Industrial Safety and Hygiene

• Industrial safety and hygiene are important areas of study within the field of engineering.
• Risk factors concern security conditions.

Industrial Safety

• Industrial Safety is a discipline focused on identifying occupational hazards, specifically those not of an environmental nature.
• It involves evaluating these hazards and establishing controls to prevent accidents and material damages in the workplace.
• Industrial safety encompasses areas like mechanical, electrical, and workplace hazards, confined spaces, and working at heights.

Industrial hygiene

• It is applied science dedicated to identifying, evaluating, and controlling environmental agents that can cause occupational diseases
• It operates on the physical environment surrounding workers to ensure safe conditions for safety, protecting them from environmental elements.

Branches of Industrial Hygiene

• Hygiene is categorized into theoretical, field, analytical, and operational branches.
• Theoretical hygiene studies contaminants and their effects on humans, establishes concentration standards in workplace environments.
• Field hygiene involves studying and recognizing the work environment, identifying and evaluating hygienic risks, and their potential causes.
• Analytical hygiene focuses on investigating and analyzing contaminants in the work environment and assessing hygienic risks
• Operational hygiene controls identified risks, proposes corrective measures to minimize or eliminate those risks.

Regulations

• Resolution 2400 of 1979 outlines provisions for housing, hygiene, and industrial safety in workplaces
• Law 9 of 1979 addresses health measures.
• Resolution 1401 of 2007 regulates the investigation of workplace accidents.
• Resolution 2346 of 2007 governs medical evaluations to examine workers, monitor risk factor exposure, including physical exams and lab tests.
• Resolution 4272 of 2021 sets minimum safety requirements for working at heights.
• Resolution 1409 of 2012 and Resolution 0312 of 2019 define minimum standards for the Occupational Safety and Health Management System.
• Decree 1072 of 2015 unifies regulations, mandating implementation of the SG-SST system for all companies, regardless of their risk level.
• Failure to comply with these regulations may result in penalties.

Risk Management

• Employers are obligated to protect workers' safety and health in accordance with existing regulations, including measures for hazard identification, risk assessment, and control implementation.
• Employers must apply a systematic methodology applicable to all processes, activities, workplaces, etc.
• The methodology aims to identify hazards, assess risks to prioritize and establish necessary controls, and conduct environmental measurements when needed.
• The IPER methodology involves mapping hazards, evaluating risks, valuing risks and action determination, hierarchy of controls and implementation and control results.

Methodologies

• The Colombian Technical Guide GTC 45 provides guidelines for identifying hazards and assessing risks in safety and health at work.
• Organizations can adapt these guidelines to their needs, considering their nature, scope, activities, and available resources.
• The process involves collecting information, classifying processes and activities, identifying hazards and controls, evaluating risks, and creating action plans.
• It then assesses risk acceptability, creates risk control action plans, reviews plan suitability, maintains and updates documents.

Hazard Table

• Hazards are categorized as biological, physical, chemical, psychosocial, biomechanical and safety conditions.
• Biological hazards include viruses, bacteria, and fungi.
• Physical hazards include noise, lighting, vibration, temperature extremes, pressure, and radiation.
• Chemical hazards include dust, fibers, liquids, gases, and fumes.
• Psychosocial factors include organizational management and job characteristics.
• Biomechanical factors include posture, effort, and repetitive movement.
• Safety conditions can be mechanical, electrical, locative, technological, public, etc.

Locative hazards

• A locative hazard is from a permanent condition that lasts the whole work day with either negative or positive characteristics and is a major cause of accidents at work
• It includes conditions regarding order and cleanliness, signaling deficiencies, inadequate fire extinguisher placement, and the condition of floors, platforms, doors, roofs, windows, paths, and walkways.
• Classification of locative hazards considers factors like structure and layout, space distribution, roofs, machine/equipment distribution, stairs, internal circulation areas and facilities

Electrical Hazards

• Electrical hazards involve the probability of suffering electric shock, electrocution, burns, or other injuries due to direct or indirect contact with electrical installations.
• Work involving electricity includes tasks working with systems that are on/off tension, and tasks that include tests, calibrations and are preformed near electrical systems that poses a risk during fire and explosions.
• Immediate accidents cause organic lesions, while mediate accidents lead to other types of incidents

Types of Electrical Contact

Contact is separated into direct, indirect, disruptive, inductive and capacitive

Mechanical hazards

• Mechanical hazards involve set of elements that may result in contact that causes risk or injury by means of moving parts, pieces of elements, fluids, and machines.
• Mechanical risk may produce injury that includes, cuts, collision, contusions, crushing, and burns

General Machine Risks

• General machine risks include rotating and linear movement.
• Rotating movement occurs when the equipment’s operator does not follow a trajectory but rotates on its axis
• General machine risks also include:
  • Trapping from mechanisms
  • electric shock
  • poor body posture
  • inhaling contaminants
  • falls
  • burns
  • physical risks (noise, vibration, radiation)

Generator risks

• Machines and tools are the generators of most risks on a worksite
• Machines are built with an integrated set of parts that work to transform energy into movement and or work
• Components commonly involved in safety risks include:
  • interchangeable equipment
  • safety equipment
  • lifting implements
  • chains- cabled and harnesses
  • removable devices