttling between various work areas in the plant leading to poor supervision.

With increasing work load and reduction of manpower, plant in-charges too find it difficult to monitor all outsourced activities. Verbal communication instead of written communication also leads to misunderstanding of the task and wrongdoings during the work execution. To avoid any consequences, generally, following clauses will be included in the tender while outsourcing the activities.

·     Continuous supervision by the contractor,

·     Hiring technically suitable persons for the job,

·     Valid medical fitness certificate from qualified doctor for the persons to be employed,

·     Obtaining suitable insurance cover for the persons to be employed,

·     Prohibition of child labor,

·     Ensuring issue and use of PPE,

·     Sole responsibility of the contractor for all accidents and consequences arising out of it,

·     Use of tested and certified tools,

·     Bringing his own tools and equipment required for the work, etc

But, this is not suffice to ensure safety of these workers as we see violation of most of the clauses at many sites. To cut costs, apart from major machinery/devices offered by plant as per work order, contractors do not bring other tools, lifting tackles, weld sets, ladders, etc of their own and instead use from within the plant. In case of any accident, it is likely that concerned plant in-charge will be blamed for allowing using department material.

For civil works, it is common to see use of fire hydrant water or garden water. Fire hydrant water is for emergency use and garden water is generally recycled and treated water.

We find retired employees too taking up contract jobs in the organization and due to their familiarity with the plant and the staff, their seniority and that their peers/juniors will be working in the plant, some of them move as if they are department staff and this leads complacency / extra authority in using department materials and at the same time, when any accident takes place, they can easily influence and shift the blame.

Apart from these violations, it is likely that contractor works for jobs outside the scope of the work order. Unfamiliarity of workplace in these situations leads to accidents endangering both contractor workers and department staff.

When an accident takes place, in case of major treatment, question arises about who will foot the bill, as generally, small time contractors do not have requisite financial capability to bear the cost. Though, tender clause puts responsibility on the contractor, organizations end up in paying the bills in such situations. Sometimes, the cost of treatment exceeds the value of the contract itself, in which case recovery becomes difficult. To avoid these costs, contractor may takeout his injured person outside the premises from treatment and one will not find the injured again in the workplace. The reply usually given by the contractor will be that the person recovered and is working at some other site or that he went to his native place.

Now-a-days, many of the organizations have been certified for ISO/OHSAS and this requires ensuring safety of the persons in the organizations to whom we outsource or procure to meet our needs. With transparency being the buzzword, one should be more attentive because any incident is projected out of proportion, however small it is.

To ensure safety of contractor personnel working within / their own premises, organizations should have proper procedure for tendering, evaluation and selection of contractors who have, (i) well laid out policy for recruitment of manpower, (ii) regular training of man power, (iii) deployment of safety supervisor and (iv) defined  responsibility and accountability of all persons engaged. 

Organizations should have a designated person in every department / section, who should coordinate and obtain from all contractors working in their plant about (i)  number of persons engaged for each of the work with names, addresses, contact numbers, availability medical fitness certificates (ii) number of new persons brought in that day (iii) qualifications / experience (iv) tools brought to the specific workplace with relevant test certificates (v) issue of PPE to all persons (vi) facilities of the organization/department proposed to be used (vii) details of start and end date of the work, (viii) details of subcontractors, if any, etc.

Based on the above data, head of section/department should assess the need and ensure job specific training, safety measures to be taken, issue of specific PPE for work in different areas, availability of requisite safety permit and supervision for ensuring safety and issuing warning letters in case of violations. In case of work on machinery, material handling equipment, etc., he should ensure their safe working condition before allowing the contractor personnel for work.

Safety in-charge should obtain weekly/monthly reports about various outsourced activities, manpower engaged, permits issued and closed, etc. He should interact with concerned plant in-charges about safety issues specific to the workplace, reporting of incidents/occurrences and their investigation for corrective and preventive measures.

Following measures will be helpful in ensuring safety of contractor persons at workplace.

1.        Identification of jobs to be outsourced with job hazard analysis, safety measures to be taken, assessment of training requirements, supervision.
2.               Insertion of appropriate clauses in the tender and work order for penalties against violation of stated safety provisions. Though penalty clause is available, it is questionable on how many occasions this is used as one can find a number of violations every day. At the same time, when contractor appeals for cost escalation, the proposal is evaluated without considering the penalty amount to be recovered for stated violations. If a person is deployed specifically for safety supervision and recording the violations and issue notices for recovery, it will act as a deterrent and ensure safety at workplace.   
3.                Ensuring different colored uniform for persons engaged in outsourced activities for easier identification and monitoring.
4.          Ensuring contractor supervisor for every work undertaken by him in the site.
5.                   Valid medical fitness certificate for the job for all persons engaged, irrespective of the nature and duration of the work.
6.                   Maintaining register for outsourced works with details of contractor, number of persons engaged, availability of PPE, supervision, violations, etc.
7.                Records of pep talk and training with respect to the work, safety and emergency procedures.
8.                   Preparation of checklist based on job hazard analysis and safety work permit conditions for use by contractor.
9.                   Ensuring adequate insurance cover for the persons.
10.                   Compulsory medical examination of injured persons of the contractor after treatment.
11.                Maintaining first aid box by the contractor at the workplace.
12.                    Ensuring availability of sufficient clean drinking water at the workplace.
13.                    Ensuring change rooms for contractor workers with provisions for bathing.
14.                   Ensuring use of separate dress for persons engaged and their washing.
15.                   Display of warning signs, caution boards.
16.                  Checking of all permitted equipment, tools, etc by department persons before start of work every day for safe use by the contractor and maintaining the record with observations.
17.                   Display of safe operating instructions, safe operating procedures, do’s and don’ts in languages understood by the persons engaged for the work.
18.                   Prohibition of unauthorized use of facilities like water, electricity, forklifts, cranes, lifting tackles, weld sets, etc not covered in the work order.
19.                    Prohibition of use of fire hydrant water and garden water for any purpose other than intended.
20.                    Ensuring availability of proper access, use of tubular scaffolding, safety shoe, helmet, safety belt, anchoring provision, etc for civil works.

            In some organizations, all tender/work order proposals will be referred to safety department to study for assessing the safety measures taken by the proposer and advise necessary clauses for incorporation before release of tender / issue of work order. The main grouse of the contractors is that additional costs are imposed on them in the name of safety and this is due to improper documentation / clarity in the requirements stated in the tender document. To avoid this, plants are encouraged to send their draft proposals for tender for review and suggestion to insert appropriate safety clauses in the document before its release for enquiry. This results in proper cost estimates by contractors before quoting and enables provision and compliance for safety.  

Following are some of the general practices to be ensured/followed to reduce injuries/improve safety performance.

1. Plants should continuously put efforts to reduce outsourcing of activities by automation or other methods.
2. Plant in-charges shall ensure that only those outsourced activities as specified in the scope are executed with all safety provisions.
3. Work order should be cancelled for any work taken up beyond the scope of the work order.
4. Supervision by both department and contractor has to be ensured.
5.  Plant in-charge should be held responsible for initial and monthly training of the manpower engaged for outsourced activities.
6. Plant in-charge should ensure use of PPE like safety shoes, gloves, helmets, goggles, face shield, aprons, etc as required for the work, by the man power engaged in the outsourced activities, even if it is in the scope of the contractor.
7. For outsourced work, supervision from atleast shift in-charge should be ensured..
8. No outsourced work is permitted in night shifts.
9. No woman should be allowed to work on or near machinery in motion as per Factories Act.
10. Skills and qualifications for various categories of persons engaged during outsourcing should be specified.
11. Safety work permit should be taken before start of work by submitting, (i) job hazard analysis, (ii) valid medical fitness certificate, (iii) name/designation of the department person responsible for supervision and also for ensuring use of PPE. 

With the above, I am sure that safety of the contractor persons can be ensured.

Laughter - the medicine for a lean body and good health

In a regional news paper, it is reported that as per scientists, one can have lean body by whole hearted laugh.  Laughing 100 times a day, whole heartedly, is equivalent to cycling for 15 minutes, exercise for 10 minutes on rowing machine, etc. Laughter reduces stress causing hormone activity.
It is also reported that taking bath with cold water too gives same result as shivering with cold water bath is like an exercise burning some calories, increase in blood circulation.

Try the above with caution.

Toilet cleaning with acid - fumes affect students

In an incident reported, fumes from toilet cleaning with acid in a religious place affected students in the adjacent school causing hospitalization. Some students vomited while the teacher became unconscious.

Status on the persons cleaning the toilet is not known. 

It's my personal experience wherein acidic fumes during toilet cleaning cause severe lung congestion, respiratory problems, etc and we stopped using acid and instead we are using toilet cleaners that are mild and also have perfume smell. 

Further, frequent cleaning does not require application of more acid.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/andhra-pradesh/six-teachers-33-students-hospitalised-after-inhaling-acid-fumes/article4226807.ece

Internet addiction

Sometimes I feel that I waste lot of time in front of computer in searching for information which is not required immediately or any time. Like an aimless wanderer on the road, I keep surfing from one page to another page by using the links available and realize later that I spent more than one hour without gaining any thing.
There are people who keep on checking mails, posts, tweets, etc frequently and some persons even have provision for alerts though it may not be so urgent to read whatever is posted. This leads to stress affecting the health. It should not lead to compulsory obsessive disorder as we had life when all these were not available and heavens will not fall if we do not check the information so frequently. One should allot only limited time say half-an-hour or so per day to check these things and proceed with other issues to have peaceful life.
Once, we went on holiday tour to a place by going through a river for two hours and stayed in bamboo huts overnight, roamed around the area in day time and returned back. For more than 24 hours we were without any connectivity with outside world and it is an experience. The tour guide alone carried a satellite phone.

How can we reduce unsafe acts on the roads and avoid accidents?

It is common to see various unsafe acts by vehicle drivers on the roads, like, talking on mobile while driving, driving in the wrong direction, parking the vehicles on the roads at unauthorized places, overloading, jumping the signals, etc.  A large number of vehicles are parked on the roads, causing congestion. Taxis, etc are parked near bus stops to pickup prospective customers, leading to reduced road width for other commuters. This is because no proper space is left during construction of houses, shopping malls, theaters, etc to maximize returns for them while not bothering about safety for public on the roads.
These acts endanger the vehicle drivers as well as other vehicle drivers and pedestrians. And it is not possible for the traffic police to catch all of them at all times.
Common public should be encouraged to take photographs of such unsafe acts along with readable vehicle numbers and local government should create a website for uploading of such photos by public and ensure some responsible authority in the control room to verify, prepare and issue penalty notices.   Surely, local authorities can make a killing by collecting parking fee on the roads instead of their own buildings because of parking everywhere on the roads. Non-payment should result in attaching the vehicle and/or property of the offenders.
Only when such public participation is ensured, road safety for all can be a reality. Else, it will be difficult for anybody to control and avoid accidents on the road.

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.