Chapter 1: The Concept of Safety PDF

CHAPTER – 1 THE CONCEPT OF SAFETY  The concept of safety can well be conceived by understanding the struggle of Dead Vs. Live resources, Health Vs. Wealth and Industrialization Vs. Accidents.  1. DEAD Vs. LIVE RESOURCES All elements, compounds, minerals, metals, non-metals and all materi...

CHAPTER – 1 THE CONCEPT OF SAFETY  The concept of safety can well be conceived by understanding the struggle of Dead Vs. Live resources, Health Vs. Wealth and Industrialization Vs. Accidents.  1. DEAD Vs. LIVE RESOURCES All elements, compounds, minerals, metals, non-metals and all material things that are not alive, are called Dead Resources. All living creature including human being are live Resources. All dead resources are invented, produced and used by the live resources. If there is no live resources, there is no important of any dead resource. Out of dead and live resource, which is more important? Out of man and machine who is more important, machine or its creator a man? We are also worried that hazards are being shipped overseas. Dangerous raw materials and discarded plants of developed countries-because safety and health conditions are laxer here? These dangerous dead resources are causing threats to the live resources that have to run these plants. Now days the importance of human resource is increasing worldwide. That is why we found Human Resource (HR) Department in industries. The basic object of HRD is to pay more attention and Fundamentals of Industrial Safety and Health 1- 2 The concept of Safety refine human resources. These human or live resources can be developed (refined) only when they are protected from the dangers of dead resources. This protection is nothing but the Concept of Safety  2. HEALTH Vs WEALTH The most important live resource is a man. If we concentrate on this man what is more important? His Health or Wealth? The simple reply is both because men want both. But the well-known maxims like health is wealth, sound mind in a sound body  3. INDUSTRIALIZATION Vs ACCIDENTS Industrialization has been defined as 'the process of change in the mode of production to utilize more capital per unit of output, higher levels of technology and management, widening markets with cost economics scale and specialized location of plant, type of plant and labor skills'. Side effects of such industrialization are to increase accidents, occupational diseases, polluted environment, unsafe working conditions and rapid urbanization resulting in road accidents and vehicular pollution.  4. DERIVATION OF THE CONCEPT OF SAFETY Thus from the above discussion of struggles of – 1. Dead Vs. Live resources, 2. Health Vs. Wealth and 3. Industrialization Vs. Accidents, and from the reply of following questions: 1. What are more important? Dead or Jive resources? A machine or its creator? A material or its user? Money or its beneficiary? 2. Should people die or meet with accidents in a race for wealth? 3. Should hazards and risks be ever increased with the growth of industries? People want both-dead and live resources, health and wealth and industrialization and employment - but nobody wants accidents. This becomes possible if and only if the concept of safety is understood and followed. Fundamentals of Industrial Safety and Health 1- 29 The concept of Safety To maintain safety of people and to follow safe work practices in safe working conditions is the only way to prevent and control the hazards of environment (including industry). Therefore it is most important to realize, study and apply the concept of safety in every walk of life, particularly in industries.  3 -SAFETY TERMINOLOGY 3.1 Accident: An accident is an unplanned event that interrupts the completion of an activity and that may (or may not) cause damage to person, property or environment. industrial occupational accident is also define a san undesirable event that result in a certain length of disability and stoppage of work and time issue to effect of a product on- re ate dangerous factor or a com nation of such factors. 3.2 Accident Prevent on :Accident prevention requires five steps organization, fact-finding analysis if the facts found, selection of remedy and application of the remedy. Sixth step of monitoring should be considered. It includes measurement of result, assessment i.e. comparing with legal criteria or standard, feedback and further improvement if necessary 3.3 Code of Practice: It is a document offering practical guidance on the policy, standard-setting and practice in occupational and general public safety and health for use by governments, employers and workers in Fundamentals of Industrial Safety and Health 3.4 Philosophy of Safety order to promote safety and health at the national level and at the level of the installation. A code of practice is not necessarily a substitute for existing national legislation, regulations and safety standards. 3.5 Danger: It expresses degree of exposure to a hazard. By taking suitable precautions, the danger is reduced. Machine guarding or safety device reduces the danger of a particular hazard. 3.6 Emergency: Emergency could be defined as any situation, which presents a threat to safety of person or/and property. It may require outside help also. 3.7 Emergency Services: Emergency services mean external bodies which are available to handle major accidents and their consequences both on-site and off-site, e.g. fire authorities, police, health services etc. 3.8 Evacuation: It means to move all people from a threatened area to a safer area. It is required as a function of Onsite or Offsite Emergency Plan. 3.9 Hazards: Hazard means existing unsafe condition or action or situation or event or their combination which has potential to cause accident. Thus hazard can become a cause of accident or risk and it can exist without accident or risk. When due to hazard, accident happens, it is converted into accident. If hazard still exists, accident may happen again, viz. flammable atmosphere. Hazard is defined as, 'any event with the potential to cause harm, ill health, injury, damage to property, plant, products or the environment, production losses or increased liabilities 3.10 Hazards Analysis: HAZAN (Hazard Analysis). It means identification of undesired events, which lead to the materialization of a hazard, analysis of the mechanism by which such.undesired events could occur, and estimation of the extent, magnitude and likelihood of any harmful effects or consequences. 3.11 Hazard Assessment and Survey: Hazard assessment is an evaluation of the results of a hazard analysis including judgments as to their acceptability and, as a guide, comparison with relevant codes, standards, laws and policies. Hazard survey means the total efforts involved in an assessment of the hazards from installations and their means of control. 3.12 Incident: it may result in accident or a near miss. Incident for accident is defined as, 'an unplanned event or series of events that has or could have, caused injury to people and / or damage to assets and / or damage to the environment and / or loss of reputation. 3.13 Injury: Injury is physical harm or damage to the body resulting from an exchange of (usually acute, mechanical, chemical, thermal or other environmental) energy that exceeds the body's tolerance. 3.14 Near miss: It means any unplanned, sudden event that could have caused injury to man, materials (plant) or environment or could have involved a loss of containment possibly giving rise to adverse effect but not resulted in such accident. 3.15 Negligence: It means failure to exercise a reasonable amount of care or to carry out a legal duty so that injury or property damage occurs. 3.16 Occupational Health: It includes all aspects of a worker's health and his/her relationship with the environment. 3.17 Off-site emergency plan: It deals with measures to prevent and control emergencies affecting public and 3.69 On-site emergency plan: It deals with measures to prevent and control emergencies affecting workers and others within the factory and not affecting outside public or environment. 3.75 Risks: Risk is the combination of a probability of occurrence and its severity of consequence. Thus R= P x S. 3.77 Risk Assessment: It is the quantitative evaluation of the likelihood of undesired events and their consequences being caused together and a value judgement concerning the significance of the results after comparing with set, legal or accepted values or standards. 3.80 Safety: In general terms, safety means freedom or protection from harm, danger, hazard, risk, accident, injury or damage. In an.industrial context, it means the minimization o f contact between human and hazard and is predominantly concerned with the prevention of physical harm (injury) to persons or/ and property. Industrial safety is that condition of enterprise operations in which, by controlling hazards and risks, accident free production is achieved. Safety is defined as a positive, organized activity or program based on knowledge of the reaction between man and his working environment, which aids business enterprise by minimizing death, losses caused by injuries, health impairment, fires, explosion and other occupational accidents. CHAPTER – 2 ACCIDENT CAUSATION AND PREVENTION 1. CAUSATION OR OCCURRENCE? The term Accident Causation is preferred against 'Accident Occurrence' because of the safety philosophy that 'Accidents do not occur, they are caused'. The word 'causation' points out 'our responsibility' to find out cause and preventive measures to remove real reasons causing that accident. 2 THE ACCIDENT PROBLEM The zero accident goal is an ideal goal, and one must try to achieve it by using all safety philosophy and technology. In reality, an industry and accidents are co- related and each industry is facing the accident problem, the nature, number and size may differ. Nature and Size of the Problem: It is this accident problem at the root which has generated the need of safety. Deaths, injuries and suffering are its direct results. Compensation, production-loss, time-loss and various costs-losses are indirect results. The injured worker, his family, factory and the nation, all are the sufferers. Accidents not resulting in human injuries, but resulting in property damage or money-loss are also accountable and undesired. Therefore accident is always undesirable. That is why the accident problem has attracted attention worldwide. The size (severity) of this accident problem can be judged from the (1) Cost of the accidents and (2) Statistics of accidents which are explained in Chapter5 to discuss its various aspects. 3. NEED FOR SAFETY 1. Industries are increasing to fulfil basic human needs food, clothing, home, employment or earning and requirements of goods, services and facilities. This brings industrial hazards of various types viz. mechanical, electrical, noise, vibration, chemical (fire, explosion, radiation, gas, dust, fumes, poisoning etc.) and many visible or invisible health hazards. It is the basic need to protect the human life and environment from all such hazards. Only safety can do it. 2. Direct and indirect costs of accidents are tremendously increasing and causing the great national loss. This can be prevented by safety (see Part 4, Chapter - 5). 3. Workers are our national wealth. We cannot afford to lose them. Fatal accidents must be minimized to prevent this fatal loss. 4. Deaths and injuries extend suffering to the families and society also. This must be prevented or curtailed by safety. 5. Social loss in the form of pain, loss of earning capacity, loss of life or limb, ill- effects to health, diseases, increase of handicapped persons, increase of court cases and emotional losses due to accidents must be reduced by safe conditions, safe practices-and training for them. 6. Productivity is linked with safely. Increasing and maintaining safety gives good productivity. 7. Humanitarian, legal, social and economic reasons for accident prevention are also true for the need of safety. 4. REASONS FOR ACCIDENT PREVENTION Five main reasons for accident prevention are stated below and shown in Fig. 4.1 4.1 Humanitarian or Basic Need for Safety: Employers should protect their workers by providing good working conditions, safety equipment and training. To minimize deaths and injuries, pain and social suffering is the basic need for accident prevention. For any industrial activity five 'M's are required Manpower, Money, Material (includes machinery), Management, and Market Out of these, only manpower is a live element and others are dead, functional and operated by men. All other factors are for men only. Management and market cannot function without men. Money and material cannot flow without men. Machinery cannot be designed, operated and maintained without men. Thus 'man' is predominant and most important factor in all industrial activities. Prevention of accident to 'man' is. 'therefore most essential. It is humanitarian. 4.2 Economic or Costs of Accidents: There are three agencies that suffer economic losses due to accidents: 1 Worker and his family. 2 Management. 3 Society and nation. Worker & his family suffer economic losses clue to loss of life or limb, loss of earning capacity and extra expenses viz. medical, nutrition, transport etc. Emotional and mental suffering is extra loss. Management sustains money loss due to direct (insured) and indirect (uninsured) costs of accidents (For details see Part 4 of Chapter-5). The above costs added together give the total cost to the organisation. The top management should consider cost benefit analysis and adopt cost effective safety measures to reduce such costs, pain and suffering. Prevention or reduction in accident cost is direct benefit to the company. Investment for safety should be considered always necessary. 4.3 Social: Society is benefited by help from the men and goods, services and production from the men. Injury or death of a worker is not an individual loss but directly and indirectly it is a loss to the society also because a man does not live in isolation. 4.4 Legal: Legal reasons for accident prevention are due to laws framed by the Government. The inspector has power to issue an order to require safety measures before a specified date or to prohibit to run the factory till the compliance is carried out. Thus legal reason for accident prevention is strictly set out for the employers, and is supported by the Courts' judgements. In democracy, everybody suppose to know and follow the law. of the land. 4.5 Productivity: Safety increases productivity, needs to be understood. Productivity requires elimination of loss in all forms viz. losses of men, materials, machine, manufacturing process, products, money, time etc. The employers must recognize this fact and must invest sufficient money for accident prevention and reduction programmed, which will save money, time and injury losses due to accidents and increase their productivity and profit. Thus safety and productivity are equally important and help each other. However in practice, many times production people consider safety as an obstruction or brake to their work and require workers to go ahead by any means to meet production target. Such attitude may result in accident which will retard productivity 5. FACTORS IMPEDING SAFETY The factors impeding i.e. retarding or injuring safety are those factors, which go against the efforts for safety. It is necessary to identify such negative factors (as they cause hazards) and to remove them for the purpose of safety. 5.1 At the Management Level: 1. Passive interest in safety by the management. No safety policy. 2. Compromising with safety for production. 3. Poor maintenance of machines and equipment. 4. Poor working conditions or not providing proper lighting and ventilation, safety guards, devices and equipment. 5. Ageing or corrosion of the machines, plant and buildings. 6. Improper location and layout of plant, building, machinery and equipment. 7. Improper design or selection of tools, machines, materials, vessels, equipment and products. 8. Improper methods, procedures or use. of raw materials, machines, equipment etc. in storage and manufacturing process. 9. Lack of inspection, supervision and training for safely. 10. Absence of safety organisation for proper and continuous attention on safety. 11. Lack of awareness and insistence for safety. 12. Improper selection or placement of men, machines, methods, tools, equipment 13. Lack of motivation and participation for safety. 14. Poor infrastructure of the organisation. 15. Poor financial condition of the organisation or not providing sufficient safety budget. 16. No written rules for job description, procedure and safe production. 17. Lack of safety aspects in accident prevention. 18. Frequent changes in shifts, working hours and calling workers for overtime work or on holiday 5.2 At the Workers Level: 1. Passive interest in safety by workers. No or less participation in safety programmes including safety committee. 2. Insufficient knowledge, qualification and training for the job. 3. Reluctant to use PPE and other safety equipment. 4. Not maintaining the machine guards, safety devices, equipment etc. 5. Misuse of guards, safety devices, protective equipment etc. 6. Indiscipline, laziness, disobedience for safety rules for whatsoever reasons. 7. Non co-operation to the management to carry out regular as well as emergency safety duty for safe close down or safe running of the plant and processes to avoid accidents. 8. Guided by personal (psychological) factors causing unsafe actions. 9. Poor socio-economic status, financial hardship, family problems, worries, tensions 10. Improper attention or judgement on the matters of safety. 5.3 At the Government Level: 1. Not enacting or amending requisite safety laws and poor or non-implementation of the enacted safety laws. 2. Poor or no incentives, awards, rewards, programmes, subsidy, rebates, text benefits and encouragement to employers and employees for their safety efforts. 6. BASIC TERMS IN ACCIDENT PREVENTION 6.1 Incident: For accident phenomenon, it indicates event that results in accident. 6.2 Accident: It is an undesired-or unintentional event that results in physical harm to a person or damage to property or environment. It is usually the result of a contact with a source of energy (mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, etc) above the threshold limit of the body or structure. 6.3 Injury: To injure means 'to hurt' and an injury means 'a harm'. In legal terms injury may be to a person or property or both and compensation (damages) can be awarded to the injured person for the loss he has suffered and may continue to suffer. An injury could be psychological also and not necessarily a physical condition resulting from a mechanical, electrical, chemical or radiological accident. 8. PRINCIPLES OF ACCIDENT PREVENTION 8.1 Types of Accidents: Based on severity of injury, accidents are major, minor or near miss type 1. Injury and property damage (major). 2. Injury and not property damage (major or minor). 3. Properly damage and not injury (major or minor). 4. No property damage and no injury (near miss). 8.2 Fundamentals of Accident Prevention: The word 'control' includes prevention as well as correction of unsafe conditions and actions. Prevention is the first or initial part of 'control' which if practised, subsequent control for consequence or effect may not be needed. The accident-prevention task requires both, the short term approach (direct control of personal performance and environment) and the long-tern approach of instruction, training and education. This task must be performed before an accident and injury occur. Subsequent efforts after accidents are also necessary  Five basic or fundamental steps for accident prevention (safe and efficient production), suggested by H.W. Heinrich, are: 1. Organization. 2. Fact finding. 3. Analysis of the facts found 4. Selection of remedy and 5. Application of the remedy  8.4 Five 'E's of Accident Prevention Safety or accident prevention can be achieved by the following five methods: 1. Education & Training (To prevent unsafe acts) This has long-term and permanent effect. This is the most powerful remedy for unsafe act of the workers. It helps in finding out unsafe conditions also. The workers' safety training programmes should include (a) Understanding of specific hazards of then plant, process, building etc. (b) Safety rules and safe procedures (c) Training for specialised or difficult job (d) Job safety analysis and (c) Safety instructions for variety of jobs. 2. Engineering controls (to prevent unsafe conditions) Poor illumination and ventilation, unguarded machinery, mechanical, electrical, physical and chemical hazards, dangerous location or situation etc., are unsafe conditions which can be eliminated in the design stage or subsequent engineering revision and controls. This is the first and most effective remedy. Some engineering controls are- substitution of less hazardous material, machine, method, process, vessel etc., risk reduction, process modification, isolation, segregation, guarding, fencing, barricading, enclosure, dilution, safe design; failsafe device and safety devices including alarms, trips, safety valve, NRV, PRV, EFV, FFE, etc. 3. Enforcement (of safety rules) All statutory safety provisions should be followed for our own safety and safely of others. Self initiation for full compliance is necessary, otherwise government authorities may take action. In addition, other safety rules for our plant should also be framed and followed. Willful neglect or disobey of safety rules or orders should be dealt with strictly. Enforcement measures include - new law, amendment in old law, company safety rules, implementation and legal action. 4. Enthusiasm (to maintain interest) Like a catalyst it adds to safety awareness and motivation. It should come from the top management to the lowest worker. It will keep the workers safety conscious. It can be developed and maintained by proper safety attitude, competition, prizes, awards, publicity, incentives etc. This includes motivation and participation in safety programmes. 5. Example setting (to lead for safety) The top executives, managers and supervisors should set an example to others by the self enforcement of safety rules. Then others will follow them. This is a chain