What is World Class Safety?

It is going well above the minimum OSHA standards, many of which were written over 30 years ago.  Don't even think about becoming best of the best if they use minimum standards or if you are still struggling just to be compliant with those standards.  One of the most important factors in creating a world-class safety culture is for the leadership to embrace the idea that good safety is good business.  Leadership is critical when transforming your safety program from good to best.

It generally takes somewhere between 3 - 5 years to get your Safety Management System integrated into the day to day operations to become a way of business

Creating and maintaining a world-class safety management program differs only slightly from other organized approaches to business management. It's just a lot tougher. A common denominator of successful companies, whatever the business, is that they have an organized approach to management.  Safety management should be treated no differently. Too often a company's safety program amounts to doing the minimum prescribed by Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines.

 

According to the National Safety Council, five characteristics help determine whether a safety management system is “world class”:

1. Leadership – The management of an organization must lead by example to help drive employee engagement.
2. Integrated systems approach – Integrating safety processes into all business functions and structures can result in safety becoming embedded in how an organization does business.
3. Performance measurement – Both leading and lagging indicators must be used to promote and monitor continuous improvement of the management system.
4. Alignment to core organizational initiatives – Through visioning, strategic planning and budgeting, safety can become aligned with all other objectives, strategies and values in an organization.
5. Corporate citizenship and off-the-job safety – Through initiatives, world- class organizations extend their safety efforts to both the community and employees outside of work. 
6. Safety Leadership is a vital component of any Safety program but is a vital component if you're considering taking on the challenge of a Safety Management System. We can help you with Safety Leadership to help drive the Safety Culture Change

Where to start

Generally, the first step in establishing a world-class safety program is to recognize the need to improve the current process.  A company needs to determine and admit to its weaknesses.

Safety begins, and ends, with people, People make up the business and if you don't have good people, or if people are getting injured all the time, you don't stay in business very long.

As an organization, you need to develop a mindset that all employees are involved in safety and everyone is accountable for safety.  It must be line driven. "There are no exceptions,"

An on-the-job injury that results in the loss of time has the same impact on a business as a machine breakdown. Following the OSHA format of tracking recordable injuries or illness, is like measuring failure. It's counting something after the fact. A world-class safety program has to be able to head-off injury.

 

Integrated Safety & Health Management (ISHM)

Leadership is the ability of a single individual, through their actions to motivate others to higher levels of achievement ~ author unknown

Choose your safety team wisely.  Team members need to be able to have a "passion for safety" in order to "motivate" all employees!  Set high safety standards, and track safety leading indicators (safety inspections, attendance at training, safety activities).  Motivate employees to bring the safety solutions!

Safety & Health Management System must be integrated to your daily operations to be successful

It has been well established that an effective safety and health program is the best way to reduce workplace injuries.  Employers, managers, and supervisors are responsible for workers' safety, yet sometimes have little training on safety-related concepts and techniques. They may benefit from specific training that allows them to fulfill their leadership roles in the program. All workers are trained to understand how the program works and how to carry out their responsibilities assigned to them under the program. 

The elements of an effective program should include the following:

•The Main Elements must be Integrated into your daily operations

–Management Leadership

–Worker Participation

–Hazard identification and assessment

–Hazard Prevention and control

–Education and training

–Program evaluation and improvement

–Communication and coordination Host employers, contractors, staffing agencies

Author: Deborah Grow, Safety Specialist

Private Safety Consultant, assistant Damon Fall Protection and Coordinator EHS Network ~ Kansas.   Extensive safety experience in General Industry, Construction, D.O.T. Compliance, and OSHA consultation project.  Contact Deborah if you would like to schedule a consultation

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Abrasive Grinder - Ring Test

OSHA 1910.215 (c)(d)(1)

Abrasive Wheel

Ring Test

Why take the time?

Much can happen to an abrasive wheel between the factory and you.

If there is an unseen crack, the wheel can explode with no warning.

It only takes seconds to do the ring test.

  Imagine a wheel exploding at these speeds:

A 10 inch wheel spins at around 1700 rpm.

The smaller bench wheel at 3400 rpm.

To test a larger wheel, put a wooden dowel in a bench vice. The dowel should be smaller the center hole on the wheel. Place the wheel on the dowel. With the plastic handle of a screw driver, tap the wheel on the surface as you steady the wheel with the other hand with a light touch. Tap 4 times, once in each ¼ surface sections. Then turn the wheel 180 degrees and tap the same sequence. If it “rings” a pretty tune, it is good. If it sounds like a “thud”, it is bad and has a crack. (A crack blocks the sound continuum.) 

To test the smaller wheel, it can be done in the store before purchase and it will take 2 plastic handled screwdrivers. Put the metal end of one screwdriver through the hole in the wheel. While holding it up, tap the wheel with the handle of the other screwdriver in ¼ surface sections. Then turn it 1/8 and repeat the same sequence. If it “rings”, it is good. If it “thuds”, it is bad. 

When in doubt, buy a new stone.

It is much cheaper than an emergency room.

Written By Lorraine Lawson

Author: Deborah Grow, Safety Specialist

Private Safety Consultant, assistant Damon Fall Protection and Coordinator EHS Network ~ Kansas.  Extensive safety experience in General Industry, Construction, D.O.T. Compliance, and OSHA consultation project.  Contact Deborah if you would like to schedule a consultation

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Conduct a Safety Audit before setting your Goals!

Safety Audits

"Audits measure how well you are doing against your established goals and objectives. Audits are critical to the success of your goals and objectives."

Safety Audit - Program Evaluation

A safety audit evaluates safety programs and practices within an organization. Employers conducting an audit should: Measure and collect information about a safety program's reliability and effectiveness. Look at whether a safety program meets the company's stated goals.

Safety Audit - Evaluate injuries records, hazard records, safety management elements

Where have you been? (Injury/illness records, hazard reports, safety management elements, written programs and procedures) Where do you want to be? (reduce injury/illness by a certain percentage, ensure all near misses are reported, ensure all hazards are reported and fixed, implement safety management elements)

If you do not know where you've been in the past or do not know where you want to be in the future, then you won't know where to start or how effective what you plan to do or are doing even is. You need to conduct an analysis of injury/illness, hazards, and elements of Safety Management program.

Step #1-Determine where you've been in the past. Collect injury/illness records, reports of hazards by employees or teams, or known hazards for your industry. Organize your information by departments or job sites so you'll know where to focus your efforts

Step #2-Conduct a hazard assessment. Develop a checklist of hazards to look for and establish a matrix to evaluate the significance of the hazards so you can prioritize solutions

If you/your team do not know what hazards to look for then your first step will be to attend some hazard identification training. You can't just rely on common sense to identify hazards. You need to know some of the basic OSHA safety rules, so you'll know what could cause accidents in your workplace

Conduct Self Assessments/Bench Marking

• In order to get where you want to go, it is essential to know where you are starting from.
• You can use a variety of self-audit mechanisms to compare your site processes with other recognized models of excellence such as SHARP sites or Star VPP sites.
• Visiting other sites to gain first hand information is also invaluable.
• You can use perception surveys to measure the strengths and weaknesses of your site safety culture.
• These surveys can give you data from various viewpoints within the organization. For instance, you can measure differences in employees' and managers' perceptions on various issues.
• This is an excellent way to determine whether alignment issues exist and, if so, what they are. One example is the Safety and Health Program Check Up.
• At this stage, it is important to look at issues that surface as symptoms of larger system failures. For example, ask what major system failed to detect the unguarded machine, or why the system failed to notice that incident investigations are not being performed on time, or if workers are being blamed for the failures. Your greatest level of success will come when these larger system failures are recognized and addressed.

 Develop an Inspection Program

• To identify hazardous conditions and employee behavior and determine what actions are required to reduce or eliminate accident potential. 
• Additionally, inspections can help determine the extent to which employees adhere to the company's safety program, operating procedures, rules and regulations.
• Developing a self-inspection program and associated checklists can help to protect company assets from fire, employee injury and injury to the public.  
• Their development will require the attention of someone who has a sound knowledge of the company's operations and as well as knowledge of relevant safety standards and local codes.
• The self-inspection program should be a process of fact finding with an emphasis on identifying potential hazards and developing the necessary corrective actions necessary to eliminate them.
• Routine site safety and health inspections are designed to catch hazards missed at other stages. This type of inspection should be done at regular intervals, generally on a weekly basis. In addition, procedures should be established that provide a daily inspection of the work area

You can use a checklist already developed or make your own, based on:
~ Past problems.
~ Standards that apply to your industry.
~ Input from everyone involved.
~ Your company's safety practices or rules.

Important things to remember about inspections are:
~ Inspections should cover every part of the work site.
~ They should be done at regular intervals.
~ In-house inspectors should be trained to recognize and control hazards.
~ Identified hazards should be tracked to correction.
~ Information from inspections should be used to improve the hazard prevention and control program.

Need help conducting your first audit?

Author: Deborah Grow, Safety Specialist

Private Safety Consultant, assistant Damon Fall Protection and Coordinator EHS Network ~ Kansas.   Extensive safety experience in General Industry, Construction, D.O.T. Compliance, and OSHA consultation project.  Contact Deborah if you would like to schedule a consultation

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Long awaited walking/working surfaces standard published

Walking-Working Surfaces Standard updated

The long awaiting walking/working surfaces standard was published November 2016.  The effective date was January 17,2017, and all enforcement dates are now in effect, with the lone exception being the final implementation of fall protection on fixed ladders for another 20 years!

The revised walking-working surfaces standard was published in November 2016. It affects primarily general industry. It actually brings a lot of the "construction" requirements to general industry.

Fall Protection Program (OSHA 29 CFR 1926 Subpart M and 29 CFR 1910.28(b)): Required for all construction related activities as defined in Subpart M of CFR 1926. 

A written plan is required and should include the following key elements;

1) Conduct Fall Hazard Assessment,

2) Establish Policy and Develop Procedures,

3) Determine Appropriate Hazard Control Measures,

4) Elimination/Engineering Controls,

5) Selection and use of Applicable Systems,

6) Orientation and Training,

7) Inspection and Maintenance,

8) Program Audit.

The new General Industry standard published November 2016 requires The employer's fall protection plan and training must meet the requirements of the construction fall protection standard (29 CFR 1926.502(k) and 1926.503(a) and (c)). The plan must be prepared by a “qualified” person.

EHS Network conducted training on the standard changes and invited folks to sign up for Mark Damon's Competent Fall Protection training (to meet that requirement for a qualified person to develop your program). How many of you attended either Mark's class or a similar class? Mark will be holding another class in Kansas City something spring/summer 2018.

Author: Deborah Grow, Safety Specialist

Private Safety Consultant, assistant Damon Fall Protection and Coordinator EHS Network ~ Kansas.   Extensive safety experience in General Industry, Construction, D.O.T. Compliance, and OSHA consultation project.  Contact Deborah if you would like to schedule a consultation

Follow me on:  Google-plus     Facebook     Twitter      ChekSafety