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Mr CEO Is your work place safe?

A CALL IN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITYRotary Club of Akurdi

22nd May 201120 slides/20 minutes

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How would you rate the safety system followed in your company?• Excellent• Good• Average• Fair• Poor• No answer

• 20.5%• 51.8%• 19.6%• 5.6%• 1.9%• 0.5% (round off error)By their own admission >50% felt that they are not excellent but they

felt they are successful by their own yard sticks

Ref: On the practice of safety- Fred A Manuele 2000

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How strange !!!

• We want our • Financial Performance to be excellent• Customer satisfaction to be excellent• Market share to be excellent• Growth to be excellent• Product quality to be excellent• BUT WE WANT SAFETY ONLY TO BE

GOOD AND WE ARE NOT UNHAPPY !!

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Should we be satisfied?

• Anything less than excellent will not do and only 20% felt that they are excellent.

• We want “superior” performance in safety and not even “successful” performance will do.

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Disturbing statistics

• Construction has become the most dangerous land based industry now. Builders to note.(Fishing remains the most dangerous off shore.)

• 1225 fatalities in US /year• 13/100,000 is the rate of non fatal injuries

in a year. (not very different in EU) • Illness 7% in workers in Europe• Mediclaims mounting every where.

2001 statistics

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Study on safety Practices in construction sites in India

• Mangers in the survey told that 58% of accidents are due to workers.

• Yet they agreed that – 30% of sites only had a safety department.– 25% of sites project managers attend the safety

meetings.(65% of sites workers attend the meetings)– In 95% of sites undue pressures on schedule exist.– Only 7% of sites had a Doctor.– 6% of sites gave awards for safety performance.– Only 60% of sites gave protective gear to workers.

Ref: Sanddakumar and E Arumugam Benchmarking studies on safety management

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Some world class figures on safety

• 2.26 man hours lost out of 2,00,000 man hours-Factory in USA

• 0.04 day lost in a year- Intel factory.• A textile factory- lost man day- 1 since 1992.• Field crest Cannon cut musco skeletal injuries

from 121 in 1993 to 21 in 1996.• Perdue Farms -No lost hour since 1996.• A manufacturer with 600 employees has lower

than average injuries for the last 15 years.

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What is the role of management?

• We will achieve the level of safety that we “demonstrate” in our approach because safety is “culture” driven.

• People do what management “does”.

• If they see management is keen, • they do respond.

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Role of management is significant

• Dr Deming said that 85% of Quality problems are in the purview of management and 15% in the purview of workers. He called these as chance causes and assignable causes. This revelation led to tremendous improvements in Quality.

• This applies to safety also.• System improvements is safety are in the area

of responsibility of management.

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Is that culture getting built?

• Stringent “result orientation” in the mind –only paisa at the end of the day.

• Lack of appreciation of ergonomics.- people need to adjust to machines not the other way.

• Health of worker ignored by all. • Last but not the least “Insurance” oriented

thinking.

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Why mangers ignore safety?

• In 1930s, One Heinrich (working in an Insurance company) after studying the accident claims data, declared that 88% of accidents are due to “unsafe acts” by workers.

• This questionable conclusion led to undue focus on workers, their behaviour, their way of thinking, working and even their parentage .

• This in one stroke has stopped the progress and a systemic approach to safety did not evolve.

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Myths and facts• Single cause-

Worker is the cause of accident.

• Risk is pertaining to an Occupation and is constant.

• Reform the employee

• Prevent “unsafe acts”

• Multiple causes are responsible for accidents.

• Risk is in pertaining to an activity and varies every minute depending upon activity and place.

• Reform the system• Prevent “Error

Provoking” situations

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Case 1-Forklift accident• A semi trailer arrived at the factory to unload a

large quantity of electronic components. The semi trailer’s access to a loading ramp was blocked by a number of large storage racks. each 1.3 m high and weighing 400 Kg. Five were stacked one on another. (Oral procedure did not permit more than 3 stacks.) Supervisor asked a worker to remove the stacks with a forklift truck. Forklift operator picked up the racks and started moving. The stack touched a electric cable 5m high. Top rack fell on the forklift truck causing immediate death of the worker.

• Accident reported as due to unsafe act by the worker and file closed.

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Investigations revealed….

• Overhead protection in forklift truck absent.• The operator was not a “trained “ person.• Supervisor asked him because ”he was there”.• No route was advised. Just told to “move”• The stacks were 5 high and not 3 high as per

procedure but no action was taken.• The stacks were blocking the ramp for days but

crisis was created when trailer arrived.• Which of these was unsafe act by the worker?

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Case 2-Conveyor Belt accident

• A production conveyor was used to deliver parts to a machine. The design of the conveyor was such that the parts fell down if the parts accumulate which happened very often. Since the operator was answerable for Quantity every hour, she used to go below the belt to retrieve the parts every time the parts accumulated. One day her hair got caught and she was severely injured.

• Report filed as “unsafe act” by the worker and file closed.

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Learnings from investigation

• Design of the conveyor was never validated for actual use.

• Part accumulation happened due to line balancing issues.

• Supervisor knew this but kept pressurising her for numbers.

• No guard was provided to prevent entry of operator below the belt. Nor was she prevented from doing this earlier.

• Which of these was “Unsafe act” by the worker?

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Learnings from the case

• Causal factors were identifiable by management much before the incident.

• Causes related to high risks were accepted by the management as OK.

• Causes were related to work systems and not only to workers.

• Workers were “provoked” into committing an error.

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Safety is a larger issue than a discipline problem

• Managers please ask yourselves• DID I PROVOKE MY WORKER TO

COMMIT AN UNSAFE ACT TODAY?• Then the error provoking decision and

error provoking situation is as much an unsafe act like that of the worker.

• Manager is as much responsible, if not more for the incidents in such cases.

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What are Error Provoking situations • Does it violate the normal expectations of a

skilled worker?• Does it require performance beyond what is

reasonable?• Does it induce early fatigue?• Is it dangerous to some one’s life?• Is the worker getting into it with no information

as to how to come out of it?• Does it deny any basic facility for example to

have fresh air? (chemical tank cleaning work)• If answer is yes to any one of the above then

you have an error provoking situation on hand.

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Human being

Put the person in centre and error provoking factors around

Work Place

Equipment

Communication

Task standards

Work DesignPolicies

Risk

LOWER THE RISK BETTER

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Thinking has to change

• Legal mentality– “If ammonia leaks and

a person is killed how much should I pay?” –actual statement of a manager supplying refrigeration systems

• Human mentality

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Thinking has to change

• Accident as a goal– “we did not have any

accident in the last 200 days”- Notice in front of a company which is 225th in Fortune 500 companies.

• Risk as the goal– Make the risk

reduction as the goal not accident reduction.

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Thinking has to change

• Safety manager is responsible for safety– “If we have accident,

what is safety manager is doing?”

• Take the ownership treat the factory as if it is your house.

• You own the place . You own the risks.

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Thinking has to change

• Life is having different value for different peopl

• Life is precious irrespective of whether he is a chairman or a cleaner.

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Questionnaire

• Please answer the Questionnaire given to you individually.

• Time 10 minutes• Please score the sheet and retain with

you. That is the baseline as we start today.• We may discuss one on one separately

about the issues, if any.

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Results of Quiz

• Score:• Yes 1 No 0. do not know minus 1 • >16 World class in your reach• >12 <16 Well on your way to excellence• <12 Start now and you can be there!!

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Discussions

• Let us discuss the scores of the Questionnaire

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OHSAS says-Reduce “Risks”

• Risk is a combination of likelihood and consequences of a specified hazardous event occuring in a defined work area.

• To reduce the risks to an acceptable level– Take the ownership of the workplace and

make it less and less risk prone.– Eliminate “error provoking” situations.

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OHSAS is about reduction of risks

• Let us make the work place risk free by – OHSAS Policy and Objectives– Assigning Roles and Responsibilities– Competency development and training– Hazards identification and Risk assessment– Communication with interested parties– Performance Monitoring– OHS Management Programmes– Internal Audits and Management Reviews

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Central idea is –Hazards identification

• Hazard is a source or a situation which has potential to harm in terms of injury or ill health.

• Potential Hazards exist in all activities.• Eliminating them is our goal.

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Techniques prevalent for risks assessment

• Critical incident recall technique• Task based risk assessments• Safety sampling• “what if” reviews (with new capital equipment)• Preliminary Hazard Analysis (Aerospace)• Unwanted energy concept (Dr William Haddon)• Event trees• Fault trees

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Most popular is HIRA Table

• Activity wise hazard identification.• Collates routine activities and non routine

activities.• Takes into permanent and temp employee

being present.• Projects risk in each case with severity

and occurrence.

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Sr No

Activity Material

Chemical

Machines

Other

Equip.

Type Of

People

Potential hazardous event

Ph

Ps

Ch El F/

E To

  Direct Activities for Drilling                      

1

setting of jigs/fixture,tools     X   T X          

2

loading of comp. X   X   T X          

3

operating the m/c X   X   T X     X    

4

unloading the comp. X   X   T X          

5Removal of Burr with brush X   X

Brush T X          

6File off the burr created on job. X     File T X          

7Deliver the finished component on operator workstation for assembly. X       T X          

Example

2. Sources of hazard

1. Activity seen

3. Potential hazardous event

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Evaluate Potential Hazardous events in terms of risks

• Severity of hazardous event. • Probability of this situation being present in

shop.• Duration, if relevant • Scale to know whether the situation will spread

to other areas• Risk= Severity*Probability*weightage for

duration • High Scaling possibility makes it emergency

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HIRA delivers risks

• Risks perceived can be prioritised as per the number.

• The “acceptable” level is defined for a work place.

• The controls are initiated for “unacceptable” risks.

• These controls are a) Process change b) Worker upgradation c) Operations redesign d) PPE issue e) Poka Yoke

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Sustaining the OHSAS

• Every week , check whether the controls are in place. Workers/staff can do this checking in absolutely random way. The decision is displayed in the chart and is totally visible.

OK Risks are under control

Not OK Risks are not under control

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PPE is a part of control rigour

• PPE should be specified correctly.• PPE should be inspected in incoming

stage and tested, if needed.• It should be calibrated/validated after a

specified frequency.• It should be replaced immediately after its

specified life.

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Tracking the total picture

• Consecutive 3 reds make the workplace a chronic unsafe place. Owner of the workplace is exposed to risks.

• Plant Head should take a target of reducing % reds in the factory and in offices.

• Plant Head should also take target of reduction in tolerable risk itself.

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Audits

• 2 rounds of Internal audits planned after a thorough implementation.

• Certification, though optional, is planned at the end of six months.

• It is also expected to help TBEM application score next year.

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References

• Construction Health and safety training Manual-e book on www. scribd.com

• Construction site –safety roles- T Michael Toole• On the practice of safety- Fred A Manuele• Paper on benchmarking practices Sandakumar• Paper on Safety management in Hongkong

Syed Ahmed• www.ohsa.org• www.bcsp.org