MIS-021

Safet� Philosophy and

Indira Gandhi National Open University
School of Engineering & Technology Principles of Accident
Prevention
 MIS – 021
Safety Philosophy and
Indira Gandhi
National Open University
Principles of Accident
School of Engineering & Technology Prevention

Unit Name Page No

BLOCK 1 INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL 7
SAFETY
UNIT 1 Basic Concept of Industrial Safety 11
UNIT 2 Safe Working Practices 48
UNIT 3 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 73
UNIT 4 Fire Safety 95
BLOCK 2 INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL SAFETY 117
ENGINEERING
UNIT 5 Concept of Safety Engineering (Ergonomics, 121
Process Safety)
UNIT 6 Storage of Material Handling of Hazardous 139
Material
UNIT 7 House Keeping (5S Concepts) 170
UNIT 8 Safeguarding of Machinery 185
BLOCK 3 INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL SAFETY 215
MANAGEMENT
UNIT 9 Safety Organizations 219
UNIT 10 Safety Policy 250
UNIT 11 Training and Awareness Creation 277
UNIT 12 Safety Audit 303
BLOCK 4 INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS AND ITS 333
PREVENTION
UNIT 13 Introduction to Industrial Accident 337
UNIT 14 Types of Accidents and Its Analysis 361
UNIT 15 Cost of Accidents 384
UNIT 16 Prevention of Accidents 400
GUIDANCE
Prof. Nageshwar Rao Prof. Satyakam Prof. Ashish Agarwal
Vice-Chancellor, IGNOU PVC, IGNOU Director, SOET, IGNOU
COURSE CURRICULUM DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Dr. S. Sarkar, Mr. Sudipta Chakarvarty,
GM (Retd.), GAIL, Noida Project Officer, TCS
Prof. Sagar Maji, Prof. Subhasis Maji
Director, GBP Engg. college, Director, School of Engg. & Tech.
New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi
Mr. G. P. Kumawat, Prof. P Srinivas Kumar
GM, IPGCL, New Delhi Professor in Civil Engineering, School of Engg. &
Tech., IGNOU, New Delhi
Mr. P.K. Varshaneya, Prof. Manoj Kulshrestha
Executive Director, Professor in Civil Engineering, School of Engg. &
Maruti Udyog, Gurugram Tech., IGNOU, New Delhi

Col. P.K. Dutta, Prof. Ashish Agarwal

Ex Director, SOHS, Professor in Mechanical Engineering
IGNOU, New Delhi School of Engg. & Tech., IGNOU, New Delhi
Mr. S.A. Khader, Prof. N Venkateshwarlu
Adviser, WCPD, New Delhi Professor in Mechanical Engineering
School of Engg. & Tech., IGNOU, New Delhi
Mr. Deo Jha, Dr. Sanjay Agrawal
IOCL (Retired), New Delhi Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering,
School of Engg. & Tech., IGNOU, New Delhi
Prof. S. Mukherjee,
Director, KIET Ghazibad
Programme Coordinator Course Coordinator
Dr. Sanjay Agrawal Dr. Shweta Tripathi
School of Engg. & Tech., School of Engg. & Tech.,
IGNOU, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi
BLOCK PREPARATION TEAM
Units Written by Block Editor Language & Format Block Coordinator
Editing
Dr. Anu Gupta Block 1 Block 1 Prof. Ajit Kumar
(Unit - 1,2,3 & 4) Prof. N Venkateshwarlu Prof. Ajit Kumar School of Engg. &
Assistant Professor Associate Professor School of Engg. & Tech, Tech.
Department of IGNOU IGNOU, New Delhi
Environmental Dr. Shweta Tripathi
Science & Engineering Assitant Professor Dr. Shweta Tripathi
GJUST, Hissar, Haryana School of Engg. & SOET, IGNOU
Tech., IGNOU
Dr. Arvind L. Chel Block 2 Block 2 Dr. Sanjay Agrawal
(Unit - 5,6,7 & 8) Mr. Thirthankar Mitra Dr. Sanjay Agrawal School of Engg. &
Jawahar Lal Nehru Engg. Oscar Equipment Pvt. School of Engg. & Tech, Tech.
College Ltd. IGNOU IGNOU, New Delhi
MGM University, Kolkata
Aurangabad
Mr Pradeep Kumar Marri Block 3 Block 3 Prof. N
(Unit - 9, 10, 11 & 12) Prof. N Venkateshwarlu Prof. N Venkateshwarlu Venkateshwarlu
Assistant Professor in Associate Professor, Associate Professor, School of Engg. &
Mechanical Engineering, School of Engg. & Tech., School of Engg. & Tech, Tech.
Kamala Institute of IGNOU IGNOU IGNOU, New Delhi
Technology and Science
Singapur, Huzurabad,
Karimnagar Dist.,
Telangana State.
 Mr. Agam Gulgaliya Block 4 Block 4 Dr. Shweta
(Unit - 13, 14, 15 & 16) Dr. Shweta Tripathi Dr. Shweta Tripathi Tripathi
Research Scholar, IIT School of Engg. & School of Engg. & School of Engg. &
Kharagpur Tech., IGNOU Tech., IGNOU Tech., IGNOU

PRODUCTION
Mr. Tilak Raj
MPDD, IGNOU, New Delhi
January, 2022
©Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2022
ISBN - 978-93-5568-277-2
All rights reserved No part of this work may be reproduced in any from, by mimeograph or
any other means, without permission is writing from the Indira Gandhi National Open
University.
Further Information on the Indira Gandhi National Open University courses may be
obtained from the University’s office at Maidan Garhi, New Delhi-110068.
Printed and publish on behalf of the School of Engineering & Technology, Indira Gandhi
National Open University New Delhi.
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Laser Typesetting by Tessa Media & Computers, New Delhi - 110025.
Digital Material will be available at e-Gyankosh, IGNOU, New Delhi 110068.
COURSE INTRODUCTION

Philosophy is about the study of existence, beliefs and ideas. The word
‘philosophy’ actually means the ‘love of wisdom’ and has been ascribed to
the work of Pythagoras. The word ‘wisdom’ is not a word one hears very
much in the safety industry that is far more consumed by absolutes,
indoctrination and authoritarianism. In many organisations a philosophy of
safety is declared in values statements or a ‘safety philosophy’ statement.
These are often little more than a wish list of populist statements that have no
real connection to a foundational ethic or anthropomorphic understanding of
person hood. There is generally no understanding that the illogical language
‘all accidents are preventable’ must lead to blaming and perfectionism. The
anthropology of such language denies fallibility and the natural logic of
learning.
Keeping these views in mind this course is developed to discuss the various
aspects of safety in an organization which may lead to accident prevention.
This course is divided into four blocks.

The first block entitled introduction to safety in industries covers the most
important aspects of industrial safety from individual and organisational point
of view. The historical perspective and the evolution of industrial safety is
discussed in detail. How the workers and labours started forming unions and
began to demand for better working conditions due to which the workplace
was regulated and safer work practices were regulated by the Government
organizations is also explained. The needs and formation of different policies
have been discussed which covers the different aspects of safe working
practices as well as safe work procedures, which can guide the workers for
complete safety and techniques to deal with hazards when they are in
situation of risks or threat.The guidelines for machine layout and plant layout
have been illustrated. Apart from this the concept of Personal Protective
Equipment(PPE) has been introduced as a need to create a barrier between
the user and the hazardous working ambiance. The concepts related to fire,
elements of fire, fire triangle and related principles have been presented. The
combustion process used in the plants have been explained along with the
related chemical reactions.
The second block entitled introduction to industrial safety engineering
covers the engineering involved in the Industrial safety. It deals with the
ergonomics , process safety material handling and storage of hazardous
material etc and the various policies and the regulations which are laid down
by the corporates. How the trained professional guides , trains and audits
these policies is also discussed in this block. The 5s concept of house keeping
is also discussed in detail. Apart from this the safeguarding of various
machinery (mainly cranes) is also discussed in detail.
The third block entitled industrial safety management deals with the
various theories such as Hazard, Incidence, Risk, Accident, the Accident
Causation etc,.The importance of Safety policy to enable the organizations
to perform activities safely and to serve as a medium for conveying the
management interest in health and safety of the public in and around the
organization is also covered. Some aspects of risk control strategies and
management are also discussed. This unit also describes about loss control,
developing loss control programme and loss control techniques.
The Training and Awareness Creation’ is also discussed in detail which
includes the methods of training, importance of safety training, safety
training benefits, elements involved in safety training etc,.The roles of top
management, managers, supervisors and employees in the safety training is
also described in detail. Apart from this the safety audit and its characteristics
is also explained in detail.
The last block entitled Industrial accidents and its prevention gives a brief
introduction of various types of accidents their causes and the methods to
compute the significant values of the accident analysis. Some of the worst
industrial disasters in India are also discussed. The models of accident
causation are also explained in detail, Apart from it the key factors involved
in accident analysis, accident investigation techniques are also described.The
economic aspects of accident and the humanitarian factors associated in
accidents and its prevention is also covered. It also provides details of
prerequisites for hazard control system.Some case studies are also discussed
to provide the clear picture.
 BLOCK 1
INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL SAFETY
 MIS – 021
Safety Philosophy and
Indira Gandhi
National Open University
Principles of Accident
School of Engineering & Technology
Prevention

Block

1
INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL SAFETY

UNIT 1
Basic Concept of Industrial Safety 11

UNIT 2
Safe Working Practices 48

UNIT 3
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 73

UNIT 4
Fire Safety 95
BLOCK 1 NTRODUCTION TO
INDUSTRIAL SAFETY
With the increasing complexity of industrial environment, workplace safety
has become the most import concern. The growing usage of machines and
high-end technical equipment and with the hazardous work environment can
lead to accidents. Thus safety principles and policies play an important role in
ensuring the industrial safety and safeguard the workers in complex and
hazardous environment. With the growing needs of the industrial safety, the
safety management has evolved as a specific discipline of study and
organisations have given it priority as part of their organisational strategy.
Development of this discipline has enabled industries to successfully reduce
industrial injuries and come-up with the matured standards of industrial safety.
This particular block of the course is devoted to industrial safety and cover
the basic and advanced aspects of industrial safety in the present day industry.
The main objective is to cover the most important aspects of industrial safety
from individual and organisational point of view and provide directions for its
successful implementations. The block has been divided into four different
units, covering the nuts and bolts of industrial safety.
The first unit covers the historical perspective and the evolution of industrial
safety. This unit looks at exactly how safety at workplace has enhanced over
the period of time. Workplace safety started becoming matter of concerns in
European countries with the labour movement while the Industrial Revolution
was going on. Workers and labours started forming unions and began to
demand for better working conditions during this movement. In response to
this, the workplace was regulated and safer work practices were regulated by
the Government organizations. The needs and formation of these policies
have been discussed in this unit. 2nd unit on the other hand, covers the
different aspects of safe working practices as well as safe work procedures,
which can guide the workers for complete safety and techniques to deal with
hazards when they are in situation of risks or threat. Various practices that are
found to be useful while implementing safe work procedures are inculcated in
this chapter. The need for responsible personals for monitoring and smooth
running of safe working practices at work places have also been taken care of
in this unit. Knowledge about the maintenance procedures in confined space
and importance of documents on safe work practices have also been presented
as an essential requirement. The guidelines for machine layout and plant
layout have been illustrated.
In this unit 3, the concept of Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) has been
presented as a need to create a barrier between the user and the working
ambiance in case of hazard posing job. PPE plays it role by preventing
wearers’ exposure with that of the danger or hazardous event that might take
place during working hours. Different categories of PPE and their
significance have been explained in this chapter. The last unit of the block
have taken up the concepts of fire safety. The concepts related to fire,
elements of fire, fire triangle and related principles have been presented. The
combustion process used in the plants have been explained along with the
related chemical reactions. Later in this unit, leading causes of the fire, and
extinguishment of fire has been presented from a practical perspective. This
unit also introduces to the types of fire, different agents to fight fire, fire
detection and warning systems, maintenance and inspection of fire
extinguishers, and use of extinguishers to fight different types of fires.
UNIT 1 BASIC CONCEPT OF INDUSTRIAL
SAFETY
Structure
1.1 Introduction
Objectives
1.2 History of Safety Movement
1.3 Evolution of Modern Safety Concept
1.4 Design Aspects for Safe Operation
1.5 Maintenance and Turn Around
1.6 Safety Audits
1.7 Accident Analysis
1.8 Safety Training
1.9 Let Us Sum Up
1.10 Key Words
1.11 Answers to SAQs
1.12 References and Future Studies

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Study of history reveals that dating back from the age of ancient civilizations
in Egypt and Rome it has been a long journey for safety management system.
Time and again there has been delayed recognition of the importance of
safety and health at the place of work. In recent times remarkable
developments in safety management have taken place. It has enabled
industries to successfully reduce industrial injuries. Obviously, such
turnaround in injury statistics has not taken place overnight. In the following
section, a short review of the evolution of safety in the factories in India will
be made to have an historical perspective of interplay of various factors in the
safety management.

In order to be familiar with where you are going, it is very imperative that
you know where you have been. People devote a plenty of time
on discovering current trends in the workplace, but they does not often look
back and make efforts to find how work has evolved. The history of
workplace safety is one such area that does not get adequate consideration. In
this section, we will look at exactly how safety at workplace has enhanced
over the period of time.

Workplace safety started becoming matter of concerns in Europe country

with the labour movement while the Industrial Revolution was going on.
Workers and labours started forming unions and began to demand for better
working conditions during this movement. In response to this, the workplace
11
 Introduction to was regulated and safer work practices were regulated by the Government
Industrial Safety
organizations. Because maximum organizations were industry oriented,
industries established safety regulations independent of each other. This
section will also cover how industries developed their safety standards.

Starting in the late 1600s shaft mining was in its increasing phase while the
steam pump made it feasible to remove water from deep shafts. Whereas in
the 1770s, steam engines turn out to be more proficient and fuel costs were
dropped, making mines to be more cost-effective.

Mines at that time often hired children for working, and were extremely
dangerous. In those years, in addition to equipment accidents, miners
confronted collapsing beams, suffocation, rock falls, and floods. In addition
to these failures, poisonous and flammable gases were invisible dangers that
could blast if ignited.

As time went by, advances in technology controlled their way into the mining
sector. In 1816 innovation of the safety lamps took place, and it helped in
preventing ignition of harmful gases found in mines. More developments
approached with the invention of electric lighting and battery-powered lamps.

Additional new kinds of hazards began to present themselves when

manufacturing unit started employing workers to factories. Working in
factories in that era was to spent long hours with poor ventilation
and dangerous equipment.

In 1784, poor working situations lead the spread of a fever outbreak among
cotton mill labors in the United Kingdom. This ultimately led to the
development of Health and Morals of Apprentices Act in the year 1802. This
act made it compulsive for factories to arrange for appropriate ventilation
and clean work places.
Objectives

After studying of this unit you should be able to:

 identify the history and evolution of safety movements

 identify efficient ways to recognize the procedures and activities that
ought to be effective for governing the risks and improving performance.
 employ essential theories and tools in order to plan and implement an
effectual risk management system.
 development of risk acceptance procedures.
 gain knowledge of maintenance and turn around.
 understand the fundamentals of safety audits, accidental analysis and
need for safety training.

12
1.2 HISTORY OF SAFETY MOVEMENTS Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety

The history of safety movement can appropriately be said to parallel the

history of man. The laws like survival of the fittest and the law of self-
preservation generally overcame during the dark ages of early growth human
being. His upward climb has sustained to be a challenge with danger-the
mind and persistence of man challenging with the situations and forces of
nature; conditions changed slowly at first, but, as knowledge began growing,
with ever-increasing speed. If we look back in past over the path man has
journeyed; we treasure numerous milestones marking the way in the direction
of safety, all bearing aim of same purpose conservation of life. Today also if
we stand and look back we find the cave of ancient man; various abode of the
cliff dweller; the medieval castle, and the block house-mute confirmation of
the mutual thought -safety. The problem of safety transformed as the social
order of civilization transformed and became more and more complex. In
order to meet the mass element anticipated into the problem, todays’
generation have applied science (“the arrangement and correlation of
knowledge”) and engineering (“the art of organizing and directing men and
controlling the forces and materials of nature for the benefit of the human
race”). These are recognized as man’s most effective assistances of
conservation. Safety has turn out to be vital feature of all paces of life.

An ever-growing burden was retained upon man-power, as industries started

developing, multiplying and expanding into individual scale. The engineer to
the call and established engines and complicated machines; lifted man to a
higher plane; multiplied his powers a thousand fold, and was able to create a
new era for this world. This new era, however, was troubled with countless
different and unexpected hazards as consequences of evolution; and once
more man exhorted the engineer to safeguard him against the vulnerabilities
happening due to these invented engines and machines that had aided in the
escalation of his productive capability.

It would be challenging to create our history of the safety movement in a

rigorously sequential ground. Various industries have planned out their
individual difficulties more or less coherently. With the ever-growing
industries in today’s modern times, comes numerous invisible hazards and
threats to workers life for which there came need and development for
accident prevention methods in many plants of the industry in the year 1900.
The focusing of thought and purpose upon the expansion of this phase of
plant management discovered the fact that, as we had been inattentive in
preserving and protecting our minerals, forests and other natural resources, so
had we been woefully wasteful of the lives and limbs of our industrial
workers. We began to realize that this annual toll of life was not inexcusable
necessity we had believed it to be, but that, by the proper application of

13
 Introduction to systematized effort -purpose in addition to money- remarkable drops in
Industrial Safety
accident rate could be achieved.

World War II broke out during 1939-45. During wartime, the Government
relaxed application of the Factories Act to gear up production so as to meet
the requirements during the war. In the development, safety took a back seat.
Hectic production schedules and desperate attempts to meet the production
deadlines at any cost led to many industrial accidents specially incidents of
fire with loss of life and property. In 1945, Government of India appointed a
chief adviser of factories for advising the government on matters related to
occupational safety and health including firefighting measures in industrial
establishments.

A review of the history of safety legislation reveals the role of certain forces
in harnessing the cause of safety.
i) Role of Management or Owners:

For years, the value of safety as well as health at the work-place was
overlooked in the absence of any economic necessity to protect the life and
health of workmen. However, cause of safety has drawn support from the
management or the owners whenever they realize that the investment towards
safety makes a good business sense. Management are found to be proactive
about safety whenever they realize that
a) higher cost of premature replacement of equipment damaged or
destroyed by accidents,
b) prohibitive direct or indirect cost of compensation due to fatal or even
nonfatal accidents and
c) severe penalty awarded for noncompliance is less economical than the
investment on safety and health.
With the present compulsion to obtain ISO certification which requires
combination of occupational safety and health with quality and productivity,
administration finds that occupational safety and health do make a good
business sense. History also suggests that there are occasions when to bring
competitive parity among manufacturers, safety measures were demanded by
a group of management to be imposed upon those manufacturers who did not
care for those. Ultimately, whatever happened was indeed to the advantage to
the cause of safety of the people but in reality it was sheer business interest
rather than human interest that prevailed upon in implementing safety in the
industry.
ii) Role of Legislation:

In most of the cases, significant advances in safety have taken place through
legislative intervention. Safety legislation, to a vast extent, is engaged in an
examination of the actual state of affairs within 'man-machine-environment
14 system' to determine whether and to what extent modern technology can be
accepted by law. The legal system can never abandon the life and the health Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
of the citizens to the dangers inherent in modem technology. It must
determine as a reflection of the basic political decision as well, whether and
to what extent modern technology can be accepted by law. Thus, the legal
system constitutes the measures by which the political intent of the voter or
citizens can shape the components of man-machine-environment systems.
Industrial health and safety laws and standards are constructed are based on
technical approach to the management of occupational health and safety risk.
Technical literature defines risk management as a three staged process. First,
hazards in the work atmosphere are recognized; second, the risks posed by
these hazards are evaluated; and finally, suitable controls for risks are
carefully chosen according to a risk control hierarchy. According to the
principle of this hierarchy, the control actions that mark hazards at their
originating source and act on the work environment are more efficacious than
controls that intends to change the behaviour of exposed workers. Therefore,
technological control procedures, like substitution of hazardous materials or
procedures and engineering controls, are desirable to individual controls such
as the beginning of safe work practices or the usage of personal protecting
equipment.
iii) Role of Union Activism:

The legislative intervention is preceded by the union activism. In many

countries, collective negotiating has played a crucial part in workplace safety
enhancements for several years. Union encouragement has been exerted not
only in direct negotiations but also through financing or supporting safety
and health research, lobbying for safety and health legislation and supporting
liability suits filed by union members.
iv) The Role of Technology:

Technology has played a vital role in creating a need for extensive and
dynamic safety program. Scientists and engineers have been continuously
developing new equipment and process both for manufacturing as well as for
protecting the workers from hazardous work environment. Personal
protective equipment are made more comfortable and user friendly to
maintain the productive efficiency of the worker. In many places robotic
technology is used to ensure the safety and health of workers. Apart from the
equipment and gadgets, technology for manufacturing goods or providing
services, various innovative management technologies have been developed,
tested and implemented to promote and sustain safety and health status of the
working population in the world of work.
v) The Role of Research:

The research in the area of medical sciences, ergonomics, and industrial

hygiene assisted in defining limits on exposures in those cases where
complications may perhaps be evaded by restricting the amount or extent of 15
 Introduction to exposure. More significantly, research continues to identify materials and by-
Industrial Safety
products, those are irreversible in effect and in some cases, carcinogenic.
vi) The Role of Training

For doing the job efficiently and safely, it is essential that employees are
given systematic training. Selecting qualified and well trained personnel does
not minimize the need for such training. Training imparted in safety, need not
necessarily be termed as safety training and thereby create inhibition among
employees towards such training due to the taboo attached to the concept of
safety. Instead of professing “safety" as 'safe way of doing' and thereby
inducing a defensive stance, “safety" could be conceived as the 'right way of
doing'. As such, the purpose of the training is to educate employees about the
correct way of doing the job. When such training is imparted, care is taken to
produce goods or services ensuring quality, safety, customer delight and
minimizing damage or loss of any kind.

1.3 EVOLUTION OF MODERN SAFETY

CONCEPT
Concept of safety describes term safety as a state in which risk of harm to
persons or property damage is reduce to, and upheld at or below, an
acceptable level through a continuing process of hazard identification and
risk management. The origin of industrial revolution raised filthy and harmful
working conditions in many factories conditions where employers were slow
to address about the danger associated to them. Massachusetts l
legislators for the first time accommodated the nation’s first safety and health
legislation in 1877. This law necessitated diverse characteristics of safety
precautions/measures that we currently take for granted, especially guards for
belts, gears and shafts and efficient fire exits.
As industrial revolution landed on U.S. shores, there was uncertainty that
workers confronted new and exceptional dangers during that time. American
entrepreneurs formulated labor-saving devices and machineries those were
productive as well as profitable, but were very dangerous too. The bottom
line was not affected by the workplace accidents, but victim workers used to
opt for legal recourse by suing the company. Victim workers who went to
court hardly won any case, indirectly making work place safety anon profit
venture for numerous industrialists of that time. Worker working in the
hazardous occupations like mining, train transportation and manufacturing
opted for insurance policies to cover themselves in the event of sudden
accident or death, or by quitting a job completely. This resulted in companies
reimbursing greater salaries to the workers for their jobs that were deemed
more hazardous.
The state of New York in 1910, made workmen's compensation law that
enforced companies to automatically reimburse for workplace injuries that
16
exterminated the requirement for relatives to take companies to court. By the Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
year 1921, 43 more states started adopting this New York's lead and
established their individual compensation laws.

Compensation laws and other liability costs turned out to be an expensive

proposition for workplace injuries for many industrialists. Due to this steady
increase in workplace safety was recorded. Large firms like railroading,
mining and manufacturing all of sudden started becoming interested in safety
at workplace. Manufacturing enterprises started developing safer equipment,
and managers of many manufacturing industries started getting tasks for
discovering workplace dangers. For instance, workers in mining and
construction started wearing safety glasses and hard hats.

The National Safety Council was formed in the year 1913 by a group of
business owners to combine the collective information, and to put this
collected knowledge via national agencies like the Bureau of Mines.
Incidents of tragedies in workplace declined unevenly between World Wars I
and II, and it was eminent to note that during time of economic boom safety
law prosecution be likely to take a back seat. With the expeditious growth of
industrial civilization employed children, women, and immigrants into the
labor force in large numbers. The Industrial revolution, and craving for mass
production, turned the workplace into a carnival of terrors. The days were
long, wages were low and work was generally unsafe. A novel methodology
called as Safety Management Systems (SMS) was developed regarding
industrial work place safety whose main objective is to prohibit human
trauma, death, and destruction to the environment. The emphasis of this
methodology is based upon an intensive accident investigation succeeded by
upgrading technology, operational processes and advance training. As can be
seen in Figure 1.1, along with technical enhancements the new focus is to
include and alleviate human error and organizational factors by means of
regulation and training, lessons were learned from past event inspections and
mishappening in other industries like in nuclear energy or space shuttle
operation.
Today

Figure 1.1: The Progression of Safety Thinking 17

 Introduction to
Industrial Safety
1.4 DESIGN ASPECTS FOR SAFE OPERATION
The safety by means of design aspects is defined as the fusion of hazard
analysis and risk estimation techniques right at the beginning of the design
and engineering phases and undertaking the operations necessary so that risks
of injury or damage can be minimized to a great extent. Design aspects play
very important role in safety operations because it reduces risks and
eliminates hazards during the course of life cycle of machinery, work sites,
their related equipment, materials and work procedures comprising their
construction, manufacture, use, repairs, and eventually dumping or reuse.

Designers can conduct assessments that can aid inconsiderably lessening the
threats to safety and health in the course of construction stage and through
consequent utilization and maintenance. Thus, they can be entitled as a key
contributor to the construction of health and safety. Safety and other
associated parameters could be directly influenced by the professional
designer. General principles of prevention must be taken into consideration
by the designers while developing respective designs. The idea of prevention
is mainly established for risk elimination and reduction. Safe design in
industrial safety comprises the control measures that must be incorporated
early in the design procedure in order to eradicate or, if it is not possible to
eliminate the risk completely then lessen the risks to health and safety all the
way through the life of the structure being designed. The main objective of
safe-design for safe operation is dependent upon the principle that each
individual has a right and is ethical to be safeguarded and protected from
uncalled risk of injury or harm. It anticipates with eradicating job-related
safety-health hazards at the design phase as well as governing risks
associated with the design of structure and it’s after use while planning and
design of processes or systems, structures, organizations, products, etc. Risk
of workers’ death, accident, and inadequate design might result in variety of
additional economic costs, like decreased asset life, reduced efficiency,
greater maintenance, and loftier employment and workers’ reimbursement
expenditures. It is more convenient to draw out hazards in the initial phase of
design rather than to upgrade or transform the present products to accomplish
safety. Safety and health regulation assign designers certain duties to, as far
as achievable, remove or govern the associated hazards at the time of the
construction, use and occupation of a workplace. Owners likewise hold a
“duty of care” assurance for workers to guarantee that, their employees are
not exposed to threats and dangers linked to a building or structure to be used
as a workplace as far as possible. Safe-design of any desired workstation will
always remain to be the driving segment of a broad spectrum with design
goals, comprising feasibility, aesthetics, cost, and usefulness. All these
objectives sometimes need to be balanced in a proper way so that safety and
health of workers is not compromised who responsible for building,
construction, maintenance or utilizing the building as workplace. These
18
sometimes-competing objectives need to be balanced in a manner that does Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
not compromise the safety and health of those who construct, maintain or use
a building or structure as a workplace. The safe-design advantages include
risk control and alleviate need for up gradation.

A wide variety of participants engages themselves in this methodology. With

discussion and communication with all the associated participants, the safe-
design elements can be improved prior to any actual construction. The safety
aspects of a design can be enhanced prior to construction if a participative
risk management approach is adopted.

A safe-design technique commences with the idea progression stage of a

construction while decisions are being made regarding:

 The scheme and its end purpose

 The required materials and it eventual utilization
 Available method of structure creation, its maintenance service,
operation, disassembly and ultimately discarding
 What safety regulations, codes of practice and available standards that
must be taken into account and conformed with

Ergonomics principles together with superior work design integrate and make
a safer design for structures and industries. Generally excellent work design
makes sure about workstation related vulnerabilities and dangers are evicted
or reduced in a way that all workers and labors’ safety is ensured, they
remain health and safe at their working place. It basically comprises the
design of work, workstations, functioning procedures, computer systems or
manufacturing processes.

On the other hand when we talk about accomplishing safer and reliable
design, its whole liability rests on the shoulders of those groups or
individuals who regulates and governs the design functions. This generally
embraces:

 Engineers, industrial designers or protractors are the responsible

personals that take forward the design on the instructions of a client.
 Individuals who make design decisions during any of the lifecycle
phases such as engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, installers, builders,
developers, project managers and work health and safety professionals.
 Any person who modifies the available design.
 Service designers associated with the service of existing plants like
ventilation and electrical systems.

Safer design for industries can be accomplished to a greater extent by

common harmony of all the parties who are responsible for commanding and
19
 Introduction to influencing the design outcome, by incorporating safety provisions into the
Industrial Safety
design. If we are considering design for any industrial plant there are
following things that should be considered while designing the plant:

Pre-Design
Recognize Create Risk
problem/Need Context

Concept Development
Collect Detect
Information Hazards

Communicate and Document

Monitor and Review

Design Options
Produce Examine and
Multiple Estimate Risks
Solutions

Design Synthesis
Select Eradicate and
Solution Govern Risks

Design Completion

Implement and Test

Figure 1.2: Safe Design Model

 Including entire facets of lifecycle of any manufactured component of

plant beginning from manufacturing, then its utilization, to demounting
and eventually discarding.
 Appropriate design for safe and sound assembly and its establishment.
 Design to enable safe usage by considering, for example, the physical
characteristics of users, the maximum number of tasks an operator can
probably accomplish at a time, the layout of the workstation or
environment in which the plant may be used.
 Estimate proposed utilizations well as reasonably predictable misuse.

20
 Consider the complications workforces might face while delivering Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
services or restoration of the plant.
 Assessment of failure ways or breakdown and restructuring and
designing the plant to break down in a safe mode.

The safe plant and equipment are capable of saving between 5 to 10% of their
total cost by lowering inventories of dangerous materials which leads to
reduced requirement for protective equipment and therefore cost of testing
and maintenance of the equipment is brought down to a considerable amount.
Huge costs might have to be bear due to unsafe design like re-equipment,
workers’ reimbursement and insurance charges, eco-friendly clean-up and
negligence claims. Since inflated prices directly affects the lifecycle of
persons who purchase and utilize such products, so these persons get benefits
from safe designs.

A safe design methodology outcome can be many including following:

 Inhibit injury and sickness

 Elevated exploitation of products, systems and facilities
 Improves efficiency
 Cut down prices
 Superior forecast, systematizes production and functioning expenditures
over the lifecycle of a product
 Abide by legislation
 Invent, for which safe design calls for new and innovative thinking.

1.5 MAINTENANCE AND TURN AROUND

Manufacturing companies generally runs process management that involves
maintaining, repairing and installing of the machine and equipment. The
performance and competitiveness of manufacturing companies is dependent
on the reliability and productivity of their production facilities. This
necessitates the demand for enhancing the production system’s exercitation
that has brought forth the maintenance functions into the spotlight. In order to
provide superior quality as well as prompt services to the consumers and be
in top position in terms of competition, factors like equipment maintenance
and system reliability plays very are important role. For that reason,
sustainable performance of any industry indirectly relies on the maintenance
management.

Maintenance generally encompasses all the aspects related to technical and

administrative operations those are generally imperative to keep equipment,
installations and additional associated physical resources in the desired
operating condition or reconstruct them back to the running condition in case 21
 Introduction to of failure. The main targets associated with maintenance are to accomplish
Industrial Safety
production target with the desired quality on time and be within the decided
limits of system condition as well as safety. The maintenance supervisors
should keep few main objectives in mind like assuring proper system
functioning, taking care of safety related issues, insuring system life and
lastly safeguarding human well-being.

Further, maintenance assets are exercised thoroughly in order to keep a check

on the running conditions of the manufacturing equipment, also weather plant
has attained its design life or not, safety standards are met or not, and to keep
a note on raw material consumption. If any company or industry does not
hold well maintained equipment then that particular plant will find it difficult
in providing higher quality products delivered on time to the market resulting
in decrement in customer values in terms of profit, quality, time and service.
A proficient human resource team with highly qualified personals, in any
manufacturing and maintenance departments holds a very prominent position
and is considered as very influential factor for conducting a successful
maintenance processes. Around 56 % of the accidents taking place are
associated with machineries and devices of plants linked with running
elementary manufacturing operations. Whereas other processes like
preparation of production for providing smooth flow involving operations
like maintenance, repairing, controlling, cleaning, installing, formulating and
dismantling machines accounts for approximately 25% altogether.

Investigations studies for the years from 2004 to 2010 indicates that all the
accidents occurred during these years were due to inappropriate condition of
the material object as well as improper operation of machines and devices.
By utilizing Risk Management System it was made possible to improve
safety of work station by utilizing machines and devices which resolved
issues associated with excessive utilization, insufficient maintenance and
repairs.

Repair word encloses all the organizational and technical actions whose main
aim or goal is to retrofit or repair the breakdown machine by making the
machine in the state of usable condition. All the results of breakdown
machines are transmitted to technical maintenance subsystem whose main
aim is to either to eradicate breakdown machines’ unfitness or to conduct
some severely required maintenance operations to repair the machine back to
its original running condition. Thus we can define the word repair as a
process whose main aim is to convert the machines’ unfitness into the state of
fitness prior to breakdown. While considering physical side of repair, it
embraces with replacement of components or parts of machine that are
damaged, changing the impaired part or restoring is by conducting a number
of other necessary operations. Repair process of a machine is generally
conducted at regular interval of time for checking the status of machine
fitness. Periodical repairs generally aim at bringing back the machine to the
22
original form once it has performed its desired operations and number of runs, Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
its total working hours, as well as volume of work it has accomplished,
assessment of its technical condition on the basis of diagnostic report. As
soon as technical parameters or economic indicators are perceived it indicates
machines unfitness or improperness in its functioning. Repair of machine is
generally of two types in nature, i.e. periodical or ad hoc.

Periodical repairs generally embrace day to day repairs; medium repairs, and
overhauls, whereas the ad hoc repairs are generally aimed at bringing back
the machine to its original state of fitness which was lost due to some
mishappening such as an emergency damage, an accident, etc. These are also
termed as post-failure repair. Whereas on the other hand maintenance is a
process that is responsible for cutting down the wear-out dynamics of
mechanisms, subassemblies or other components of a machine.

Various operations like general external visual inspection, initial cleaning,

inspection of technical condition of machine, its protection against corrosion,
checking lubrication of various parts and mechanisms in line with relative
instructions. Maintenance operations are carried out during technical
maintenance, technical inspections and repairs. Using the criterion of time,
we can distinguish between short-term maintenance (up to 1 year) and long-
term maintenance (more than 1 year). The scope and frequency of conducting
technical treatments and/ or technical maintenance operations are prescribed
in relative provisions for each type of maintenance. On the other hand,
installing machines and devices covers such operations as: transporting them
(internal transport, maneuvering), placing on their base plates, fixing, cabling,
piping, adjusting, making trial runs and checking the machine’s operation
with no load. Apart from installing machines or facilities, we also have to do
here with de-installing them before they are relocated to another site or
scrapped.

Besides, design and manufacturing of the machine is based in such a way that
it should perform its prescribed functions with all the safety measures
keeping in mind that it can be operated, adjusted and maintained by the
operator without any hazardous to the operator under all the conditions
(though it is handled in a improper way) as referred in both machinery
directive and also in ordinance. Also, machine should be used in such a way
to eliminate risk for the entire life time of the machine which also includes its
assembly, dismantling, transport, stoppage, and during scrapping stages.

Further, the manufacturer should also point out the vital measures such as
types and schedules of inspections with maintenance procedure to be taken
during the operation in the operation manual. Also, should be including the
wearable parts and its replacement after it is being worn-out. The
replacement procedure with the new ones for the worn out parts with easiest
and safer manner should also be included in the manual. The obligatory
23
 Introduction to technical measures compliant to the method of action for the replacement of
Industrial Safety
the necessary parts must also be available. Furthermore, the display of the
safety, maintenance and the adjustment procedures should be provided away
from the hazardous zones. Manufacturers should also take the possibility of
carrying out the maintenance, repairing, cleaning and other necessary actions
when the machine is in not working for both automatic as well as for other
machines too should be provided by the manufacturer in order to diagnose
the machine’s defects.

The company management plays an active role in deciding its machineries

operation and its fitness to achieve optimum effects. The optimization
criterion which is most commonly used is having understood the total amount
of money spent in order for the operation and maintenance of the machine.
Therefore, to avoid direct losses, a increasing trend shows using of external
companies for repair and maintenance of machine and devices. The package
of outsourcing also includes diagnose, maintenance and transportation as well.
Apart from the economic benefit the outsourcing also includes the risk
management which facilitates the maintenance activates that occurs during
hazardous. The occurrence of the accidents is the basic and the commonly
used criteria for the reactive measure of the safety of work. These accidents
also account for many reasons and are classification of these accidents is
different too. The classification which is most often used is based between
technical, organizational and human reasons. Such classification helps to
refers the accidents with reference to the technical reasons of maintenance,
repair and installing: improper safety measures taken during repair and
overhaul of the objects, improper maintenance of the objects, defects in the
materials being hidden, defects occurs during the construction of the object,
improper controlling of the elements, usage of material with improper
material with strength, fails to takes care of collective safety measure,
improper working of signaling systems during hazardous and finally not
attaining the required technical parameters.

Apart from this, the reasons which also relate to such problems includes
negligence of the supervisions to deviate from work health and safety
measures as well as fails to keep up the regulations, lack of manuals for the
operation of the objects, performing machines without having removed the
hazards, operators using their legs and arms carelessly in the hazard zone,
using the materials without having tested its strength for the required job,
also using the materials with proper inspection or the required measures in
the hazard zone without the safeguards.

The last and also the most significant reasons among statistically are the
human errors which includes lack of attention being paid during the operation,

getting startled due to laziness, unaware of hazards being happed, lack of

experience as well as the pace to cope up with work and also lack of
24
knowledge in handling machines, unaware of rules and regulations, drinking Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
alcohol or taking drugs or psychotropic substances also accounts.
It is also very necessary the factors that should be taken care before accidents
happen while installing, maintaining and even during repairing of
machineries and devices which enables for preventive actions and also the
effective policies to help improving the conditions of the working area.
The complex bustle appears to happen when a large industry with large
bunch of workers is shutdown or turnaround. This can be avoided by the
sophisticated planning to overcome the shutdown and also to effective return
on operation. This shutdown lets you necessitates the proper industrial safety
with optimal facility in accordance with the technology and the safety
guidelines that can protect your employees and their surrounding
environment. Let us consider an example of refining and petrochemical
industries that has the effective maintenance services which is capable of
involving following things:

 Design-build
 Engineering
 Installation and inspection
 Custom manufacturing
 Maintenance and repair
 Fabrication
 Retubing
 24*7*365 Emergency service
 Project managements
 Turnarounds
 Heat exchangers/Fin Fans
 Specialty field maintenance
 Refractory
 Refinery maintenance
 Tank maintenance/Repair
 Shutdowns
 Bolt torqueing
 Welding
 Power plant outages
The maintenance company should have personals having ultra-specialized
and experienced skills in order for the smooth functioning of enormous and
critical maintenance projects. The turnarounds become very costly for any
industry and accounts for almost significant amount of budget typically
between 10 - 20%. During the critical time around the shutdown, a group of
skilled personnel’s are necessary to carryout programs and processes to
initiate the adequate safety of the employees and workers in the industry. The
25
 Introduction to safety and the maintenance measures taken by the specialized team should
Industrial Safety
also be able to provide improve quality control and accountability and also
must have access round the clock as well. This will reduce initial capital
investment and also reduce the burden on the administration.

1.6 SAFETY AUDITS

A Safety audit is a necessary part which is course of well planned,
documented and independent examination for the local estimation for the
standard of controls and also the efficacy of the system intended for
occupational health and safety board system. It is a methodology which is
pro-active for the measurement of health and safety performance of the bunch
of people in the organization. It also aid to develop necessary principles
needed for the further developments between the individuals in the
organizational strengths with a proper documentation having control of
weakness in the organization. It is thus enables to a widescreen for effective
planning decisions.
Safety audits are designed and implemented with the view for the safety,
health and also for the identification of fire hazards. With the help of these
surveys made to compliance the regulations and fire codes to detect the
unsafe hazards. It is also to be noticed that these surveys also serves the
purpose of the concept for self-regulation and co-regulation which is
axiomatic in nature having advent with the performance standard and also
serves as duty of care phenomena. Therefore, this act as obligation to self-
regulate with such reinforces makes a promising audit process as a skill
management tool to survive in today’s competitive and sensitive world
market. This well structured and a thoroughly conducted audit helps to
provide an objective with a view focus on the actual status, recognize the
loopholes or the weakness around the corner, identify the success parameters,
and further helps to estimate compliance, regulating the essential policy
including the procedure for statutory requirements, and also provide social
and ethical norms.
The investigation made during the audit, makes the assessments for
compliance in such a way to applicable for building and fire codes and also
helps in detecting the unsafe fire hazards. Safety audits are essentially a part
of preliminary checking the effectiveness of the several programs; this will
not facilitate regular inspections. As the safety inspections for unsafe hazards
are done on a weekly basis with the supervisors leading the team and monthly
basis by the head of the management. This raises five basic questions to be
answered. Every person in the team with the leader should conduct the audit
of fact finding manner to grab the data. In order to achieve at this stage, the
team must have knowledge of companies program with various local, state
and federal necessities.

The audit draws focus on the measurable remarks, recommendations and

corrective actions on following five questions:
26
 1) Does the program cover all regulatory and best industry practice Basic Concept of
requirements? If it is being employed, is it effective or not? Industrial Safety

2) Are the program requirements being met?

3) Is there documented proof of compliance?
4) Is employee training effective – can and do they apply specific safe
behaviors?
5) Whether appropriate workplace precautions are in place?

Safety Depends on: A schematic diagram of the factors on which safety

depends in shown in Figure 1.3.

Accidents and
Work permit incidents
analysis
Engineering

Procurement Software
Hardware
Emergency
Maintenance

Humanware

PPE
Leadership
Health and
Hygiene
Task
Observation

Figure 1.3: Factors on Which Safety Depends

Types of Audits
These audits are generally classified in two ways. They are internally as well
as externally.
While internal audits are conducted by group of skilled personnel’s within the
same organization, external auditors are outsourced for external audits.
Internal Safety Audits
These audits are conducted by either the safety committee members or safety
representatives or safety officer and procedure followed generally going
through the records, matching standards with targets and physical
observations at workplace.

External Safety Audits

27
 Introduction to These audits are conducted by external persons for auditing from certified
Industrial Safety
agencies and remaining procedure is almost same.
So far as purpose, content, sequence and depth of investigation are concerned,
both types have almost similar lines of actions. The main differences lie in
the method. Practically, internal Audit turns subjective since it is about
examining one’s own self, own organization, own system, own people etc.
Although organizations claim that they authorize internal auditors with total
independence. Auditors are selected from neighboring departments. They
might have been trained and groomed as auditors yet, they remain internal
only. They can’t reveal the weakness of management and put it in black and
white. Rather, practically, they are given the task of developing ways and
means to hide the weaknesses and highlight the strengths of the organization,
as an advocate does for his client. Internal auditing is practically meant as
preparation for third party external auditing.
Third party independent audits are to be conducted by expert agencies
comprising well-trained lead auditors, experienced hands, technical experts,
legal specialists and others. Organizations must give them full freedom to
judge neutrally and independently without exercising any influence from any
quarter. Objectivity becomes the key motto and their disclosures are to
betaken as bare facts, based on which further lines of correction and
improvements are to follow. This is the right course of actions.
It is worth mentioning here, that audit should not be taken as a mere ritual or
a formality only, but to be treated as a detailed prescription by an expert
independent agency for effecting improvements in work culture and job
execution. Let it be a means for curing the ills and health improvement. As a
patient gets a health check-up and goes ahead with the treatment prescribed
by the doctor, so should the organization act with positivity and vigor for
excellence.

Figure 1.4: Other Modes of Verification

28
 Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety

Figure 1.5: Different Levels of Verification

Considering the objectives of safety audit there are mentioned below:

 Validate compliance with established standards (regulations, internal

policies and industry wise standards of practice).
 Pinpoint deviation from designed and planned operating and
maintenance route and standards.
 Recognize conditions or operating procedures that may perhaps lead to
an accident and substantial losses to life or property.

Safety audit is carried out by experts in the respective fields who scrutinize
management system, facilities and activities of the organization on safety
aspects assess the prevailing hazards, the level of prevention, protection and
emergency management preparedness and consequently formulate a
recommendation to upgrade safety inputs to avert mishaps and limit
consequences.

Safety audit is an important phase in industrial sector owing to following

reasons:

 It ensures that management system is functioning in a manner that

protects employees, customers, workers, communities, the environment,
assets against risks
 It is a control mechanism
 Identification of opportunities for further improvement
 Increases safety awareness
 Greater confidence regarding compliance with regulatory requirements

Safety surveys are intended for the inspection of all types of unsafe physical
and environment conditions with the detailed observations. The
occupier/manager of factory and other workers must provide required
cooperation to the authorities conducting surveys. Safety surveys also helps
in determining safety and training needs of workers, supervisors as well as
managers etc. Further reports under observations and remedial measures are 29
 Introduction to discussed in joint meeting of all heads and owner of plant. For each
Industrial Safety
observation noted in survey, remedial measures may be suggested. Also
action plan can be drawn for taking up suggested remedial measures within
time limits.
There are five steps of conducting successful audits:
1) Preparing for an Audit:

Before the audit begins, it is essential to determine the members among the
team as well as what the team will be auditing.

Some of the industry approach external consultant who are specialized in

safety auditing to avoid the burden. Others depend on the internal to perform
audit from different domain within the same company. It is very necessary to
choose wisely the members of the team from production line workers and
also the managers when audit is being conducted internally. If the team
members are with more diverse knowledge, the broader will be the
perspective. As the production line workers has the in-depth knowledge of
the course of action and someone from outside the company can look after
the overlooked issues. Every member of the team should have gone adequate
training on how to audit in order make it successful. Since anybody can audit
anything, but the important thing should be accomplished are the scope and
the objectives set before the audit begins. This audit also starts with a
reviewing the applicable standard and its codes that benefit the audit process
and also the skill of the team members. Apart from this, previous audits can
be a beneficial source of information for the team members to review
especially if the set objectives and recommendations are implemented and are
working.
2) Conduct the Audit:

Audits benefits companies to asses and improve their process planning and
implementation which in turn help employee’s safety. These audits also play
an important role to track the progress to reach the safety goals. As a result,
these audits gauge what need to be improved with what is working well in the
stream. The execution of audit starts with the reviewing of the written plan,
procedures including necessary documents which could help auditors to set
up the baseline for the written process with the actual action taking place.
This audit also takes care of the strengths and the weaknesses in the actual
plan that compares both what is written in the procedure and what is
happening actually in the production.

Interaction with employees of the production line who operates machinery in

addition with the audition procedure being followed gives additional insight.
Since the employees use the process very often, they can better explain the
things fully not only the operation of the machineries and also what can be
done differently. Interestingly, some auditors simply make notes on the
30
checklists and others simply make notes on the observation. Because making Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
notes will not meet the requirements as the audits are designed to meet
specific objectives which can facilitate to be established, therefore it is best to
know the method which best suits to meet capturing the information.
3) Create an Audit Report and Recommended Actions:

Once the audit is being done, every member of the team should compile the
notes made and summarize the report that enables the findings. This should
also include the area audited along with the person who conducted it with the
list of the persons interviewed should also be mentioned.

The final audit report will be the objective and concise which will have both
positive and negative findings. It actually reflects the findings and
perspective of every team member. In addition, the audit will also have the
recommendation on the area to be improved based on these findings.
4) Set Corrective Action Priorities:

Audits reveal curative actions to be implemented immediately and the minor

action that the company can consider in a near future for further improvement.
This list might have short or long issues such that each issue needs to be
addressed right away.

The audit team with the help of the managers and supervisors set up the
priorities to detect the level of hazards. Highest priority should be paid to
those with high risk followed by the lower risk values.

Once the priorities are finalized with the items at high risk, the team assigns
tasks with the review date and its completion. It is the job of the team to set
up the outline on how to complete the task and record it that will benefit the
future audits with ease.
5) Publish Audit Results:

Employees would be aware of what’s going well and which part of the
machinery needs to be improved. Posting the results of the audits on the
website of the company intranet, in the appropriate venues will enhance and
encourage the transparency among the workers for their safety facility that
company has taken up.

The audit that is posted will also help everyone understand the changes that
need to be implemented and how these changes will enhance their personal
safety during the work in the production line. The audit will also
acknowledge the every member of team with managers and employee for
their effort during the process of audit. These acknowledgements also
encourage having conversation with the goodwill for the future audits.

These safety audits are time consuming with huge effort is paid, however
similar to the processes which rely on the time and effort, the team present 31
 Introduction to the valuable results that push the company’s effort towards their employees
Industrial Safety
safety. This will enable for the company to have proactive safety measure
that can avoid injuries, illness and death of the employees.

Audits focus on the effective implementation of the safety plans with double
check the processes which are accurate on the basis of the procedure that are
underlined previously in the audit. Without the procedure being followed will
let the audit time consuming and tend not to perform future audits frequently.
Just like the preventive maintenance allotted for equipments, audits also helps
to fetch and prevent the injuries and fatalities.

Noteworthy
Strength

Observation
Weakness/ Risk Nonconformity
Oppotunit
y
Failure
Weakness/
Oppotunity

Figure 1.6: Outcomes of Audit

1.7 ACCIDENT ANALYSIS

Today’s comparative and sensitive environment, companies look after
different techniques to be incorporated to fetch highest benefits. Total quality
management (TQM), just in time (JIT), manufacturing and total employee
involvement (TEI) is such good examples of different techniques. These
techniques will help in optimization of the processes being used as the asset
of the companies. Safety department is one such main part of the company
which has a strong influence on the asses or the responsibility of the
employees for maintaining the different concepts in order to meet the
underlined targets of the company without the support of such departments
including the strategy led by quality and maintenance. There is obviously no
doubt that safety of the individual has vital role in every company. In recent
days, the prior attention of the companies is being the safety of the employees
that has become the evil, i.e. which is regarded to be expense and becomes
non-value added amount. Without the companies cannot endure for more
time, i.e. by not considering the safety as one of the prime agenda because the
others companies which are considering it will put out the business as a
competitive weapon.
32
Investigation of the accidents in the production line is primarily regarded as a Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
fact-finding procedure; which are based on the facts that were not followed
which could also be prevented in order to avoid recurrences of similar
accidents. If properly handled, accidents can also be reduced and that enables
the safety and health awareness among the employees, and builds affinity
between the supervisor and the injured. These injuries and also the illness
among the workers can be reduced to great extent by minimizing the
hazardous conditions. Although it is to be remembered that it cannot be
completely eliminate all accidents. However, it will be easier and cost
effective, if it can be reduce and eliminate the hazards than to teach
employees to be safe from being injured in the working area. It is significant
to note that reducing or minimizing the hazards is important. This can be
better accomplished by changing the worn parts and equipments, installing
the safety guards, by enhancing the material handling technique, and by
adopting less hazardous chemicals.
It is also important to rectify the causes and adopting the corrective measures
as is the objective of any accident investigation procedure. Examples of such
areas to be probes include unsafe conditions, poorly underlined tasks,
inadequate procedures and lack of accountability. Even the minor injuries
that occurred on the floor evoke the usage of incorrect practices, which if
corrected could be used to avoid such hazards. Therefore, every minor injury
should also be considered and investigated in the same manner as vigor with
thoroughness.
Ultimately, the principal purpose of the fact findings is the investigations of
the accidents. Even the smallest of the smallest factors should be considered
which an important factor in the investigation. Also, the reference from the
well investigated on the accidents could also help to prevent such injuries,
accidents in future, not only that it can be cater to serve as a opportunity to
learn, and build the trust among employees. The accidents that occur in
industries are termed as industrial accidents. These occur as a result of faulty
equipment or machinery and also due to the negligence of the worker. These
accidents can be reduced with proper safety measures and precautions. There
will always be some of the valid reasons for these accidents to happen. Also,
chances of occurring accidents during running the machine and equipments
are also quite often. Therefore, proper training with the prior knowledge
among the workers can reduce the danger of accidents as operation in
industry is always a full chance of accidents. Carelessness among the workers
also leads to accidents. The number of accidents will be increased if a worker
shows negligent behavior under the influence of intoxicants.
Classification of Accidents

Accidents are classified into three categories on the basis of the length of the
recovery:

33
 Introduction to 1) First Aid Cases:
Industrial Safety
The injuries happened due to minor accidents are not considered to be serious
as the worker is given the first aid in factory hospital. As the worker gets the
medical treatment in the factory hospital can return to start the work. This
will not be time consuming except for the time taken to treat the worker with
the first aid. Also, there will be no compensation being paid due to minor
injuries.
2) Home case accidents:

Preliminary aid in treatment is being at the factory hospital and allows the
worker to go home for the fast recovery. During this wound will be healed
and the worker will be ready to resume his duties. Therefore, worker may
lose a shift or day of his duties during the accident. This type of accidents
also not serves the purpose of compensation for the injured as this will not
fall under workmen’s compensation act.

3) Lost Time Accidents:

These accidents are entitled for the compensation from the company. The
worker will be allowed to take leave on the work on the issue of accident for
a day and entitled to take many days if necessary. During this the worker will
be hospitalized as a result of temporary or a permanent disablement might
occur.
 Monitor & measure Set goals, by
This leads to an enquiry followed objectives,
Follow
 the and standards
work Allocate
plansif there exists
investigation a resources
difference in causes is found concerning the accident. As a example, if the
body part such as hand, leg or any other part is injured or being cut. In recent
times, a systematic technique is being implemented to analyze and prevent
the process of PDCA which is commonly termed as Plan-Do-Check-Act, and
is commonly followed by all the industries in identifying the causes (Figure
1.7).

Figure 1.7: The Modified PDCA Process for a Safety Management System Immediately
After an Accident

 Ensure any injured or ill employee receives medical care immediately;

34
 Start the accident-investigation process promptly; Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
 Maintain conditions at the accident scene, as much as possible;
 Involve the right people - supervisor, employee, witnesses and others;
 Form a fact-finding committee in the event of very serious accidents.

The details of the information regarding accident-investigation including the

name of the injured with respect to the date and time of the injured,
occupation held in the company with his task being performed when injury
took place, his shift and the department he represent, employee’s address
showing his age or date of birth, tenure of his service with the employer, time
of the shift started, hospital and the physician name, with the type of injury
he underwent, describing his illness with the accident, a summary drawn
contributing to the accident, corrective measures taken so far with persons,
statements of the injured person along with the witness, can be presented to
showcase how the safety in the working area is being managed and what else
is necessary to be implemented. This develops the appropriate justification
for addressing the common causes of accidents and its prevention in future.

Management review the reports of the investigation made on the accident to

ensures to develop the underlined remedial actions. This report on the
accident is very informative for the top level executives to take necessary
action. With this they will be informed all the time about the accident
investigation, allows to draw question on why such accident happened and
lets them take a serious step to avoid such incidents being happened in future.
This further will be followed by the handing over the reports to the authority
to take the necessary action such as maintenance staff. These reports will
have photographs or the drawings or other information that give insight about
the accident including the statement of the witness and also the information
given by others. The lack in follow up in the process of the accident
investigations reveals the greatest deficiency that create turbulence in
rectifying or taking corrective measures that led during the accident. A good
investigation report on the accident narrates the specific corrective actions,
and the person who actually needs to take action, and deadline for the
completion of the target. This will be followed by the members of the
responsible management to follow up in order to ensure the implementation
of the deadline with corrective measures. After being implemented all the
actions taken on behalf should be provided with a summary of the sequence,
causes and measures taken for the betterment of the working area. Also,
every employee should be aware of similar kind of operations. This should be
assigned to the supervisor or the members of the team. This will be served in
three fold:

 To provide additional safety training,

 To make operational changes based on the facts involved in the accident,
35
 Introduction to  To let employees know that the company cares about their safety and
Industrial Safety
health.

Most importantly the management should encourage the employees

suggestions in regards to the safety as well as health concerning factors and
let them participate in investigation process. Thus management should seek
the opportunity for the employee participation.

PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) Process: The process is an essential part as it

provides an opted way to analyze the accident investigation which also acts
as acumen to avoid or prevent the occurrence of the accidents both by the
company and the government (Figure 1.7). In order to acquire an effective
investigation, therefore it should approach from the basic causes of the
incident to happen and use data of the previous results. However, availability
of enormous theoretical concepts and also the models that are associated with
it can explain the how and why accidents happen. This provides a platform,
upon which they can exhibit their expertise to analyze, investigate, and draw
the preventive actions against accidents. Among the theories so far used, the
three most commonly used are; domino theory of causation, system theory,
and hazard-barrier-target theory. Domino theory insights on the consequence
of errors that made the accident to happen right from social environment to
the unsafe condition and from fault or person to the unsafe act of the worker
that led to an injury. Whereas the other method of system theory denotes may
of the causes that indulge of faulty system components; and finally according
to hazard-barrier-target theory, despite the barriers that have already been
introduced to avoid the hazards but they happen to occur due to repeated
exposure of the flaws.

The application of analysis technique such as PDCA in order to depict and

classify the prime causes of accidents might help to provide sophisticated
information and being a lesson to be learned from the data. The use of PDCA
technique to identify the causes for the accidents allows developing a
individual model that can be a combination of two or more models in
defining the safety management system that incorporates the systematic and
practical approach prospective on vulnerable components. The reports on the
accidents comprised of experts decision on the culpable components from the
safety management system with basic of the causes of the investigation.

Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) Process: A

recent study on the statistical research has highlighted deeply the human error
being the primary factor that is being the majority of the accidents. This was
also suggested by the analytical foundation for a Human Factors Analysis and
Classification System (HFACS) to characterize the role of human error
quantitatively. HFACS, being the commonly used tool to investigate the role
of human contributions even in the area of the aviation accidents as
underlined in the widespread of the evaluation scheme. This study by the
36
HFACS on analytical criteria in a fuzzy atmosphere to investigate the Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
accidents in a consistent manner. Also, the other quantification technique
such as Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) is being integrated on the
existing framework of HFACS to investigate in a more quantifiable manner
the contributions of human error to accidents. After that, the use of pair wise
comparison technique allows drawing active and latent failures that can be a
cause for the future accidents in the working area of the industries. This is
based on the methodology that comprises of group discussion ability of an
individual to enhance the performance of the model outcomes.

HFACS has become a most powerful tool in analysis of the human factors
that contribute to the different types of accidents. The principal aim of the
HFACS being used against the traditional method is to depict the accurate
reason that led the accident to happen. Accident analysis usually focuses on
proper identification of the most important phenomena that emerge in the
course of an accident. The analyzed accident models differ in both their level
of detail and their scope of applicability. More general models enable a rough
analysis of the phenomena only.

Since the accident is represented as a series of consecutive events, it is a

sequential model. A basic drawback of the sequential models consists of the
fact that they only allow one to investigate phenomena that appear directly in
the course of the accident, neglecting the indication of accident causes which,
by their nature, must have emerged earlier. These causes had exerted their
influence before the accident happened, thereby making it possible for the
phenomena to follow. Since, first of all, the mistakes made by designers of
machines and workstations are to be analyzed, the sequential model is not
suitable for our purposes. A relatively large group of accident models
comprises those based on the analysis of human behaviour under stress.

1.8 SAFETY TRAINING

No business firm anticipate to have a better safety concern without the head
of the firm, be a president, chief executive officer or the owner can explain
the issue of personal leadership with specific activities rely on the safety; a
key value is the ultimate priority in the organization. The head of the
organization should also communicate to every employees of the
organization to understand the safety process and procedures and also
encourage them to participate in safety programs conducted by the
organization. Every business will essentially have established a follow
through on procedures and also the practices that every employee is reached
with intranet or some other way about the safety and health issues as prime
responsibility is as equal as quality and cost effectiveness. Safety and health
program is the term used to define the safety measures that has been
undertaken in the prospect of combination of procedures, processes with the
37
 Introduction to help of organization policies including actions and decisions. With the
Industrial Safety
effective leadership and execution of each of the elements in the program are
an essential part of safety and health issues.

With the safety measures taken in concern of all the employees in the
organization, the performance pays off with very influencing profit in the
business. It also enhances the production efficiency and morale among the
employees, compensation cost for the lower workers and allows the worker
to keep on the keep during the shift. Every organization in the business area
confronts a problem of multitude that need to have a treatment on immediate
attention. If the problem has not found any solution, it will tempt to overlook
on safety and health issues also. It is likely to be solved when the accident
occurs and keeping in mind the mistakes should not be repeated to reduce the
accidents. As a result the burden in providing the compensation and also the
claims made by the accidents will defer the organizations profit and quality.

It is the job of every employee to become familiar to the procedures of safety

and health issues in the working area of the organization. As these laws are
defined on the basis of duties, actions and also ensure to have the employees’
concern. In addition to this, companies must also be familiar with the
government regulation on environmental protection agency (EPA), building
codes as well as the regulation of the fire safety.

The following are the well scripted safe practices in the working area, and are
being recognized by every organization for their employee’s safety
procedures:

Provide guidelines for controlling potential hazards;

 Communicate your company’s accident-prevention policies

 Contribute useful information during training
 Contribute useful information during training

Every business, irrespective of its unit capacity and employee’s size and it
should adopt better safety practices and communicated for the better
understanding among the workers. Sometimes, it is also necessary to adopt
the special safe work practices in the particular domain or subdivision or
department of the company, in order to avoid hazards depending on the
nature of work with available technology. The adopted safety procedures
ensure to be used as a supplement for other actions taken by the management,
to build a better workplace with integrity of safety in all domain functions.
Not meeting the desired rules and regulations will bring down the potential of
the company’s in order to achieve its safety performance. It is necessary in
developing safe work practices, as it is will be essential to develop practices
and procedures pertaining to specific and reasonable issues. A procedure
which cannot be followed will eventually enforce potential ineffectiveness in
38
other concern also. Therefore, giving equal significance one can effectively Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
remove the hurdle or can control the hazard, also it will minimize the need of
safety in the working area. The organization with excellent brains will
develop the technique to have safe work practices that are involved with
companies operation, they may be supervisors and employees, who has the
basic knowledge of their own work safety of the working area.

People interest towards buying increases monotonically when they are aware
of the process. Such kind of participation will enhance the quality of
knowledge of participants in enduring to reduce the accidents or hazards or
eliminate it. Writing the safe working practices with the ease in
understanding by effective utilization of a local language will also affect
positively. Whenever necessary, remind them of what to do, rather than what
is not should be done. As the example, say, “Use a lifting device to move
the ...,” rather than “Don’t lift the device without using a ....”, it is also in
practice to give the safest work practices program to the newly recruited or
the transferred employees in order to ensure to do their work is being done
without any causalities. Also as motioned above, training must be a
continuous process. It is the job of the supervisors to frequently review the
general as well as the department wise specific work practices along in
correlation with its employees. As the supervisors and employees are mostly
involved in performing the maintenance work so they should be aware of safe
work practices of each and every department. Due importance should given
to develop safe work practices in order to ensure safe operation of dangerous
equipments as in case there will be only few skilled workers available to
operate such equipments or workers capable of working in such hazards
condition or environment. Therefore educating and training will be extremely
helpful to have safe work practices. Despite training being the essential part
of any operational safety and health program, however it should not replace
the policy to eliminate or minimize the hazards in the work area.

Safety and health meetings are important in getting employees actively

involved in the company’s efforts to maintain a safe and healthful working
environment. Safety meetings can involve requesting employee ideas about
safety policies and procedures, setting up employee teams to develop safe
work practices or encouraging employees to report unsafe procedures,
processes and conditions. Supervisors also can ask workers for their ideas on
how to solve specific problems. The supervisor’s ability to develop and
conduct interesting and rewarding meetings is only limited by his or her own
creativity. If the safety discussion involves an accident or illness, focus the
discussion on the facts surrounding the incident, the injury and the causes that
allowed the incident to occur. Discussion of a failure to adhere to a safety
procedure should cover why such behavior is wrong, the potential hazards
and constructive discussion on how to correctly follow procedures.

39
 Introduction to Discussion involving work being planned should include potential hazards,
Industrial Safety
developing suggested engineering approaches to reduce risk, identifying
safety equipment to be used and developing basic safe operating procedures.
This is an excellent opportunity to involve the workers in the planning
process.

It is important that all operating unit members know they are part of the
occupational safety and health team. Recognizing that you count on each one
to contribute to the success of the team can stimulate ideas and energies that
will help strengthen each person’s commitment to making the workplace as
safe as possible. Achieving teamwork requires active cooperation and
involvement on the part of both the employees and management.

Safety and health training provides specific instructions to employees so they

can perform their jobs in a safe and healthful manner. Safety and health
training also is intended to impart knowledge so workers can identify
workplace hazards and initiate changes themselves. Creating interest,
commitment and awareness is the challenge those involved in training must
successfully meet. Safety and health training can be put under orientation
program when a person is promoted from one department to another
department or while he’s learning that new job for which he is appointed for.
While in case of temporary transfer to other departments, cross training is
considered to be extremely important for safety and health of those
employees who are being transferred.

Supervisors form a check list comprising of specific items for discussion

which they find an effective technique and helps them in covering their
points during the orientation program. These training methods turn into
successful session when there is consistency and confidence amongst number
of participants attending the training session.

A well-organized, well-planned, and well-executed safety orientation

programs results in building a strong foundation for each person’s future
safety and health performance. It should be confirmed by each supervisor
leading the orientation program that each new employee gets a copy of
detailed safe work practices and measures. The supervisor should also ensure
that need for safe work practices and procedures are well and thoroughly
understood by all the new employees who have attended the orientation
program.

Following are few steps adopted for conducting effective job safety training
program:

 Briefly explain the main objectives of conducting the safety training

programs and also reason why these training programs are so important
for any new employee. Once the doubt about why this training is
important and what’s in it for him or her is clear in the minds of a person
40
 attending the program, his or her interest in learning will automatically Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
grow if he or she understands.
 Categorize each key step of a job by breaking down the total job or
process into specific part. This detailed outline of a job or procedure may
be able to help and guide the workers in understanding their job nature
and related process. Also this detailed outline of a job involving how
safety integrates into each step of the job, workers learn about how to
accomplish their work and do their job safely and correctly.
 Elaborate new workers about the appropriate ways of doing their job or
procedure. Simply demonstrating how to conduct a specific job safely is
generally lacking. Before proceeding to the next step, trainer should
pause at one point every time to highlight the key points. Trainer should
encourage the employees to ask questions at each stage so that they are
able to clear their doubts related to safety and training at the time of
orientation program itself for better understanding.
 Ask the employees to conduct their allotted job or procedure by
describing each and every step in detail about what he or she has to do
and also why they have to do. By doing this and allowing an employee to
recite and conduct his respective job, this will ultimately let trainer know
about whether the person attending the program is able to understand the
aspects of safety and health and he or she can complete the task safely.
 The dedicated trainer must visit periodically to check and see whether
the worker is doing well in his job or not and also to check if he or she
has any queries or difficulties in conducting his job. The early follow-up
process is a very important procedure as it allows identifying the
improper work procedures in an early stage and helps in correcting them
as well as helping employees in developing safe and efficient work
habits.
Supervisors must conduct safety and health training programs on regular
basis for smooth functioning of the job and procedures in a plant. The safety
aspects inculcated in the training program might include information related
to monthly safety and health meetings; safety training linked to modifications
in the work processes or procedures, systematic personal safety contacts,
safety training linked to the work nature and safety compliance which might
be about fire safety, emergency actions, lockout/tagout, and hazard
communication.
Each company or industry should take responsibility of providing work
station that is free of life threating hazards for employees. It is important to
take measures for eliminate hazards in the work environment, on the other
hand it might be impossible or infeasible to eradicate all the hazards
completely through engineering design, guarding or administrative controls.
In such cases PPE (Personal protective equipment) might be adopted for
safety purpose of employees. 41
 Introduction to Personal protective equipment (PPE) generally comprises of following
Industrial Safety
protective equipment:

 Hand protection- heat or chemical-resistant gloves.

 Face and eye protection- safety glasses, goggles and face shields
 Head protection- hard hats and bump caps
 Protective footwear- safety shoes, rubber boots and metatarsal guards
The personal protective equipment type required during any tragedy or
circumstances will solely depends upon the particular hazard that might occur,
the exposure duration and will ultimately depend upon exposure intensity. In
order to safeguard employees against identified hazards, it is important to
make employees use of PPE. In order to be effective, the opted PPE should
be readily available, should be of correct size and should be designed
properly for the use intended. PPE use ensures and increases employees’
safety against damaged or defective equipment. PPE program must be
arranged for training employees about the benefits of PPE and is considered
as an important part of it. Training session of about 10-15 minutes is required
regarding safety footwear, safety eyewear and hard hats so as to elaborate the
objectives, policy, responsibilities and procedures. Whereas PPE devices
associated with respiratory protection or hearing protection demands for
requires more extensive education and training.
Broad information regarding when and what PPE is required; how to adjust
and wear the PPE; and the restrictions, appropriate care, utilization,
maintenance and the ultimate disposal of PPE must be strictly included in the
PPE training. Supervisors should ensure and ask employees to demonstrate
an understanding of necessities and capability of using PPE properly before
they are given permission to conduct works requiring PPE. Employees
should be informed about the basis of selection decisions of PPE devices and
insure that employees also get the decision logic used behind opting for
particular PPE device. Make arrangement for new training sessions in case of
obsolete previous trainings in case where there are changes in work station or
type of PPE used earlier, also in case when there is lack of knowledge or skill
predicted from employee’s behaviour with assigned PPE.
The PPE program should be in written form by each company that encloses
all the aspects of safety equipment procedures in detail.
Safety officer of coordinator of any company is a responsible personal for
assessing company’s hazard sites and sources and will accordingly select the
PPE device according to type of risk. Supervisors or team leaders are strictly
instructed to check that correct PPE device is available, is in functional
condition and is worn by employees correctly. Supervisors should train their
employees about how to exchange their equipment and what one should do in
case if any problem or difficulty occurs with that particular equipment during
functioning.

42
Each supervisor or team leader should be able to assess the hazards and Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety
should be able to manage their employees, and then only those supervisors
will be titled as effective coach. Supervisor should communicate their
employees the need for wearing PPE devices while working in their
respective sites via in formal training sessions, in informal one on one
conversation or by setting example like by wearing hand gloves in front of
the employee, by wearing helmet by themselves.
New or transferred employees usually begin their work by attending
orientation program related to safety and health concerns. Safety and health
orientation programs helps in periodically fixing meetings or discussions
associated to safety and health issues and ultimately check the knowledge of
attending employee by making them doing work in hazard possessing sites
and by checking their knowledge by the way they opt for their respective PPE
devices for the same.
These activities generally hold very important place for education, training
and communication, as these generally not allow for supervisory contact and
discussion with employees regarding safety and health issues.
It is suggested that more frequent yet less formal contact with labours
promotes effective training regarding safety process. Supervisors and team
leaders’ gets details of status amongst labours regarding safety and health by
promoting one-on-one communication and they get an chance to find out
what employee holds opinion about safety, assists in clarifying doubts and
get to know their expectations and promote understanding and commitment
due to which benefits stay with organizations as well.
When organization is systematic and organized its productivity and
performance are automatically enhanced owing to providing training to
employees, opportunity and right to participate during decision making
process. When there is freedom to speech, and employees are allowed to put
on their thoughts and ideas in front of team leaders regarding improving
safety and health related concerns and when employee know that they will
not lose their jobs as an outcome of putting their knowledge for enhancing
safety and productivity of an organization. The employee and company’s
safety gets commitment from supervisor when safety aspects are monitored
periodically. By making safety aspects and it’s monitoring as a part of any
supervisor’s performance, leads to profit of both the company and as well as
of supervisor. This process of monitoring is easy procedure which can be
done and managed via little bit of training. A supervisor set aside 5 to 15
minutes in morning meeting or by any other mode and communicates the
importance of safety and health to employees weekly, biweekly or at a
minimum, monthly
Training can be made for discussing needs to identify various possible
hazards, protective equipment for improving process, redesigning work place
so as to do proper risk assessment. If employees willingly participate into the
discussion and supervisors respond to their queries and concerns and
inculcate their ideas into the final decision making, then beginning of trust
and personal ownership takes place amongst both the side. When a work 43
 Introduction to environment is build where supervisor and employees both consider safety
Industrial Safety
and health aspects as their duty and mutual responsibility then performance is
improved with least wastage of time which generally takes place owing to
illness or accidents.
Supervisor or team leaders can record their information regarding the recent
conducted meetings with the employees in a record known as employee
safety contact/observation record. Supervisor can record or jot down the
important points confronted during conversation or discussion done during
meeting with the employees for example pocket cards that contains record of
each meeting for tracking purpose.
Supervisor can make use of these safety tools to identify the injury or illness
of any employee going through it by using safety observations records and
can solve their problems. Yet there are many companies who confront with
increasing worker’s reimbursement costs as well as costs associated to work
station ambience that generally leading to illness or accidents.
A variety of factors contribute to organizational safety performance. The
culture of organization is also affected by company values and beliefs.
Organizational culture aids in recognizing and handling hazards via effective
safety methods which indirectly helps in identifying and eradicating injuries
and illness which might affect the organizations safety and health if not
solved prior to actual happening. The overall safety and accident prevention
is monitored by senior management’s leaders and desired actions are taken up
under their supervisions.

SAQ 1 T/F
a) State True or False
i) The Cost of lost time of injured worker is indirect
cost of accident.
ii) The purpose of a lock-out/tag-out procedure is to
secure harmful energy sources to prevent injury.
iii) Shock is defined as an abnormal condition of the
body where there is insufficient blood delivered to
the body’s cells.
iv) A confined space is deemed ready for employee
entry when the unit operations foreman declares it
ready.
b) Why all minor injuries should be reported. Provide
two reasons?
c) Why it is required to keep a record of all accident, however small?
d) Name 4 areas into which accident costs may be classified?
e) What are the immediate and ultimate objectives of an accident
investigation? Qualify your answer?

44
1.9 LET US SUM UP Basic Concept of
Industrial Safety

Safety concept is defined as a state in which risk of harm to persons or

property damage is reduce to, and upheld at or below, an acceptable level
through a continuing process of hazard identification and risk management.
On the other hand when we talk about accomplishing safer and reliable
design, its whole liability rests on the shoulders of those groups or
individuals who regulates and governs the design functions. Industrial
revolution elevated the unsafe and dangerous working environments in many
factories conditions in which labours were unaware of the dangers and
hazards associated to their work place or workstation. So an industry
providing importance and greatly determining the safety culture by focusing
on accident prevention on a priority basis and preventing employees against
injury or harm. A company’s performance can be escalated by appointing
dedicated supervisor for regularly monitoring, devoting and arranging
training sessions for making understand labours, employees and new comers
about safety aspects via orientation programs. This leads to excellent results
and directly leads to enhanced performance of industries. These resources
assist in enhancing the supervisor’s effectiveness in incorporating safety
performance into day-to-day functions. Comprising safety aspects as a crucial
factor helps in enhancing supervisors’ and managers’ overall performance
appraisals and it draws a clear picture that organization is dedicated towards
managing risks that might occur in day to day life, and prevents chances of
accidents and reduces chances of illness in work environment. There should
be an agreement amongst the manager and the supervisor to what activities
will be taken into account by the supervisor to forecast the safety issues
concerned with the work environment, and proper actions will be ultimately
taken by the supervisor to assure the safety and health issues of the work
station. Organizations’ safety revolves around the safety culture and the
culture of the organization. It is important that all the responsible authorities
of the organization take part in maintaining incremental improvement in
safety and health.

1.10 KEY WORDS

Safety: Freedom from (unacceptable) risk of harm to persons. Safety may
also encompass environmental or asset damage/loss.
Audit – an assessment of a safety and health program’s documentation and
or a physical location to ensure regulation compliance by a trained safety
professional.
Employee – Every laborer or mechanic, regardless of the contractual
relationship which may be alleged to exist between the laborer and mechanic
and the contractor or subcontractor who engaged him. “Laborer” generally
means one who performs manual labor or who labors at an occupation
45
 Introduction to requiring physical strength; “mechanic” generally means a worker skilled
Industrial Safety
with tools.
Employer – Contractor or subcontractor.
Hazard – A chance, an accident, a chance of being injured or harmed, danger,
a possible source of danger to life, to health, property, or environment.
House keeping Audit – an assessment of a physical location to ensure
regulation compliance by a trained safety professional.
Inspection – The act of inspecting, official examination or review, an
organized examination, or formal evaluation excise.

1.11 ANSWERS TO SAQs

SAQ 1
a)
i) True
ii) True
iii) True
iv) False
b)
1. To prevent reoccurrence.
2. In case of litigation.
3. To prevent sepsis.
c)
1. Accidents prevention.
2. In case of litigation.
d)
1. Wage losses
2. Production losses
3. Medical costs
4. Property Damage
5. Invention costs
6. Insurance costs
e) The immediate objective- is to get accurate information about the cause
and circumstances of the accident.

The Ultimate objective- is to prevent future reoccurrence’s of similar

accidents, to uncover new hazards, and to devise methods to control these
hazards.

46
 Basic Concept of
1.12 REFERENCES AND FURTHER STUDIES Industrial Safety

1) Marcel Simard, Alain Marchand, “A multilevel analysis of

organizational factors related to the taking of safety initiatives by work
groups” vol. 1, pp. 5-9, (1995).
2) Marc A. Rose, “Engineering Health and Safety Module and Case
Studies”, vol. 1, pp. 1-9, July (2004).
3) Paivi Hamalainen, Jukka Takala, Kaija Leena Saarela, “Global estimates
of occupational accidents”, vol. 1, pp. 2-3, (2005).
4) “Management of Industrial Accident Prevention and Preparedness” A
Training Resource Package UNEP, vol. 1, pp. 55-97, June (1996).
5) Muhammad Shahid, Tufail, Hamid, Mehovic, “Investigation of the ways
to improve the performance of a plant” vol. 1, pp. 1-6, June (2007).
6) J. Leslie Goodier,E. Boudreau,G. Coletta. R. Lucas, “Industrial Health
and Safety Criteria for Abrasive Blast Cleaning Operations ”. vol. 1, pp.
5-7, June (1996).
7) S. J. Ahn, A systematic procedure for evaluation of safety management
systems in chemical processes, Ph.D. Thesis, Seoul National University
(2008).
8) A. Jacobsson, J. Sales and F. Mushtaq, Journal of Loss Prevention in the
Process Industries, 22, 213 (2009).
9) K. D. Kim, Safety management system, Books Hill Inc., Seoul,
373(2004).
10) M. S. Mannan, T. M. O’Connor and N. Keren, Journal of Hazardous
Materials, 163, 349 (2009).
11) KOSHA, Industrial accidents in South Korea during 2008, KOSHANET
(2009).
12) M. Celik and S. Cebi, Accident Analysis and Prevention, 41, 66 A
(2009).
13) M. Bevilacqua, F. E. Ciarapica and G. Giacchetta, Accident Analysis and
Prevention, 40, 1468 (2008).
14) M. Tweeddale, Managing risk and reliability of process plants, Gulf
Professional Publishing, New York (2003).
15) Department of Environmental Protection of Yeosu City Government,List
of accidents in Yeosu petrochemical complex, Yeosu City (2005).
16) CCPS, Guidelines for risk based process safety, CCPS of the AIChE,
Wiley (2007).

47
 UNIT 2 SAFE WORKING PRACTICES
Structure
2.1 Introduction
Objectives
2.2 Procedure for Maintenance in Confined Space
2.3 Inherent Safety
2.4 Inherent Safety Indices
2.4.1 Different Events and Their Occurrence
2.4.2 Segregation of Incompatible Substance
2.5 Importance of Documents on Safe Work Practices
2.6 Let Us Sum Up
2.7 Key Words
2.8 Answer to SAQs
2.9 References and Future Studies

2.1 INTRODUCTION
Safe working practices are generally included in any industries which are set
of written instructions and methods that outline how to conduct a particular
task or job which involves minimum risk and threat to the employees, labours,
equipment, materials, nearby environment, as well as the opted processes.
Almost all the industries now-a-days are advised to opt and exercise safe
work practices in order to encounter the associated hazards or for redressing
different circumstances that might occur during functioning of the jobs and
this might furnish other liabilities for the industry. Industry’s approach
towards handing these hazards is represented by nature of handling them.
Since owners of the industries are the responsible persons who need to assure
that their staff and employees have a deep knowledge of performing their
allotted tasks in a safe way. This inculcates that they are aware of the possible
hazards which might occur or existing nearby their work station and job place,
and are also familiar with the method of how to control these mishappening.
All these instructions are provided in details in written form to the employee
that is called as safe working procedures. These safety procedures are nothing
but a set of guidelines to assist workers in performing their day-to-day tasks
step by step from beginning to end in a proper and efficient way with the
complete safety.
This unit will cover all the aspects of Safe working practices as well as safe
work procedures, which is provided to the workers for guiding them to work
in their work space with complete safety and hoe to deal with hazards when
they are in situation of risks or threat. Various types of practices that are
found to be useful while implementing safe work procedures are inculcated in
48
this chapter. You will also be introduced to the responsible personals that Safe Working
Practices
need to monitor the smooth running of and implication of safe working
practices at work places. This unit also lets you have knowledge about the
required procedure for conducting maintenance in confined space and
importance of documents on safe work practices. This unit will inform what
precautions and guidelines we should keep in mind while laying out the
machines or laying out the plant and what are the benefits of following those
principles.

Objectives
After studying this unit you should be able to:
 define the Safe working practices/ procedures;
 recognize proficient ways to outline the safe working procedures on
paper;
 discuss the utilization of safety measures in case of fire, explosion and
toxic gas cloud;
 describe the importance of safety manual, safety log for ensuring safety
in a plant

2.2 PROCEDURE FOR MAINTENANCE IN

CONFINED SPACE
Safety is a small word that encompasses a condition of being safe, free from
any kind of hazard, injury or risk to accident. There is another word called
reliability which is defined as a probability that component part, system or
dedicated equipment will satisfactorily conduct its intended functions under
the given situations for a specific period of time. In case of failure of any
equipment or any accident which might include simple spillage of oil on floor
or falls, slips, lockout etc., there comes the need for providing guidelines to
the workers and employees about such mishappening and how to overcome
and prevent these mishappening to reoccur in the plant. Before moving on to
safety procedures or processes it is imperative to understand the difference
between risk and safety. It all starts with the discussion of risk and eventually
ends up connecting risk and safety together at the end. Risk is broadly
categorized into two types namely;

 Individual risk

Individual risk is a probability of occurrence of death annually due to

exposure to an individual person at a certain distance from the hazardous
source. It mainly estimates in finding the risk of death. The individual
person who encounters or possess risk to his life are expressed via this
method. This evaluates fatality accident rate per year.

49
 Introduction to  Societal risk
Industrial Safety
Looking into another angle of risk called as societal risk is an estimation and
assessment of risk to a large group of people. By this number of people
affected by the entire incident can be calculated by using this method.
Societal risk builds relationship between the frequency and the total number
of people those suffer from hazard. By using FN curve the societal risks can
be expressed as relationship amongst cumulative frequency and number of
fatalities taking place. This type of study results into a convenient single
measure of group which is at risk.

Whenever a manufacturing activity is taking place there are always huge

chances of encountering accidents at the workplace. Therefore there is a great
need to design the system in such a way so that even if a worker is not
performing his duties according to the laid out principles in the manual, he
may not encounter any accident. Because if an accident takes place, it has
large number of implications like material loss, man hours loss, also the
person might face some injury. So it is desirable to take all these aspects into
account and have to design the systems in such a way that numbers of
accidents occurring in the work place are minimized to a great extent or are
closing to number zero. This is only possible if we design the system
effectively, educating the works through training about the safety norms and
practices as well as we keep into account that whenever there’s any accident
or some problem, that problem does not escalate into a catastrophic manner.

Sometime one accident leads to another accident and so on, such kinds of
effects need to be checked in advanced and conveyed to the workers for their
safety purpose. For this some principles must be designed whenever new
machine is laid out in the buildings, and if those principles are followed on
regular basis and religiously then the accident count is reduced and accident
prevention can be done to a great extent. In this main role is played by the
management people and they are aware of the costs involved in an accident,
as there are direct cost involved, indirect costs involved whenever there is
injury to any person, and as are the victims of the accidents. A person who is
victim and suffered some accident knows what cost they have been through
for their treatment, in case of severe injury they might lose some body part
which is undesirable from both industry point of view as well as workers
point of view also. The company has to bear other costs also for
troubleshooting the machine in case of break down machine or sometime
they may have to purchase a new machine in order to replace the obsolete
machine. Similarly company has to bear the cost of hospitalization of the
injured worker, and then there are other factors also like number of workers
involved in transferring the injured worker to the hospital, transportation
costs is affected, the man hour is lost, the productivity is reduced and there
are other indirect costs also that company may have to pay compensation
50 amount to the injured workers’ family or insurance company may come into
the picture at that time. So all in all, there are huge costs involved in case of Safe Working
Practices
occurrence of accidents in the workplace. So these problems need to resolve
by some means. So the question arises how these accidents can be minimized,
and how an individual worker can be made to realize importance of following
safety instructions. This can be done by getting the individual worker at the
point of operation to realize his personal responsibilities and duties. Also
these accidents can be reduced by organizing proper plant layout. But
maximum number of accidents usually takes place due to negligence of the
workers while performing their tasks or due to failure of the equipment.

If individual worker knows that due to his negligence some particular type of
accident or mishappening may take place then if he is cautious and if he is
performing his duty and job religiously by following the safety instruction
during working hours then there are no chance that would lead to an accident
to occur in a workplace.

Although there are still many chances in which equipment may fail and some
accident may take place, which is beyond workers control. But the important
part is to educate and train the workforces, that they willingly take the
personal responsibility in preventing the accidents. The management person
also plays a crucial role in designing the whole system in such a way that
accident incidents are not likely to occur in workplace. So the designs of the
system, plant, or building have to be such that there are least chances of
accident cases. In order to fulfill these requirements there are few guidelines,
precautions, principles, rules and regulations need to be followed while
laying down the building or a plant.

The layout of the plant and the machines as well as the tools should be
designed by keeping the accident prevention criterion in mind so that the
chances of the accidents can be prevented. The general principles of the plant
layout that should be kept in mind while designing the plant layout are as
follows;

 Need to keep minimum distances for transfer of materials in between the

plant or storage units to reduce costs and risks. Minimum transportation
of the material within the plant because it adds to the cost as well as it
may result into accidents also at some point.
 The geographical limitations of the site.
 Interaction with other plants on site.
 The need to locate hazardous materials facilities as far as possible from
site boundaries and people living in the local neighborhood.
 The need for plant operability and maintainability.
 The need to prevent confinement where release of flammable substances
may occur. 51
 Introduction to  The need to provide access for emergency services.
Industrial Safety
 The need to provide emergency escape routes for on-site personnel. The
people who are working on the sites, they should be aware of the escape
route from which they can escape in the case of emergency. So in a plant
or industry whenever an emergency arises or whenever there is a
catastrophe that destructs the industry or the plant there should be escape
routes available. Workers should ensure the escape routes and there
should be know-how to the workers that what are the available escape
routes in case of emergency. Even on the floors also marking scan be
done, that can help the workers to go out of the plant in case of
emergency.

 The need to provide acceptable working conditions for operators.

At times whenever a problem is confronted or accident due to fire takes place

or whenever there is some explosion in the plant, leads to power cut off. So in
such cases where power is cut off due to mishappening and if employers are
performing their night shift, there would be complete darkness and the
workers wouldn’t be able to identify the direction in which they should
escape from the accidental arena. So, it is imperative that proper facilities to
be provided for the workers to escape in case of emergency like provision of
certain fluorescent path or some guidelines which would help the workers in
tracing the route and escaping the plant in case of emergency. So to providing
the escape route to onsite personals is very important whenever laying out the
plant design. Proper working conditions for operators need to be insured
because sometimes humidity levels are very high, in some plants the heat
generated is very high, so considering all the aspects the plant layout should
be such that acceptable working conditions are provided to the operators.
Sometimes the workers have to perform some minute tasks and if the
adequate lighting arrangement is not there then the worker may not feel
comfortable and his eyes may not be lasting for too long or his eyesight may
get defected or permanently impaired. So whenever a plant layout is planned
or designed, all above mentioned particular aspects must be taken into
account while planning any layout to provide acceptable working conditions
to the operator. So the main important point that must be kept into mind
while plotting any plant layout, there are certain guidelines and principles, if
we keep those principles in mind then there are always chances that number
of accidents that in a well-designed plant are minimal or are very close to
zero.

From Safety Point of View

 Prevent, limit and/or mitigate acceleration of adjacent events (domino

effect): this point states that in case that one event happens then it should
not lead to another event and so on. It should be prevented in its initial
52 phase only.
 Ensure safety within on-site occupied buildings: is signifies that if any Safe Working
Practices
single event occurs, it should not lead to another event in the workplace.
So it is very important to ensure and provide safety within the onsite
occupied infrastructure. Ultimately it is also important to accommodate
safety for those nearby buildings also.

 Control access of unauthorized personnel: it states that only authorized

persons should be allowed to enter the plant and they should have easy
access to emergency services.

 Facilities access for emergency services: This means the in case of

occurrence of accidents, workers should have information regarding the
escape plan as well as adequate access should be provided for making
the emergency services to enter the plant for the safety of people or
workers struck inside the plant in case of accident.

2.3 INHERENT SAFETY

 Intensification to reduce inventories

Keep only those resources inventories that are actually required.

Sometimes there are certain parts or materials that are still lying in the
inventory which at present time are not at all required or which were in
demand in past at some point of time and in present time those extra
inventories might lead to some kind of accidents. So here intensification
means that focus should be given to maintain the inventory to a proper
amount or minimize the inventory as excess inventory is not desirable.
From safety point of view also increased focus should be given on
reducing the inventory in the plant is the foremost point.

 Substitution of hazardous substances by less hazardous alternatives

In designing of the plant it is desirable to keep a spate space for keeping

hazardous substances and it should be kept away from work space, then
inherent safety says that if it is important to keep certain hazardous
substances due to frequent demands then keeping those substances that
are less hazardous will eliminate or reduce the risk of explosion to some
great extent. Replace the most hazardous substances with the less
hazardous substances to prevent the possibilities of mishappening.

 Attenuation to reduce hazardous process conditions i.e. temperature,

pressure

In cases where chances of rising temperatures are very high and it may
lead to some kind of accident, so attention must be given to those types
of conditions that such conditions do not prevail. Temperature and
pressures need to be controlled and monitored on regular basis so that
accidents do not take place due to these conditions. 53
 Introduction to  Simpler systems/processes to reduce potential loss of containment or
Industrial Safety
possibility of errors causing a hazardous event

Sometimes complex systems lead to a hazardous event. System need to

be designed in such a way that it is very simple and it does not lead to
any kind of accident. Simpler systems need to be designed in order to
reduce the potential loss of containment or possibility of errors
instigating a hazardous event.

 Fail-safe design e.g. valve position on failure

Fail-safe design means that even if some system failure intervenes in the
work place then there must be some sort of sensors or valves to check the
possibility of failure in that part during the functioning and attack the
problem before it tends to happen by stopping the equipment or machine
in order to prevent the accident.

2.4 INHERENT SAFETY INDICES

The inherent safety index is another imperative aspect that need be
understood thoroughly. Inherent safety index is the only one by which whole
process routes can be assessed, and consecutively the most suitable route for
further development can be found. There are many ways by which accidents
may take place, so there is huge need to provide for a particular system or for
particular working conditions in which the accidents do not take place and
the operators feels safe while working on their jobs and perform their duties
safely while working in the plant. There are still chances of accidents to
happen, in that case there is need to have a enumerated technique which
would help in checking and assessing the risk that how much is the risk
involved in that particular type of system or process. It is the most suitable
technique to minimize the risk. This method also compares the inherent
safety index of the plant with the cost of capital and production- it is believed
that inherently safe plants are cost-effective plants. Inherent safety index of
the plant and cost of capital and production are interrelated with each other,
so always there is risk involved with them and ultimate aim is to minimize
the risk. A plant is entitled as a cost effective plant when it is designed in
such a way that cumulative risks or chances of accidents associated with that
particular plant are minimum or lees in number. Cost effective plant in one
that do not involve direct or indirect cost of accidents.

Risk indices does not point out specific danger but it draws attention towards
those areas which are prone to risk and it provides the required in depth
analysis auxiliary-safety measures for those arena. So these risk indices are
found to be helpful in finding out or in identifying the areas where chances of
occurrence of risk is higher. It is but obvious that areas prone to higher risk
are at much greater risk of accidents. These risk indices helps in recognizing
54
areas that are most prone to incidents of accidents and assists in eliminating Safe Working
Practices
them from the plant. Risk indices are based on qualitative and quantitative
method. These methods are quite clear and cane be utilized quickly.
Quantitative means these risk indices will hold different numerical value for
different areas within the plant and this ultimately gives a lead to track out
that which area is having more chances of accidents and where are the least
chances of happening incidents. On the other hand quantitative technique
covers the range of hazardous materials process conditions and inventories.
So by making use of quantitative method of risk indices one can attain a
range by which person can point out that this thing is going to be hazardous.
This mainly covers the range hazards of materials process conditions and
inventory. There is another index which is called as OW-MOND index that
pin point particular type of hazards and also evaluates different indices
covering fire and other types of related explosions, in addition to overall
rating. This overall rating helps and gives conformity to the level of danger or
the level of risk associated with a particular area within the plant. So by
means of method that makes use of equations or graphs to locate the related
hazards. Comparatively graphs are easier to analyze and visualize. A
quantitative technique assesses the risks linked with the different stages of the
process and at different sites of the plant. Eventually these risk assessing
techniques are helpful in providing better understanding of the accident
prevention steps. As soon as these indices provide an idea of the area that is
more susceptible to accidents, preventive steps can be undertaken by the
management team to prevent that accident to happen. Accidental prevention
policies and procedures should be implemented for those areas that are more
prone to incidents of accidents. Risk indices are very important part of
industrial safety where chances of accidents are more. These risk indices
causes chances of occurrence of objectivity into the system in order to
counter the subjectivity. Ultimately to avoid occurrence of any accidents
these indices would aid in providing adequate management schemes for
undertaking preventive measures. These is one effect known as Domino
effect which could be better understood by considering an example of cycles
parked in a row. In case if we push one cycle then it will lead to fall of
second cycle, then circle and then ultimately all the cycles would fall with the
slightest push. This effect is termed as domino effect.

The loss of containment as well as chances of escalating the accident in any

form is monitored by assessment of the hazard in that particular plant layout.
It is imperative that supervisors and higher authorities are capable of ensuring
the escalation chances of the accidents by this it means that in case of
occurrence of single incident, it should not lead to other incidents in chain.
Also provision for some valve or some sensor control system is provided at
the site of hazard in case of occurrence of two events which needs to be
ignored. If these protective steps are not provided in advanced and some
incident takes place then the Domino’s effect will come into account and it
55
 Introduction to will lead to further catastrophe in the plant. It is very critical to conduct the
Industrial Safety
hazard assessment of the plant or site layout in a plant to insure the minimum
escalation of the incident. Event of fire, toxic gas cloud or explosion might
lead to Domino effect at the site.

2.3.1 Different Events and their Occurrence

In subsequent sections different events (fire, explosion and toxic gas
cloud) are discussed in a manner of their occurrence

1. Fire

Incident of fire and its spreading can take place owing to following factors;

 Direct burning (including running liquid fires)

 Convention

 Radiation

 Conduction

By splitting of vertical and horizontal sections by employing fire resisting

walls as well as floors the spreading of fire from its originating source can be
prohibited to a great extent. In this case compartmentation is another term
which can be used to avoid spreading of fire. For example, in case a large
hall is there in any plant and in that if any incident of fire happens at one
specific area then it is clear that this fire will be spread to the entire hall. But
this escalation of fire can be prevented if entire hall is divided by providing
different compartments like four to five compartments in a single hall that too
built with fire resistant walls and fire resistant roof. Then fire occurring at
one specific area will not be able to proceed or spread into other areas due to
splitting of entire hall in the form of fire proof compartments. Ultimately fire
will remain in that specific compartment only thereby reducing the risks to
other places. In this way fire can be arrested to one specific area of the plant.

Another thing is that more emphasis should be laid on the spread of

flammable materials by means of ventilation systems, channels and pipes. In
case of occurrence of fire the provision must be provided to deliver this fire
from one place to another place through a proper channel like via ducts,
drains or ventilation system to ensure the safety of employers and other
personals working in the vicinity of the fire area. Consideration of these
provisions must be taken into account while designing the layout of the plant
or the building. Dispersed flammable gases and vapors are considered as a
means of eruption sources that may promote the fire incident leading to
Domino effect in one site where fire has taken place. So proper monitoring is
necessary to check and ensure the flammable gases and vapors from leading
further fire enhancement. Therefore, inherent safety principle helps in
56
protecting and preventing the Domino effect happening due to convention,
conduction and radiation. By following the guidelines and principles Safe Working
Practices
provided during laying out the plant helps in reducing the Domino effect and
ultimately huge damage that could be caused due to fire can be prevented. In
other words the magnitude of destruction can be reduced to a great extent.
Other modes include Active and/or Passive fire protection measures. Active
and/or Passive fire protection measures are different in their working
methods yet they are very important in providing the overall fire safety in a
building or plant. The equipment or techniques utilized under active and
passive fire protection measures are enlisted in Table 2.1.
Table 2.1: Fire protection measures: Active and Passive Fire protection
Measures

Active fire protection measures generally include manually operated or

equipments that require some amount of action to be performed like portable
fire extinguishers, water sprinklers. Others protection equipments included
under AFP are fire/smoke alarm system, fire extinguishers (automatic) and
sprinkler systems. Fire extinguishers are employed to shut down the fire
altogether whereas fire/smoke alarms are employed to sense the presence of
any fire or smoke related event inside the building. Similarly sprinkler
systems aids in slowing down the fire till firefighters arrive at the incident
site. AFP aids in taking action against putting out the fire but this system may
confront failure sometimes at the time of operation. For example, sprinklers
may fail due to frozen pipes which restrict water supply and adequate water
pressure, lack of maintenance.
On the other hand, it is much more than just fire extinguishers and water
sprinklers. Owing to maintenance issues water sprinklers might fail so in that
case passive fire protection measures come into role. Passive fire protection
team generally begins its work by compartmentalizing the entire building into
different sections which prevents or slows down the growth of fire from one
part to the other parts of the building. The preventive equipments that come
into PFP include fire resistant doors, walls, roofs, floors and fire/smoke
dampers. The coating of fire resistant material with fire protective coats is
57
 Introduction to also included in PFP preventive measures. Dampers generally help in
Industrial Safety
preventing the outburst of fire throughout the building via ducts or drains.
Providing photo luminescent path helps workers to escape the plant safely in
case of fire event. However, PFP does not take any kind of preventive step
by itself but with the assistance of AFP these both can be much helpful in
preventing and spreading the fire in the building. The total duration of
exposure determines the most suitable system for protection during the fire
event. The passive fire protection measure is effective only for short duration
of time, mostly one to two hours. But if fire exposure is for longer duration
like more than 3 hours then active fire protection measures come into role.
Which safety measure (active or passive fire protection system) is to be
undertaken depends upon the site factors. Site factors usually includes
substance possessing fire hazards, substances’ toxicity and the smoke/fumes
produced, size of inventory, frequency of hazardous operations. The hazard
possessed by substance will decide which type of protection system needs to
be used whether it will require active or passive or a combination of both
mode of protection. Therefore, it is also desirable to necessitate the need for
conducting fire safety audit in plant once in every month. Figure 2.1 depicts
all the checks that are conducted during fire safety audits.

Water Based Fire Life Safety

Fighting System Fire Extinguisher

Gas
FIRE SAFETY Passive for Protection
Suppression AUDIT
System

Fire Hazard Identification

Fire Detection and Alarm
System

Figue 2.1: Diagram for Fire Safety Audit at a Plant

There are other criteria also which should be kept in mind while adopting the
type of safety (active or passive) measures, like substances’ toxicity and
fumes produced during the fire. Similarly the size of the inventory also plays
important role while adopting the type of preventive measures. Suppose fire
outbursts into the plant and if it is not controlled within three to four hours
then active fire protection systems are called for emergency services e.g.
sprinklers. But if that fire is shut down within half to one hour then passive
fire protection services could be thought of adopting in that time. Other than
this there are other criteria also that should be kept in mind like frequency of
hazardous operation, distance between different hazardous installations, and

58
available resources to fire brigade. All these parameters need to be kept in Safe Working
Practices
mind while calling for active or passive fire protection services.
2. Explosion
Some guidelines and principles must be followed to safeguard the plants or
buildings against the incidents of explosion. The plant and related system
should be safe whenever any explosion takes place. Pressure waves or
missiles usually lead to explosion propagation. It is imperative to make a note
of it that explosion going to occur, what are the possible causes and
consequently what are the basic principles or guidelines that must be kept in
mind while designing a building or a plant to safeguard it against explosion.
As we have seen in case of fire in previous part that fire may spread from one
starting point to another point via different modes of conduction, convention
and radiation then similarly measures must be taken in case of explosion
casualties also. A lot of factors promote the incident of explosion, like
presence of combustible source, confinement of dust, dispersion of dust,
oxidants, ignition sources etc. as shown in Figure 2.2. Preventive measures in
case of explosion might include blast walls that prevent transfer of explosion
from one site of the plant to the other part of the plant. In order to prevent
severe damages caused due to explosion adequate safety procedures must be
undertaken like some valves or sensors or some accident control devices that
will not allow the explosion to occur or in case of explosion it will prevent
the progress of explosion to the other parts of the building.

EXPLOSION

Figure 2.2: Factors Leading to Explosion

The plant damage can be prevented by providing vessels possessing thicker

walls so that the damage caused due to explosion is least. Other important
point to note regarding explosion prevention measure is that the explosion
relief vents must be directed away from vulnerable areas like nearby other
industries or buildings, roadways passing by site boundaries. By providing
these explosions relief vents the damage caused due to explosion can be
prevented to a great extent. 59
 Introduction to 3. Toxic Gas Cloud or Release
Industrial Safety
Other type of hazard linked to the explosion is discharge of toxic gases in the
environment that may lead to Domino effect by rendering neighboring
industries, adjacent sites, plants and injuring workers working in the vicinity
and leading to accidents. This type of Domino effect can be controlled by
preventing, mitigating hazards associated with the explosion through the
utilization of automatic control systems by adopting inherently safer
guidelines and principles and a convenient control room for conducting all
these required preventive steps. Ultimate requirement is stop these kinds of
damages or hazards that may take place due to explosion. Explosion usually
takes place due to release of gases and these leaked gases can be detected by
using some sort of gas detector implanted in the areas prone to gas leakages.
These gas detectors alerts the employers working in that area by generating
an alarm and will warn the security checkers to take preventive steps in case
of leakage of toxic gas in the environment. The control mechanism can be
effective in that case where the defect or gas leakage is detected in shortest
possible time. Consequently the damage will be minimal leading to the
prevention of the possible damage and reduction of consequences of event on
and off site.
The first foremost thing to keep in mind for reducing the consequences of
event on and off site is storage of flammable or toxic materials well outside
the processing areas. By locating all the high-volume storage of flammable or
toxic substances at a distance from the processing areas can help in reducing
the chances of explosion in the working area. Other thing to be noted is the
plants those deal with the hazardous materials should be located far away
from the main roadways and should be isolated from other nearby
functioning industries. The consequences of the events can be minimized by
placing and implanting remote actuated isolation valves where high
inventories of hazardous materials can be discharged into vulnerable areas.
By providing such provisions of control mechanism the number of accidents
occurring due to high volume storage of hazardous materials can be
obstructed. Ditches, embankments, dykes and slope terrain are provided to
contain and control the release of toxic liquid from spreading from one point
to other site of the plant and ultimately limiting the safety and environmental
effects thereby reducing the resultant consequences of the event. Another
preventive measure that can be taken for preventing explosion is by siting the
plant as secondary containment within the building. The plants must be sited
in open air so that even if any small leakage of gases and vapors tends to
happen in the building rapid dispersion will be ensured for those released
gases thus preventing the incidents of flash fire and explosion. It means that
plants should be sited in open atmosphere conditions for easy release of
flammable gases through provisions of vents.

60
Also when part in a plant is suspected with some toxic substances or Safe Working
Practices
flammable substances, then it will lead to creation of atmosphere full of those
flammable gases. This will lead to an accident or huge explosion if
preventive measures are not carried out on time. For preventing these
incidents of explosion, open air ventilation should be provided in a plant for
easy evacuation of vapors, flames, gases and dusts. In addition to these
measures, care should be taken to avoid actions of ignition at these suspected
areas. For the sake of example if a person visits any petrol pump, authorities
advises all visiting customers not to smoke or light a match stick there, it is
because such ignition sources might lead to the incident of fire explosion.
Figure 2.3 is enclosing all the necessary preventive steps that are required and
must be adopted for avoiding possible hazards that might be confronted while
working at work sites.
Identify Hazards/Threats

Mitigate Hazards

Recognize other hazards

Keep trying

Recognize other hazards

Evaluate Hazards

Audit and Revise Identify Possible

Resources

Evaluate those
Conduct Mock Drills Resources

Integrate with Develop Emergency

Community Response Plan

Communicate to Train Responsible

Public Persons

Figure 2.3: Preventive Steps for Avoiding Hazards at Work site

61
 Introduction to There are other methods also that can be opted for checking the leaks related
Industrial Safety
to cylinders like soapy water solution for flammable gas leak check, testing
with inert gas for toxic corrosive gas.
Adequate positioning of occupied buildings is also one such concern that is
correlated with the incidents of accidents and taken into account while talking
about the aspects of industrial safety. In order to evaluate and decrease the
dangers associated with the events of fire, explosion and toxic gas release
there is huge need for governing the distance between the occupied building
as well as the plant building. The distance required for maintaining between
the occupied building and plant building will be solely dependent upon the
hazard and risk involved in fire, explosion, and toxicity.
Also poor plant layout may suppress the evacuation or escape route which
might lead to catastrophe in case of accidents related to fire, explosion, and
gas leak. Also the monitoring person should be aware of the escape route and
his sitting should be provided in the building sited in non-hazard area. Also
the responsible personal who has been assigned with the site responsibilities
should be located near to main entrance. Non-hazard area should be occupied
by all the authorities those holds the control of all safety regulations of the
plants. Another aspect to be kept in mind while laying out plant is that the
building where sitting of responsible personals are there it should not be sited
downwind of the hazardous plant parts as it may lead to the Domino effect
which has been discussed in previous section.
In case of absence of proper ventilations there are chances of trapping of
flammable vapors, suffocation and explosion in the plants. So either forced
ventilation or natural ventilation there should be provision for ventilation in a
plant in all the parts for the smooth functioning of plant and labors working
in hazardous environment.

2.3.2 Segregation of Incompatible Substance

This is another major aspect which should be taken under consideration
before laying out any plant and should be inculcated in the inherent safety of
plant. There are many industries that make use of different substances but
they do not know their chemical reactions, properties and how these can
affect the labors working nearby those substances. Provisions are provided
for workers to make them understand the guidelines and precautions that
must be undertaken to handle those hazardous substances, but there are many
newly joined personals also that do not have much knowledge about handling
that particular substance, so their proper training is a must before appointing
them their jobs. Mishandling of these hazardous substances might lead to
accidents. So proper measures must be undertaken while mixing such
substances, the worker must have ample knowledge about the consequences
of mixing such substances and their related Domino effects. There are
sometimes chances that the worker who is mixing two substances does not
62
have knowledge about the reaction that would take place and as a result of Safe Working
Practices
mixing explosion might take place. So to avoid these accidents trained
employers must be allowed to perform such tasks and they should have that
kind of know how guidelines while working with those type of substances.
This same thing applies for the quality of the product manufactured. If a
product is manufactured and its quality aspects are not ensured by the quality
checking team then it may result in disaster that may be in the form of fire or
explosion. Or sometimes it also can result in the form of vapors which may
lead into a total failure along with the release of toxic gases leading to big
hazard and ultimately leading to the incident of accident.
That’s why segregation of incompatible substances is also considered as one
of the most important aspect that needs attention in industrial safety. This can
be done by adopting inventory management technique for managing the
materials and substances for preventing accidents occurring to them.

2.5 IMPORTANCE OF DOCUMENTS ON SAFE

WORK PRACTICES
Documentation of safe work instructions plays a vital role in any industry as
these act as the foundation for that particular work place. A local
management personal enrolled, is generally responsible for developing and
implementing safe work practices in an industry. Figure 2.4 depicts all the
possible checks that are conducted by safety management department in a
plant. Safe work practicing is nothing but a set of instructions that are usually
recommended for undertaking any process or activity safely. Those industries
who have their safe working instructions in written format possesses safe
working system, also they conforms overall health and safety of their
employers.
Risk Assessment

Workstation Inspection

Incident Tracking

SAFETY
MANAGEMNET

Employee Qualification
Action Item Tracking

Employee Safety Training

Figure 2.4: Role of Safety Management Department in a Plant

63
 Introduction to These safety instructions in written format are an essential part of the system
Industrial Safety
for ensuring safe working conditions during actual operation. Management
team takes the responsibility of conducting and ensuring safe working
environment for the employers. For achieving this motto, management team
provides multiple safety trainings, orientation programs and induction
trainings to the newly appointed workers as well as to the newly shifted
workers.
Safe work practices can be categorized into following three basic practices
that must be undertaken to minimize the incidents of accidents and inhibit
injuries:
 Task Hazard Analysis: this generally compiles the processes that are
responsible for analyzing and finding all the possible hazards associated
with the current task, the details of the control actions that must be
adopted in case of mishappening and circulating the safety practice
instruction manual amongst the workers that need to be followed to
reduce the possibility of accidents and injury.
 Safe Work Procedures: this category generally addresses and
introduces the step-by-step and systematic procedures to the employers
for making them aware of hazardous tasks that they are working for
completing the task. The risks possessed with high hazard tasks are
eliminated from day to day working sites by providing step-by-step
procedures to the workers, so that they can follow those instructions
while conducting their desired job and can complete their work with
hundred percent safeties.
 Codes of Practice: this usually involves reviewing of those tasks that are
identified as high or medium risk level tasks and development of safe
work procedures and providing these manuals to the workers working
with those tasks. Some risk level determination matrix is developed
under this category and some guidelines associated with the identified
risks are provided for proper safety precautions. These codes of practice
gives practical solutions and guidance to the personals those are
responsible for conducting some risk related work or business and makes
them to understand their desired duties in case of accident. These
practices can be applied to any type of workplaces whether it is remote,
mobile or outdoors. These codes of practices gives information regarding
first aid kits, related procedures, facilities and providing training for first
aid providers.
The recording of safe procedures in documents form provides details
regarding following;
 Details regarding policies, rule, regulations, guidelines and necessary
procedures.

64
 Maintaining consistency and uniformity in the safety concerns of Safe Working
Practices
workplace.
 Checking for the up to date version available for the safety instruction
manual.
 Evidence of past happenings or accidents, and information related to
them for avoiding reoccurrence of such incidents again in future.
 Proper record handling and their management.
 Record retention time and their proper disposal in case of newly
developed safety record manual. Obsolete documents and manuals must
be discarded properly.
 It should also provide emergency escape routes.
 First aid treatments techniques must also be incorporated.
 Hazard/ Incident reports could also be enclosed.
 Training and induction programs checklist should be included.
 Performance management related plans.

These instructions once prepared can be recorded in hard copy or electronic

media form for easy access and effective retrieval or replacement by an
authorized personal for confronting purposes like examination/analysis,
internal and external assessment, and evidence of legal compliance,
evaluation as well as review, and training needs. The media in which the data
related to safety are recorded must be useable, reliable and must be preserved
for as long as required.

Emergency plan should also be provided in the safety booklet for ensuring
easy escape routes to the employers. The role of first aider in case of
emergency must be assigned in accordance to their acquired qualification and
competence. The employers should be informed about the first aider so they
are aware of what to do and who to communicate in case of sickness or injury
while working in a plant. The information provided must be in easy
understandable language, must be accessible and it must consider the literacy
level of labours working there.

Different modes can be used for explaining the instructions like verbal
methods or visual methods. A verbal method takes into account the methods
of explanations and demonstrations whereas a visual method addresses
instructions via posters and videos.

If a person is working in hazardous environment, the following (Figure 2.5)

two types of permit procedures need to be kept in mind;

First air instruction and information must include few points like first air
equipment location and dedicated facilities, name of affected person and

65
 Introduction to location of that person, the required step-by-step procedure to be followed in
Industrial Safety
case of first aid requirement.

Figure 2.5: Types of Permit Procedures

All these information need to be delivered to the workers during induction

training.
There is another way of recording day to day activities for ensuring safety
aspects of workplace which is called as safety checklists or safety logs. A
safety log is indeed a very essential record that should be provided to each
and every employee of the industry for assessing their daily basis activities,
their machines on which they are working for ensuring the smooth run of that
machine. Safety should be considered as the first most priority which should
be taken into consideration by each industrialist.
No matter what, it is responsibility of the management team to ensure the
safety at workplace and safety or employer working in that work station. A
workplace is said to have effective safety system when it consists of up-to-
date safety checklists along with safety manual. These safety checklists
encompass written steps for both the events of a work day as well as the
training, and day activities.
A safety log may be comprise of different audits, inspections, sessions as
well as other relevant information that may be related to weather and total
workers working on a machine or project or work floor. There are many
benefits that are associated with writing these safety logs on daily basis like:
 It aids in verifying the adopted safety measures
 It makes a list of factors influencing the safety of workers
 It provides information related to the factors that are confronted before,
during and after an event has occurred
 Recorded information on safe log could be utilized during prosecution
66 which might be faced in future.
  This record could be used as information for detecting weaknesses and Safe Working
Practices
faults that could be avoided in future.

Labour Attitudes: Workers are not interested or are obstructive

51 Percent (%)
Staff does not analyze the risks or problems at worksite

36 Percent (%)

Least involvement of workers in health and safety

33 Percent (%)

Organizational resistance to change

33 Percent (%)

Lacking Safety Culture

32 Percent (%)

Figure 2.6: Main Barriers Confronted by Health and Safety Practices at Worksite

There are few obstructions that are confronted in attaining safety and health
practices in a workstation. Figure 2.6 enlists various types of factors along
with percentages that are leading to increase in number of accidents at plants.
A variety of factors contribute to organizational safety performance. The
culture of organization is also affected by company values and beliefs.
Organizational culture aids in recognizing and handling hazards via effective
safety methods which indirectly helps in identifying and eradicating injuries
and illness which might affect the organizations safety and health if not
solved prior to actual happening. The overall safety and accident prevention
is monitored by senior management’s leaders and desired actions are taken up
under their supervisions.
SAQ 1
a) State True or False T/F

i) Individual risk is a probability of occurrence of death

quarterly due to exposure to an individual person at a
certain distance from the hazardous source.
ii) Societal risk is an estimation and assessment of risk to a
large group of people.
iii) While laying down the building, consideration of
guidelines, precautions, principles, rules and regulations is
not required.
iv) Blast walls that prevent transfer of explosion from one site
of the plant to the other part of the plant.
67
 Introduction to
Industrial Safety
b) It all starts with the discussion of risk and eventually ends
up connecting risk and safety together at the end. Explain
types of risk associated with the manufacturing activity.
c) Write down general principles which should be kept in
mind while laying out the plant layout.
d) Explain different events (fire, explosion and toxic gas
cloud) in a manner of their occurrence.
e) Explain inherent safety indices.
f) Why documentation of safe work instructions plays a vital
role in any industry?
g) Write down the barriers that are confronted by health and
safety practices at work site.

2.6 LET US SUM UP

An industry providing importance and greatly determining the safety culture
is considered to be more employers’ safety environment. Safety Manual
focuses on accident prevention on a priority basis and preventing employees
against injury or harm. A company’s performance can be escalated by
appointing dedicated supervisor for regularly monitoring, devoting and
arranging training sessions for making understand labours, employees and
new comers about safety aspects via orientation programs. When
organization is systematic and organized its productivity and performance are
automatically enhanced owing to providing training to employees,
opportunity and right to participate during decision making process.

2.7 KEY WORDS

Dangerous goods – Also referred to as hazardous materials. Any solid,
liquid, or gas that can harm people, other living organisms, property, or the
environment.
Fire precautions: The measures taken and the fire protection features
provided in a building (e.g. design, systems, equipment and procedures) to
minimise the risk to the occupants from the outbreak of fire.
Fire prevention: The concept of preventing outbreaks of fire, of reducing the
risk of fire spreading and of avoiding danger to persons and property from fire.
First aid: The skilled application of accepted principles of treatment on the
occurrence of an accident or in the case of sudden illness, using facilities or
materials available at the time.

68
OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration – A government Safe Working
Practices
agency in the department of Labor to maintain a safe and health work
environment.
Safety Manager – Provides cost savings and staffing flexibility while
ensuring you’re in compliance with safety regulations.
Safety Strategy – The act of being safe, understand how strategy affects
structure and how the choice of structure affects efficiency and effectiveness.
Active System - A system that uses mechanical means to satisfy load
demand as opposed to passive systems.
Risk -When we refer to risk in relation to occupational safety and health the
most commonly used definition is 'risk is the likelihood that a person may be
harmed or suffers adverse health effects if exposed to a hazard.
Explosion -An explosion is the result, not the cause, of a rapid expansion of
gases. It may occur from physical or mechanical change.
Toxic- It is a chemical that has a median lethal concentration (LC50) in air of
more than 200 parts per million (ppm) but not more than 2,000 parts per
million by volume of gas or vapor, or more than 2 milligrams per liter but not
more than 20 milligrams per liter of mist, fume or dust, when administered
by continuous inhalation for 1 hour.

2.8 ANSWERS TO SAQs

SAQ 1
a)
i) F
ii) T
iii) F
iv) F
b) Individual risk
Individual risk is a probability of occurrence of death annually due to
exposure to an individual person at a certain distance from the
hazardous source. It mainly estimates in finding the risk of death. The
individual person who encounters or possess risk to his life are
expressed via this method. This evaluates fatality accident rate per
year.
 Societal risk
Looking into another angle of risk called as societal risk is an
estimation and assessment of risk to a large group of people. By this
number of people affected by the entire incident can be calculated by
69
 Introduction to using this method. Societal risk builds relationship between the
Industrial Safety
frequency and the total number of people those suffer from hazard. By
using FN curve the societal risks can be expressed as relationship
amongst cumulative frequency and number of fatalities taking place.
This type of study results into a convenient single measure of group
which is at risk.
c) The general principles of the plant layout that should be kept in mind
while designing the plant layout are as follows;
 Need to keep minimum distances for transfer of materials in
between the plant or storage units to reduce costs and risks.
Minimum transportation of the material within the plant because it
adds to the cost as well as it may result into accidents also at some
point.
 The geographical limitations of the site.
 Interaction with other plants on site.
 The need to locate hazardous materials facilities as far as possible
from site boundaries and people living in the local neighborhood.
 The need for plant operability and maintainability.
 The need to prevent confinement where release of flammable
substances may occur.
 The need to provide access for emergency services.
 The need to provide emergency escape routes for on-site personnel.
The people who are working on the sites, they should be aware of
the escape route from which they can escape in the case of
emergency. So in a plant or industry whenever an emergency arises
or whenever there is a catastrophe that destructs the industry or the
plant there should be escape routes available. Workers should ensure
the escape routes and there should be know-how to the workers that
what are the available escape routes in case of emergency. Even on
the floors also marking scan be done, that can help the workers to go
out of the plant in case of emergency.
 The need to provide acceptable working conditions for operators.
d) Fire: Incident of fire and its spreading can take place owing to following
factors;
 Direct burning (including running liquid fires)
 Convention
 Radiation
 Conduction

70
 By splitting of vertical and horizontal sections by employing fire Safe Working
Practices
resisting walls as well as floors the spreading of fire from its originating
source can be prohibited to a great extent. In this case compartmentation
is another term which can be used to avoid spreading of fire. For
example, in case a large hall is there in any plant and in that if any
incident of fire happens at one specific area then it is clear that this fire
will be spread to the entire hall. But this escalation of fire can be
prevented if entire hall is divided by providing different compartments
like four to five compartments in a single hall that too built with fire
resistant walls and fire resistant roof.
i) Explosion: Some guidelines and principles must be followed to
safeguard the plants or buildings against the incidents of explosion.
The plant and related system should be safe whenever any explosion
takes place. Pressure waves or missiles usually lead to explosion
propagation. It is imperative to make a note of it that explosion
going to occur, what are the possible causes and consequently what
are the basic principles or guidelines that must be kept in mind while
designing a building or a plant to safeguard it against explosion.
ii) Release of toxic gases: Other type of hazard linked to the explosion
is discharge of toxic gases in the environment that may lead to
Domino effect by rendering neighboring industries, adjacent sites,
plants and injuring workers working in the vicinity and leading to
accidents. This type of Domino effect can be controlled by
preventing, mitigating hazards associated with the explosion through
the utilization of automatic control systems by adopting inherently
safer guidelines and principles and a convenient control room for
conducting all these required preventive steps. Ultimate requirement
is stop these kinds of damages or hazards that may take place due to
explosion. Explosion usually takes place due to release of gases and
these leaked gases can be detected by using some sort of gas
detector implanted in the areas prone to gas leakages. These gas
detectors alerts the employers working in that area by generating an
alarm and will warn the security checkers to take preventive steps in
case of leakage of toxic gas in the environment.
e) The inherent safety index is another imperative aspect that need be
understood thoroughly. Inherent safety index is the only one by which
whole process routes can be assessed, and consecutively the most
suitable route for further development can be found. There are many
ways by which accidents may take place, so there is huge need to
provide for a particular system or for particular working conditions in
which the accidents do not take place and the operators feels safe while
working on their jobs and perform their duties safely while working in
the plant. There are still chances of accidents to happen, in that case there
71
 Introduction to is need to have a enumerated technique which would help in checking
Industrial Safety
and assessing the risk that how much is the risk involved in that
particular type of system or process. It is the most suitable technique to
minimize the risk. This method also compares the inherent safety index
of the plant with the cost of capital and production- it is believed that
inherently safe plants are cost-effective plants. Inherent safety index of
the plant and cost of capital and production are interrelated with each
other, so always there is risk involved with them and ultimate aim is to
minimize the risk.
f) Documentation of safe work instructions plays a vital role in any
industry as these act as the foundation for that particular work place. A
local management personal enrolled, is generally responsible for
developing and implementing safe work practices in an industry. Figure
2.4 depicts all the possible checks that are conducted by safety
management department in a plant. Safe work practicing is nothing but a
set of instructions that are usually recommended for undertaking any
process or activity safely. Those industries who have their safe working
instructions in written format possesses safe working system, also they
conforms overall health and safety of their employers. These safety
instructions in written format are an essential part of the system for
ensuring safe working conditions during actual operation. Management
team takes the responsibility of conducting and ensuring safe working
environment for the employers. For achieving this motto, management
team provides multiple safety trainings, orientation programs and
induction trainings to the newly appointed workers as well as to the
newly shifted workers.
g) Labour Attitudes: Workers are not interested or are obstructive
ii) Staff does not analyze the risks or problems at worksite
iii) Least involvement of workers in health and safety procedures
iv) Organizational resistance to change
v) Lacking Safety Culture

2.9 REFERENCES AND FURTHER STUDIES

1. www.oshacampus.com
2. www.safeopedia.com
3. Marcel Simard, Alain Marchand, “A multilevel analysis of
organizational factors related to the taking of safety initiatives by work
groups” vol. 1, pp. 5-9, (1995).
4. Marc A. Rose, “Engineering Health and Safety Module and Case
Studies”, vol. 1, pp. 1-9, July (2004).

72
5. “Management of Industrial Accident Prevention and Preparedness” A Safe Working
Training Resource Package UNEP, vol. 1, pp. 55-97, June (19 Practices

73
UNIT 3 PERSONAL PROTECTIVE
EQUIPMENT
Structure
3.1 Introduction
Objectives
3.2 Important Factors in the Use of PPE
3.2.1 The Requirement for PPE
3.2.2 The Assessment of Possible hazards
3.2.3 Selection of PPE
3.2.4 Providing Training to the Employees for Proper Utilization of PPE
3.3 Types and Usages of PPE
3.3.1 Eye and Face Protecting Equipments
3.3.2 Head Protecting Equipments
3.3.3 Foot and Leg Protecting Equipments
3.3.4 Hand and Arm Protecting Equipments
3.3.5 Body Protecting Equipments
3.3.6 Hearing Protecting Equipments
3.3.7 Respiratory Protective Equipments
3.4 Let Us Sum Up
3.5 Key Words
3.6 Answers to SAQs
3.7 References and Future Studies

3.1 INTRODUCTION
In previous units the importance of safety has been discussed in detail as
accident incidents are unacceptable. It is also desirable that in case if any
incident of accident maximum efforts should be adopted so as to reduce the
loss of life and property. Use of Personal Protective Equipment is taken into
limelight in this unit as main motive is to minimize the loss of life, and for
reducing the chances of injuries to the labour. PPE are those equipments that
protect the users against associated risks and possible dangers at work place.
There are multiple equipments for different type of nature of work. These
generally include safety helmets, high visibility clothing or vests, protective
hand gloves, goggles for eye protection, dusk masks, protective footwear,
hearing protection, face shield, breathing apparatus, safety harness, and
respirators etc.

These equipments are capable of protecting the labours against hazards at

work station like heat generated, physical harm, chemical exposure, electric
shocks, biohazards and toxic gases released due to any reaction. These
equipments are worn by employers for protecting themselves against job-
73
Introduction to related occupational safety and health purposes in an Industry. Clothing’s are
Industrial Safety
covered under category name as “Protective clothing” whereas dedicated
masks, guards, shields, pads and others are enlisted under category of
“Protective gear”. These equipments are said to be safest approach when it
comes to protect employers against any type hazard or danger. These
protective equipments come into play and helps in protecting employers by
reducing the exposure to hazards in case when all engineering controls and
administrative controls are not able to prevent the risks. Whenever a hazard is
associated with the type of work, there comes the need for PPE. These
equipments are not hundred percent saviors as they may also fail sometime
resulting in workers being exposed to the hazard.

In this unit, you will be introduced to Personal Protective Equipment(PPE),

which is used to build a barrier between the user and the working ambiance
in case of hazard posing job. PPE plays it role by preventing wearers’
exposure with that of the danger or hazardous event that might take place
during working hours. Various types of PPE and their significance are
explained in this chapter.
Objectives
After going through this unit you will be able to:
 define personal protective equipments;
 identify the important factors required in the use of PPE;
 classify personal protective equipments; and
 define the purpose and use of personal protective equipments.

3.2 IMPORTANT FACTORS IN THE USE OF PPE

It is employers’ duty to provide a safe and healthy workplace to their workers
for performing their dedicated job safely. Management team needs to
promote and encourage their employees to adopt safe work culture by
wearing personal protective equipments during delivering their duties.
Hazards are everywhere in various forms like chemicals, falling objects,
sharp edges, flying sparks etc. Prevention can be done from these dangerous
situations by making proper utilization of protective equipments. These
equipments protect employees from the hazards that are associated with the
work place. One of the best ways to protect workers is by controlling the
hazard at its origin point itself. Hazards can be eliminated or controlled to a
great extent by using proper engineering and work practices at workplaces.

In case when engineering, work practices as well as administrative controls

lacks in controlling the resulting danger, then employers of the organization
must provide personal protective equipments to their workers and they should
also ensure its proper use. Variety of hazards could be avoided by wearing
personal protective equipments. PPE can be classified into different types;
74 example covers equipments like helmets, hand gloves, safety boots, goggles
for eye protection, hard hats, protective hearing devices, safety belts, full Personal Protective
Equipment
body suits and respirators, some of these are shown in Figure 3.1. PPE should
not be remembered as an accident prevention measure, it is generally for
ensuring the injury is minimized to some extent.

The occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) has provided a

safety booklet which is written in public domain and it has been authorized to
reproduce fully or partially without permission. This safety guide is helpful to
all the employers and their workers to achieve following objectives;

 Helpful in recognizing the types of personal protective equipments.

 Provides the basic knowledge of performing a hazard assessment of the
workstation.
 Choosing correct personal protective equipments for different
circumstances.
 Recognizing the type of training required for making employers gain
knowledge about proper use and care of personal protective equipments.

The information provided by this guide booklet is general in nature and also
it does not give information regarding workplace related hazards or the PPE
requirements.

3.2.1 The Requirement for PPE

There are varieties of hazards that are associated with the work place. There
is huge need for joint efforts from both the employers and the workers in this
regard for preventing hazards and protecting employees against those hazards.
Cooperation of administrative team, employers and employees all together
can aid in ensuring the greatest possible protection at workplace which
substantially establishes and maintains a safe and healthy work place.
Following are the responsibilities of employers that they must look into
consideration;

 Conducting workplace related hazard assessment in order to recognize

and regulate physical and health hazards.
 Determining and giving apt PPE to the employees.
 Provision for providing training to the employees regarding the
appropriate and efficient use of PPE.
 Providing knowledge to the employees regarding maintenance of PPE
that needs to replace worn out or damaged PPE.
 Employer must undertake the responsibility of reviewing periodically,
updating and estimating the productiveness and efficacy of the PPE
program.
 Whereas employees must deliver their duties by fulfilling following
objectives;
75
Introduction to  He should wear PPE properly for his own safety purpose.
Industrial Safety
 Must attend training sessions which are related to the proper utilization
of PPE.
 It’s employees’ duty to take care, clean and maintain the PPE
equipments.
 Employees should inform their supervisors in case of damaged or
replacement of PPE.

Figure 3.1: Different Safety Equipments

3.2.2 The Assessment of Possible Hazards

The first most steps in designing and developing safety and health program is
to assess the possible hazard associated with the work site. This process of
identifying and finding out possible hazards is called as hazard assessment.
Understanding of possible hazards and risk at shop floor is very crucial step
in industrial safety. The potential hazards that are covered under heading of
physical hazards are high intensity lighting, movable objects, inconstant
temperature, sharp pointed edges, electrical connections etc. Whereas hazards
that are covered under the heading of health hazards are chemical exposure,
radiations, overexposure to toxic dust or gas or fume etc.

76
 Personal Protective
Equipment

Figure 3.2: Assessment of Possible Risks or Hazards

By conducting a walkthrough survey of the workshop and developing a list of

potential hazards under labels or groups namely impact, chemical,
penetration, cold/heat, light radiation, biological, etc. In addition to these
there are some other parameters also that need to be kept in mind while
reviewing shop floor survey. Those parameters are as following:

 Electricity sources in plant.

 Machine motion or processes related sources that may result into an
impact amongst equipment and workers.
 High temperature related sources which might lead to skin burns, injury
to eyes or fire.
 Types of chemicals that are being used in the work space.
 Harmful dusts sources.
 Light radiation sources which includes brazing, heat treatment, welding,
cutting, high intensity lights.
 Sources of falling or dropping objects.
 Sources of sharp pointed objects that may cut, poke, puncture or stab
accidently the worker.
 Sources of biologic hazards that may include blood or other sources of
potentially infected materials in the work place.

Once this walkthrough survey is finished, it is employer’s responsibility for

organizing and analyzing the acquired data regarding the sources of hazards
and equips the worker with the type of PPE required. It is imperative for the
employer to have full-fledged knowledge about the types of PPE available
and their level of protection imparted. Selecting PPE that will provide
maximum level of protection to the employees is important to protect them
against possible hazards at work site. Periodic re-assessment should also be
carried out in order to check for the changes in working behaviour of
machines, equipments, or changes in operating procedural conditions that
might affect occupational hazards. Re-assessment carried out periodically
must also inculcate the review of total number of injuries and illness to detect 77
Introduction to the trend or concerned areas and ultimately undertaking appropriate
Industrial Safety
corrective actions. Re-assessment should also incorporate the suitability of
already existing PPEin terms of their usage, age and condition.

Following information must be documented in the form of written

certification regarding hazard assessment:

 Recognition of the work site that has been evaluated;

 Personal information who has conducted the assessment;
 Mention the date of assessment conduction;
 Recognition of the records or documents those are desirable for the
certification of the hazard assessment practice.

3.2.3 Selection of PPE

All the desirable clothing and equipments that are covered under PPE must
be manufactured to provide maximum safety and should be constructed in
such a way that it is able to maintain the designed PPE in a clean and reliable
manner. While working at work site the employers must take into
consideration of proper fit and size of the PPE. This will ensure and
encourage employees to make proper utilization of PPE if they feel
comfortable and it fits well to their personality. Each employee has different
sizes and personality, so they must select their desired PPE according to their
health and size so that they can deliver their duties properly. Almost all the
protective devices are available in multiple sizes and care must be taken
while selecting proper size for individual worker. A condition of safely
covered or dangerously exposed comes into role when an employee is
wearing unfit PPE. If an employee has to wear different types of PPE at the
same time, then he must ensure their compatibility.

3.2.4 Providing Training to the Employees for Proper

Utilization of PPE
It is employers’ responsibility to train their recruited employees about the
proper use of PPE which they will be going to use during their course of
action. Before doing this, the employer himself must be trained to know
following things:

 When PPE is required

 What PPE is required
 Information related to how to put on, wear, adjust and take off the PPE
 Limitations of the PPE
 Protection, proper care, maintenance, useful life and discarding of PPE.

It is solely employers’ duty to re-assure that each worker has attained a full
understanding of the PPE training as well as he has gained full knowledge of
78
using and wearing equipments properly before allowing them to deliver their Personal Protective
Equipment
duties at the workshop that are prone to danger. Employer must make
provision for re-training the workers those who are not demonstrating the
appropriate understanding and skill levels while using PPE. There are few
other cases also that require additional training of the workers like when a
worker is shifted or transferred from one work site to another site, other case
may be when new PPE of advanced features arrive and provided training
becomes obsolete.

The employer must record each worker’s details like his name, age, training
dates, who have attended the workshop regarding PPE usage. He must also
provide some sort of certification to the attendees who have acquired training
regarding wear or usage of PPE.

3.3 TYPES AND USAGES OF PPE

While working in any industry, wearing the right PPE is crucial for every
employee so as to eliminate or reduce the chances of exposure to possible
hazards or risks at work place. Various types of PPE are available in today’s
market that must be adopted for workers safety. These may be categorized as
follows:

3.3.1 Eye and Face Protecting Equipments

There are multiple tasks on shop floor that possess a large number of hazards
that may cause or harm workers eyes and face in many ways. These possible
hazards may be floating particles or debris in air, molten metal splashes,
splashes from chemicals in liquid form, caustic or acidic liquids, vapors or
gases originating from chemicals, laser radiations, etc.

Many employees suffer from eyes and face injuries during delivering their
duties at work place which may be contributed the fact that they might not be
wearing any eye and face protective equipment while others result from
wearing those protective equipments improperly. It is employers duty to
make sure that his worker is wearing eye and face protection equipment
properly, plus the equipment which he is wearing is in good condition and is
properly fitting him and protecting him against the hazard.
Protection of Prescription Lenses

Utilizing prescription corrective lenses on daily basis will not adequately

protect employee against the possible occupational hazards related to eye or
face. So it is employers’ duty to ensure that his employee wearing corrective
lenses is also wearing some eye protection equipment which either includes
those prescription into that design itself or he must wear some additional eye
protecting equipment to protect his prescription lenses. It is also critical to
ensure that the protective equipment worn by the employee does not hinder
the vision of the employee in any way. While working in hazardous condition
it should be made compulsion for the employees wearing prescription lenses 79
Introduction to to wear protective equipment as well to protect them against possible hazards
Industrial Safety
at work place. Eye protection equipments need to be worn by almost all the
employees who are working as electricians, plumbers and pipefitters,
carpenters, assemblers, welders, grinding machine operators and chemical
process labours, etc. In case of other job categories it is purely employers’ job
to forecast through hazard assessment whether there is need for any eye and
face PPE.

There are various types of eye or face injuries that might occur at work place
like, chemical splashes from hazardous substances, hot liquids or other type
of solvents, dirt, dust, wood or metal debris floating in air that may enter into
the eyes from operations like grinding, chipping, hammering, sawing, objects
that swing near eyes or face like tools, ropes, chains or limbs, harmful
radiations originating from operations like welding, laser related operation.

Various types of eye protection:

Following aspects must be undertaken while selecting proper protective

equipment for eye or face safety or an employee:

 Its ability to protect the user against the possible workplace hazards.
 Opted equipment is able to fit properly and is comfortable to wear during
the course of work.
 Opted equipment should not hinder the vision of the user.
 Opted equipment must be clean, stiff, strong and durable.
 Opted equipment must allow usage of other PPE also if it is required by
the user for conducting his job.
Following are the common types of eye and face protective equipments:
 Safety glasses and goggles: Eyes play the most important part of the
body so it is very important to protect them against possible occupational
hazards. Injuries related to eyes could be prevented by wearing
spectacles made of metal or plastic frames and impact resistant lenses.
Some goggles models also incorporate side shields for maximum safety
of eyes from all sides. These tight fitting glasses protect employees from
dirt, debris in air, chemical splashes, hot liquid splashes and many more
such activities and protect eyes from possible impact. It also
recommended wearing eye glasses under the face shield safety
equipment.
 Welding shields: these shields made up of vulcanized fiber or
sometimes fiberglass and are capable of providing full face protection
during welding operation. Welding shields are composed of filtered
lenses that protect eyes and face against the possible burns which may be
caused due to intense radiant light. These shields are also capable of
protecting the employee against flying sparks, slag chips, and metal
splatter that are generally produced during the operations of soldering,
80
 welding, cutting and brazing. In order to protect employees’ eyes and Personal Protective
Equipment
face against possible eye and face related hazards, it is important to give
the shade number to the filter lenses so that employees do not get
confused while opting for any specific operation.
 Laser safety glasses: As it is clear from its name, these are capable of
protecting the eyes against the intense concentrations of light that are
produced via laser related operations. The selection of this type of
glasses is totally based upon the laser wavelength and the power it is
capable of producing. This is not only limited to protecting eyes against
the resultant laser radiations but also capable of filtering all types of
lights that are entering the eyes directly.
 Chemical splash glasses: These types of glasses are recommended to
wear whenever there are chances of occurrence of splashes from
chemicals, hot liquid solvents or other infectious substances while
conducting operations. These glasses sometimes also act as impact
glasses by protecting eyes against flying debris in air.
 Face shields: These shields are long plastic covering starting from the
forehead ending to chin of the user. These shields are capable of
protecting the entire face of the user against the possible occupational
hazards that may be flying objects, high speed dust particles or debris,
sparks, chemical splashes, or any type of infectious materials. But these
shields are ineffective in protecting against impact hazards. It is advised
to the employees to wear safety goggles also underneath these shields so
as to ensure maximum safety of their eyes as well as face against
possible impact hazard.

All these eyewear safety equipments are designed to worn in case of specific
type of hazards. So it is critical that each employee has full knowledge of
possible hazards which might occur at his work place. This can be done by
conducting different hazard assessment tests for that specific work place
which has been discussed in previous section.

3.3.2 Head Protecting Equipments

These protective equipments are capable of protecting employees head
against potential injuries occurring during performing tasks. As it is well
known fact that head injuries might result in loss of life or lifetime
impairment. Preventing employees against such fatal incidents of head
injuries is possible by making them wearing hard hat or safety helmet during
their job hours. These hard hats or safety helmets are efficient enough in
protecting employees against the incidents of burns, electrical shock hazards
as well as against impact and penetration hazards also.

It is imperative that employers of the industry make a note of possible

following concerns and make their employees wear helmets during their job
functioning time:
81
Introduction to  If there are chances of falling objects from certain height and strike the
Industrial Safety
worker on the head from above;
 If there are chances of bumping their head against fixed objects (fixed
beams or pipes);
 If there are chances of potential head injury accidently due to presence of
some sort of electrical hazards.

Some of the occupations that require an employee to wear these hard hats or
helmets generally include constructional workers, linemen, welders,
electricians, carpenters, among many others. Also in case whenever a worker
is working under some tools or conveyor belts whose possibility of falling on
head is there, in these cases also employer must wear these safety helmets to
ensure safety of him head against possible injury. Protective helmets must be
able to fulfill following objectives:

 Should be able to defend against falling objects.

 Should be shock resistant.
 Should be water resistant and slow burning.
 Opted cap or helmet must have harder outer shell and must incorporate
shock absorber lining into it.
There are other considerations also that need to be considered while using
these safety head protection equipments. Some of these concerns are size and
care considerations, like suppose even if the opted head equipment meets all
the other criteria but it unfit size is making user uncomfortable then all its
purpose goes in vain. The selected head equipment is inappropriate if it is
either too small or too large and is not fitting into head of the employee.
These head safety equipments should be provided in variety of sizes with
adjustable headbands to safeguard its proper fit. By proper fit here it means
that adequate clearance must be provided between the shell and the
suspension system in order to provide sufficient ventilation and efficient
disposal of the confronted impact. The material of the helmet should be such
that it does not irritate the users’ skin; it does not bind, slip or fall off during
the time of operation.
There are various other accessories also that are allowable with these head
safety equipments like safety goggles, provision for earmuffs, face safety
shields and mounted lights on helmets. Additional protection against sun and
rain water could be ensured if a helmet is equipped with brims or side edges
that help in diverging the rainwater. All these additional protective
accessories must not inhibit the actual role of safety elements of that
particular equipment.

The useful life of any protective equipment could be extended by maintaining

frequent cleaning and its proper survey. It is very important to check the
shortcomings of the helmet on daily basis that might occur due to cracks,
wear, tear or rough usage, that might hinder in the proper functioning of the
82 hat. Use of paint and paint thinners must be eliminated completely as they
may deteriorate the actual functioning of the helmet by weakening its shell. Personal Protective
Equipment
The integrity of the protection is affected by drilling holes or by applying
paint on the helmet which is totally undesirable. By storing these helmets
direct under sun light may also damage the integrity of the helmet. Helmets
with defects like perforation, indication of exposure to UV light or other
types of radiation, heat, cracking or any sort of deformity must be removed
from service or replaced with the new one.

3.3.3 Foot and Leg Protecting Equipments

Employees who encounter foot or leg injuries due to rolling or falling objects
or from crushing objects must adopt usage of foot and leg protecting
equipments during their working hours. The body parts like foot or leg must
be covered with safety equipments in case where an employee is exposed to
poisonous, corrosive or hot substances. Non-conductive footwear must be
worn by the employees who all are prone to expose to electrical hazards or
static electricity at the work place. There are various situations that may arise
at the shop floor where it becomes necessary for the worker or labour to wear
these safety boots for protecting his leg or foot against hazards.
Following are few of the situations that necessitate the usage of safety boots:
 Possibility of rolling or falling of heavy objects onto the employee’s feet.
 While working with sharp objects that may pierce the soles of ordinary
shoes.
 While working with molten metals or liquid solvents or chemicals which
might splash onto the employer’s lower body.
 While carrying out job nearby wet or slippery surfaces.
 While working in the presence of electrical hazards.

There are different types of footwear for different situations. It is important to

check for product’s labeling and accordingly required safety shoes must be
adopted as per the situation. When it comes to protecting, there are various
choices available, like leggings which are capable of protecting legs and feet
against heat hazards generating from welding sparks or molten liquid (metals,
chemicals, etc.).Metatarsal guards that are strapped outside of the shoes
which may be made of steel, fiber, aluminium or plastic which guards and
protects the instep area against impact and compression situation. Toe guards
are generally made of plastic, aluminium or steel which are capable of
protecting ordinary shoes against impact and compression related hazards.
When need for greater protection is encountered combination foot and shin
guards with toe guards may be used in those situations. There are other types
of shoes also which incorporates heat resistant soles and impact resistant toes
that are capable of protecting feet against hot work surface areas. These
safety shoes may be of electrically conductive type or non-conductive type
depending upon the situation at work place.
83
Introduction to There are special purposes shoes also which are further sub-classed into
Industrial Safety
different types:

 Electrically conductive shoes that are capable of providing protection

against the hazard produced due to static electricity. In order to reduce
the risks related to working in explosive and hazardous environment
which is associated with the manufacturing of explosives, employees are
advised to wear these types of shoes reduce the static electricity risk.
This static electricity buildup on the body could become a leading reason
for producing a spark and ultimately leading to an explosion or fire in the
factory. Workers working with electrical hazards must not wear these
conductive shoes. Reminder must be kept in mind to remove these shoes
after the completion of job hours. Also these shoes should not be worn
with nylon, silk or wool socks as they promote static electricity.
 Electrically non-conductive shoes, safety-toe shoes generally come
under non-conductive type and they are capable of preventing the user
against electrical hazards. These boots are capable of sustaining open
circuit of up to 600 volts in dry conditions. By utilizing other insulating
equipments in these shoes, this can aid in eliminating the risk of
electrical hazard at work sites. The safety issues related to these shoes
are compromised in the state of wet conditions, shoe soles are worn out,
the sole or heel is accommodating some metallic particles in it.
 Foundry shoes, their main aim is to provide insulation to the feet of the
user wearing it against extreme heat of molten metal. Foundry shoes also
prevent the lodging of hot metal inside the shoes through eyelets,
tongues or other shoe parts. These shoes are generally made up of leather
or leather-substitute boots that incorporates built-in safety toes.

Over the period of time, these shoes also needs protective care periodically in
order to check for their smooth functioning. This can be done by inspecting
these safety shoes for wear and tear prior to their actual use. These inspection
practices generally involves identifying cracks, holes, broken laces or buckles,
separation of soles. Every safety shoe manufacturer provides their basic
recommendation which includes information related to cleaning and
maintenance of safety shoes.

3.3.4 Hand and Arm Protecting Equipments

After conducting hazard assessment activities if possibility of hand or arms
related injury is observed which is unavoidable even after using engineering
and work practice controls in such cases there comes the need for advising
employees to wear hand and arm protective equipments for protecting
themselves against possible hazards. In such cases it is employers
responsibility as well to check whether their employees are following safety
guidelines or not, they are wearing safety equipments or not while
performing their jobs on shop floor. Possible hazards that can harm ones
84 hands or arms includes cuts from sharp objects, abrasions, chemical exposure,
dangers related to electrical hazards, bruises, absorption of harmful Personal Protective
Equipment
substances by skin, thermal burns, fractures etc. Hand or arm safety
equipments generally includes hand gloves which may be of rubber or other
protective material according to desired applications, finger guards, elbow
length long hand gloves or arm coverings.

There are various types of protective gloves that are available in today’s
market which are capable of preventing employee against a variety of hazards.
The selection of type of gloves is solely dependent upon the type of operation
to be performed by the employee and nature of the hazard associated with
that operation. It becomes easier to select the right pair of gloves by
determining the type of hand related hazards at that particular work place. So
employee should strictly make use of safety hand gloves that are designed
specifically for the tasks that possess some danger. Different gloves need to
be utilized for different functions, different operations or different tasks. It is
not advised to use one hand gloves for all the operations.

There are various factors that need to be kept in mind while selecting
protective gloves for a work station, like the chemical type that needs to be
handled, nature of contact, contact duration, area requiring protection,
thermal protection, grip requirement, size and comfort, abrasion or resistance
requirements.

Different workplace requires different types of hand gloves, also these gloves
are manufactured using different materials depending upon the purpose type
or workplace related hazards. There are variety of gloves available like fabric
and coated fabric gloves, gloves made of leathers, metal mesh or canvas,
gloves for chemical or liquid resistance, and sometime they are made of
insulating rubber also which are required in case of electrical hazards.

Gloves made of leather or canvases are capable of providing protection

against cases of burns or cuts, sustained heat. Leather gloves specifically
insure against nearby rough objects, chips, moderate heat or sparks.
Aluminized gloves are capable of providing resistance against heat and cold.
Aramid fiber gloves are another type of gloves that are again capable of
providing protection against cuts or abrasion, heat and cold. Lastly there are
gloves made of synthetic fibers also those are able to withstand against cuts,
abrasions, cold, heat and some diluted acids as well.

It is desirable to check these gloves for flaws on regular basis. Inspection

should be done for puncture, holes, torn out cases. If any default is observed
during inspection then those gloves must be replaced by new one. Sometimes
it is difficult to detect pinhole size holes, so these are check by filling water
in gloves and examining for pinhole leaks. Gloves used in chemical handling
get degraded and starts showing their inability by discoloring and becoming
stiff. Chemical resistant gloves could be checked for their quality by testing
their absorptive abilities, toxicity of the chemicals to be handled, duration of
exposure etc.
85
Introduction to 3.3.5 Body Protecting Equipments
Industrial Safety
Protecting body against possible occupational hazards is also very important.
Employees who all are working in industries and there are chances of
confronting possible body injuries during their course of work must wear
protective equipments which are capable of protecting their bodies against
possible hazards. The need for wearing body protecting hazards comes into
role when other control fails (administrative, engineering and work practice)
to run or control the hazards. The body injuries at work station could be
caused due to following possible reasons:

 Exposure to hazardous chemicals.

 Exposure to extreme temperature conditions.
 Exposure to hot liquids and possibility of splashes from molten metals.
 Possibility of tools related, materials related and machinery related
impacts to the body.

Various types of clothes are available in different sizes for the employees to
ensure protection of their body against possible occupational impacts or
exposures. Again it is employer’s job to check and make sure that his each
employee is wearing body protective equipment while conducting his work
on shop floor in order to protect him against possible hazards. There are
varieties of body protecting equipments available in today’s market that
depends upon the job type that decides what type of boy suit need to be worn
on body. Few examples include full body suits, jackets, laboratory overcoats,
vests, aprons, coveralls and surgical gowns. By assessing the job for possible
hazards one can find out the potential threats to body. If the assessment report
point outs the need for body protecting equipments then the user should first
check for its proper size, its proper functioning and also he must inspect full
equipment before wearing it. Full body protecting equipment is capable of
providing protection against almost all types of toxic chemicals or acidic
substances.

These body protecting equipments are made up of wide variety of available

materials like paper like fiber, leather based, plastics, rubberized fabrics,
rubber, treated wool and cotton etc. Body suit made of paper like fiber are
resistant to dust and splashes. Treated wool and cotton based suits are capable
of protecting the user against dust, fire, changing temperatures, and are
comfortable to wear. In case of dry heat and direct flames protective suits
made of leather could be used. Whereas chemical and physical hazards
related harms could be prevented by wearing body suits made of rubber,
neoprene and plastics.

3.3.6 Hearing Protecting Equipments

The need for wearing hearing protective equipments comes into need when
administrative, engineering and work practice controls are unable to protect
86
the worker against the noises generating at the workplace. Hearing protectors Personal Protective
Equipment
are able to reduce the noise which is called as attenuation going through the
user’s ears. This attenuation controlled totally depends upon the type of
equipment used and how well this equipment fits to the user who is wearing
it. The task of providing hearing equipment to an employee can be
challenging as the amount of noise reaching the ears of labour and the
exposure time must be known before providing the equipment type.

There are certain factors upon which the excessive noise exposure to
employee depends and by determining following factors the type of hearing
protector could be allotted to the employee working in those conditions:

 Evaluating the noise loudness in decibels (dB).

 Estimating the employee’s duration of exposure to the noise.
 Analyzing if any employee needs to travel in between work areas which
possess distinguished noise levels.
 Identifying noise generating sources (single or multiple).

All the above mentioned factors could be identified by conducting worksite

assessment in prior to actual work being done in those areas. Hearing
protectors are required in case of high noise levels generating from
distinguished sources as exposure to these noises for longer duration could
lead to hear impairment for life time.

There are different types of hearing protective equipments available in

market like single use ear plugs, earmuffs and molded ear plugs. After using
these ear plugs it is user’s responsibility to clean equipment which he has
used. User should ensure for perfect seal around the ears while wearing these
ear protective devices and should also avoid facial movements (talking or
chewing) as these may hinder in proper functioning of these devices during
the actual operation.

3.3.7 Respiratory Protecting Equipments

It is desirable to maintain good respiration while working at work sites. There
are a lot of chances of coming in contact with the surrounding harmful gases,
dusk, chemical reaction fumes, powder, smoke or vapors while performing
any dedicated job. There are variety of respiratory equipments available in
today’s market that are capable of protecting the user against these harmful
dusts or gases like dust masks, full face masks, etc. These masks are assisted
with elastic band or belt which makes the mask to fit properly onto the face
of the user. These masks are also capable of preventing user in coming
contact with the droplets of hazardous substances. These masks could also be
used in a case where one employee is sick and prevents in transmitting his
germs in the surrounding air and prevents other employees working nearby
from that infected person. Powered respirators, monitors, filter respirators,
light weight respirators are few types of protective equipments.
87
Introduction to It is employer’s job to get a thorough knowledge of potential respiratory
Industrial Safety
hazards that might be encountered in the worksite. By assessing this he will
be able to advise his team to wear protective masks in order to prevent
themselves against those respiratory hazards. Then proper training must be
given to the employees regarding what type of and when these protective
masks need to be utilized. It is solely employees’ duty to check for any fault
in the masks and replace it with the new one or dispose it totally.

Respiratory
Protecting
Equipment/Devices

Air Purifying Respirators Air Supplied

(Filtering device) Breathing Device

Inquire For
Further Expert
Advice
Non-Powered Powered Respirators
Respirators

Half Mask Half Mask

Full Face Mask Full Face Mask

Use and Throw Helmets, Visors,

Filtering Half Mask Hoods

Figure 3.3: Types of Respiratory Protecting Equipments

SAQ 1
T/F
a) State True or False
i) Safety equipments are hundred percent saviors.
ii) PPE are used to build a barrier between the user and the
working ambiance in case of hazard posing job.
iii)Workplace related hazard assessment is not so
important.
iv)Employee wearing corrective lenses should not
necessarily wear any eye protection equipment.
v) Gloves made of leather or canvases are capable of
Providing protection against chemicals like dilute acids.

88
 Personal Protective
Equipment
b) What is PPE? Why these PPEs are required in industrial safety?
c) What is hazard assessment? Name potential hazards that may
occur in a plant?
d) PPE is selected on what basis? Explain importance of training
employees regarding proper usage of PPE.
e) Name various types of PPEs used in industries. Explain any
four of these PPEs.

3.4 LET US SUM UP

Each company or industry must take responsibility of providing work station
that is free of life threating hazards for its employees. It is important to take
measures for eliminating hazards in the work environment, on the other hand
it might be impossible or infeasible to eradicate all the hazards completely
through engineering design, guarding or administrative controls. In such
cases PPE (Personal protective equipment) might be adopted for safety
purpose of employees. The personal protective equipment type required
during any tragedy or circumstances will solely depends upon the particular
hazard that might occur, the exposure duration and will ultimately depend
upon exposure intensity. In order to safeguard employees against identified
hazards, it is important to make employees use of PPE. In order to be
effective, the opted PPE should be readily available, should be of correct size
and should be designed properly for the use intended. PPE use ensures and
increases employees’ safety against damaged or defective equipment. PPE
program must be arranged for training employees about the benefits of PPE
and is considered as an important part of it. Each supervisor or team leader
should be able to assess the hazards and should be able to manage their
employees, and then only those supervisors will be titled as effective coach.
Supervisor should communicate their employees the need for wearing PPE
devices while working in their respective sites via in formal training sessions,
in informal one on one conversation.

3.5 KEY WORDS

Dangerous goods – Also referred to as hazardous materials. Any solid,
liquid, or gas that can harm people, other living organisms, property, or the
environment.

Fire precautions: The measures taken and the fire protection features
provided in a building (e.g. design, systems, equipment and procedures) to
minimise the risk to the occupants from the outbreak of fire.

Fire prevention: The concept of preventing outbreaks of fire, of reducing

the risk of fire spreading and of avoiding danger to persons and property from
fire. 89
Introduction to First aid: The skilled application of accepted principles of treatment on the
Industrial Safety
occurrence of an accident or in the case of sudden illness, using facilities or
materials available at the time.

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration – A government

agency in the department of Labor to maintain a safe and health work
environment.

Safety Manager – Provides cost savings and staffing flexibility while

ensuring you’re in compliance with safety regulations.

Safety Strategy – The act of being safe, understand how strategy affects
structure and how the choice of structure affects efficiency and effectiveness.

Active System - A system that uses mechanical means to satisfy load

demand as opposed to passive systems.

Risk -When we refer to risk in relation to occupational safety and health the
most commonly used definition is 'risk is the likelihood that a person may be
harmed or suffers adverse health effects if exposed to a hazard.

Explosion -An explosion is the result, not the cause, of a rapid expansion of
gases. It may occur from physical or mechanical change.

Toxic- It is a chemical that has a median lethal concentration (LC50) in air of

more than 200 parts per million (ppm) but not more than 2,000 parts per
million by volume of gas or vapor, or more than 2 milligrams per liter but not
more than 20 milligrams per liter of mist, fume or dust, when administered
by continuous inhalation for 1 hour.

PPE- Personal protective equipment, commonly referred to as "PPE", is

equipment worn to minimize exposure to hazards that cause serious
workplace injuries and illnesses. These injuries and illnesses may result from
contact with chemical, radiological, physical, electrical, mechanical, or other
workplace hazards.

3.6 ANSWERS TO SAQs

SAQ 1
a) i) False
ii) False
iii) True
iiii) False
ivi) False
vi) False
b) PPE are those equipments that protect the users against associated risks
and possible dangers at work place. There are multiple equipments for
different type of nature of work. These generally include safety helmets,
high visibility clothing or vests, protective hand gloves, goggles for eye
90
 protection, dusk masks, protective footwear, hearing protection, face Personal Protective
shield, breathing apparatus, safety harness, and respirators etc. These Equipment
equipments are worn by employers for protecting themselves against job-
related occupational safety and health purposes in an Industry.
These PPEs are required in industrial safety due to following reasons:
 Hazards are everywhere in various forms like chemicals, falling
objects, sharp edges, flying sparks etc.
 Prevention can be done from these dangerous situations by making
proper utilization of protective equipments.
 These equipments protect employees from the hazards that are
associated with the work place.
 These equipments are capable of protecting the labours against
hazards at work station like heat generated, physical harm, chemical
exposure, electric shocks, biohazards and toxic gases released due to
any reaction.
 One of the best ways to protect workers is by controlling the hazard at
its origin point itself. Hazards can be eliminated or controlled to a
great extent by using proper engineering and work practices at
workplaces.
c) The first most steps in designing and developing safety and health
program is to assess the possible hazard associated with the work site.
This process of identifying and finding out possible hazards is called as
hazard assessment. Understanding of possible hazards and risk at shop
floor is very crucial step in industrial safety. Hazards occurring in
industries are covered under two headings namely physical hazards and
health hazards:

 The potential hazards that are covered under heading of physical

hazards are high intensity lighting, movable objects, inconstant
temperature, sharp pointed edges, electrical connections etc.

 Whereas hazards that are covered under the heading of health hazards
are chemical exposure, radiations, overexposure to toxic dust or gas or
fume etc.
d) PPE is selected on the basis of following factors:
 All the desirable clothing and equipments that are covered under PPE
must be manufactured to provide maximum safety and should be
constructed in such a way that it is able to maintain the designed PPE
in a clean and reliable manner.
 While working at work site the employers must take into
consideration of proper fit and size of the PPE. This will ensure and
encourage employees to make proper utilization of PPE if they feel
comfortable and it fits well to their personality.
 Each employee has different sizes and personality, so they must select
their desired PPE according to their health and size so that they can
deliver their duties properly.
91
Introduction to  If an employee has to wear different types of PPE at the same time,
Industrial Safety then he must ensure their compatibility.

Training of employees regarding proper usage of PPE plays very crucial

role in following proper safety concerns while performing actual
operation on shop floor. It is employers’ responsibility to train their
recruited employees about the proper use of PPE which they will be
going to use during their course of action. It is solely employers’ duty to
re-assure that each worker has attained a full understanding of the PPE
training as well as he has gained full knowledge of using and wearing
equipments properly before allowing them to deliver their duties at the
workshop that are prone to danger. Employer must make provision for
re-training the workers those who are not demonstrating the appropriate
understanding and skill levels while using PPE. There are few other
cases also that require additional training of the workers like when a
worker is shifted or transferred from one work site to another site, other
case may be when new PPE of advanced features arrive and provided
training becomes obsolete.

e) There are following types of protective equipments depending upon

the type of operation to be performed by the user;

i) Eye and Face Protecting Equipments

ii) Head Protecting Equipments

iii) Foot and Leg Protecting Equipments

iv) Hand and Arm Protecting Equipments

v) Body Protecting Equipments

vi) Hearing Protecting Equipments

vii) Respiratory Protecting Equipments

i. Eye and Face Protecting Equipments

There are multiple tasks on shop floor that possess a large number of
hazards that may cause or harm workers eyes and face in many ways.
These possible hazards may be floating particles or debris in air,
molten metal splashes, splashes from chemicals in liquid form,
caustic or acidic liquids, vapors or gases originating from chemicals,
laser radiations, etc. Many employees suffer from eyes and face
injuries during delivering their duties at work place which may be
contributed the fact that they might not be wearing any eye and face
protective equipments while others result from wearing those
protective equipments improperly. It is employers duty to make sure
that his worker is wearing eye and face protection equipment properly,

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 plus the equipment which he is wearing is in good condition and is Personal Protective
Equipment
properly fitting him and protecting him against the hazard.

ii. Head Protecting Equipments

These protective equipments are capable of protecting employees

head against potential injuries occurring during performing tasks. As
it is well known fact that head injuries might result in loss of life or
lifetime impairment. Preventing employees against such fatal
incidents of head injuries is possible by making them wearing hard
hat or safety helmet during their job hours. These hard hats or safety
helmets are efficient enough in protecting employees against the
incidents of burns, electrical shock hazards as well as against impact
and penetration hazards also.

It is imperative that employers of the industry make a note of possible

following concerns and make their employees wear helmets during
their job functioning time:

 If there are chances of falling objects from certain height and strike
the worker on the head from above;

 If there are chances of bumping their head against fixed objects

(fixed beams or pipes);

 If there are chances of potential head injury accidently due to

presence of some sort of electrical hazards.

iii. Foot and Leg Protecting Equipments

Employees who encounter foot or leg injuries due to rolling or falling

objects or from crushing objects must adopt usage of foot and leg
protecting equipments during their working hours. The body parts like
foot or leg must be covered with safety equipments in case where an
employee is exposed to poisonous, corrosive or hot substances. Non-
conductive footwear must be worn by the employees who all are
prone to expose to electrical hazards or static electricity at the work
place. There are various situations that may arise at the shop floor
where it becomes necessary for the worker or labour to wear these
safety boots for protecting his leg or foot against hazards.

Following are few of the situations that necessitate the usage of safety
boots:
 Possibility of rolling or falling of heavy objects onto the employee’s
feet.
 While working with sharp objects that may pierce the soles of
ordinary shoes.
 While working with molten metals or liquid solvents or chemicals
which might splash onto the employer’s lower body. 93
Introduction to  While carrying out job nearby wet or slippery surfaces.
Industrial Safety
 While working in the presence of electrical hazards.

iv. Respiratory Protective Equipment

It is desirable to maintain good respiration while working at work sites.

There are a lot of chances of coming in contact with the surrounding
harmful gases, dusk, chemical reaction fumes, powder, smoke or vapors
while performing any dedicated job. There are variety of respiratory
equipments available in today’s market that are capable of protecting the
user against these harmful dusts or gases like dust masks, full face masks,
etc. These masks are assisted with elastic band or belt which makes the
mask to fit properly onto the face of the user. These masks are also
capable of preventing user in coming contact with the droplets of
hazardous substances. These masks could also be used in a case where
one employee is sick and prevents in transmitting his germs in the
surrounding air and prevents other employees working nearby from that
infected person. Powered respirators, monitors, filter respirators, light
weight respirators are few types of protective equipments.

It is employer’s job to get a thorough knowledge of potential respiratory

hazards that might be encountered in the worksite. By assessing this he
will be able to advise his team to wear protective masks in order to
prevent themselves against those respiratory hazards. Then proper
training must be given to the employees regarding what type of and
when these protective masks need to be utilized. It is solely employees’
duty to check for any fault in the masks and replace it with the new one
or dispose it totally.

3.7 REFERENCES AND FURTHER STUDIES

Web links

 https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/personalprotectiveequipment/
 https://www.ppe.org/types-of-personal-protective-equipment-ppe/
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/types-of-personal-protective-
equipment.html
 https://www.tvh.com/en-in/blog/7-types-of-personal-protective-
equipment-ppe-to-guarantee-your-safety
 http://www.safety.uwa.edu.au/topics/physical/protective-equipment
 https://ehs.ucmerced.edu/researchers-labs/ppe/selection

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UNIT 4 FIRE SAFETY
Structure
4.1 Introduction
Objectives
4.2 Introduction to Fire
4.2.1 Chemistry and Definition of Fire
4.2.2 Concept of Fire Triangle
4.2.3 Main Causes of Fire
4.3 Extinguishment of fire
4.3.1 Controlling Factors
4.3.2 Methods of Extinguishment
4.4 Classification of Fires by Different Type
4.5 Different Agents to Fight Fire
4.6 Detection and Warning Systems
4.7 Maintenance and Inspection of Fire Extinguishers
4.8 Use of Extinguishers to Fight Different Types of Fires
4.9 Let Us Sum Up
4.10 Key Words
4.11 Answers to SAQs
4.12 References and Future Studies

4.1 INTRODUCTION
Fire is a combustion process which takes place as a result of chemical
reaction between some sort of fuel and oxygen present in air. The outcome
products of fire are different as compared to the starting material. In order to
lead combustion to take place it is desirable to heat up the fuel to its ignition
temperature. Whenever any structure or building is constructed all the
measures are set up to prevent the nuisance of fire in that particular building.
The main step which is considered to be important is to stop the fire hazard at
its original source itself thereby preventing initiation of the reaction. There
are basic three elements that lead to fire- fuel, oxygen and heat. While if any
one of these three elements is missing then fire will not proceed or initiate. So
if any case fire is initiated due to any reason, then in that case fire can be
stopped by removing or cutting off any one of these three sources. For
consideration of this it is also important that proper prevention strategies are
undertaken for conducting proper fire risk assessment in a plant or building.
In order words proper risk assessment techniques could possibility aid in
achieving success by preventing this process of exothermal oxidation of
ignition of fuel. The energy released from this fire will be in exothermal
radiation form. This fuel can be in the form of gaseous, vapor, liquid or solid
form.
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This unit will bring forth the concepts related to fire, elements of fire, fire
triangle and its related concepts. All the chemical reactions that are involved
in the combustion process are explained in this chapter. Later in this unit you
will be introduced to the leading causes of the fire, and extinguishment of fire.
This unit also introduces to the types of fire, different agents to fight fire, fire
detection and warning systems, maintenance and inspection of fire
extinguishers, and use of extinguishers to fight different types of fires.
Objectives
After studying this unit you should be able to:
 define the fire, chemical reactions and concept of fire triangle;
 define the controlling factors and methods for the extinguishment of fire;
 classify fires by different type;
 identify different agents to fight fire, detection and warning systems for
fire safety;
 identify the need for maintenance and inspection of fire extinguishers,
use of extinguishers to fight different types of fires.

4.2 INTRODUCTION TO FIRE

The visible effect of combustion process which includes various chemical
reactions into it is called as fire. The fire generally takes place amongst some
sort of fuel and atmospheric oxygen thereby giving distinguished resulting
outcome as compared to the starting one. Attainment of ignition temperature
is desirable for the combustion process of fuel to convert it into fire. The
presence of oxygen, fuel and heat aids in continuing the process of fire, this is
generally termed as fire triangle. The process in which fuel reacts with the
oxygen and thereby releasing resultant heat energy is termed as combustion
process. The speed of combustion process can be slower or faster depending
upon the availability of oxygen. The process resulting in flame can be termed
as burning process due to fast combustion. Combustion process only takes
place amongst gases.

For industrial buildings fire incident is considered as a very serious hazard.

Fire at factories usually takes place due to some electrical fault or
somebodies carelessness due to which these factories are considered to be at
high risk of fire incidents. These fire incidents in industries are costing in
billions of dollars every year to the companies as well as the government.
Also in addition to this, loss of life is also associated with such incident
which is irrecoverable thing. These fire incidents are resulting in number of
civilian deaths, various civilian injuries and also loss and damage to property.
There are many reasons for happening of these fire incidents in factories. Fire
disaster may take place due to unawareness of the related risks surrounding
the labours at their everyday work.

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4.2.1 Chemistry and Definition of Fire Fire Safety

Fire generally takes place due to the combustion of fuel which can be in any
form i.e. solid, liquids or gases. Gases are released from the surface of fuel
once it is heated up to an extent which further leads to the chemical reaction
leading to fire. In combustion process different gases made up of molecules
reacts with each other. These molecules of gases fragments apart once the
gases are heat up to such an extent that causes them to break into fragments
of gases which further reacts with the oxygen present in air to form new
product molecules (H2O and CO2) plus lots of heat and other byproducts as
well in case if burning is not complete. The proper mixture or combination of
three major elements i.e. heat, fuel and oxygen leads to chemical reaction
resulting in fire. Once ignited, fire must be able to sustain its own heat by
releasing more heat energy into the atmosphere. Presence of oxidizer gas (O2)
is also necessary to produce convection for continuing the fire.

4.2.2 Concept of Fire Triangle

Fire triangle illustrates all the three major elements which are required for
igniting a fire as shown in Figure 4.1. These elements are heat, fuel and
oxidizing agents and combination of these elements in right mixture leads to
event of fire. Fire triangle indicates that fire can be stopped if any one of
these three elements could be prevented or extinguished from the fire triangle.
Suppose by covering the fire with fire blanket could stop oxygen supply to
that part and hence could help in extinguishing the fire. Whereas in case of
fire in industries it takes place in an extended area so eliminating oxygen
factor is not possible so firefighters are called upon for controlling the fire.
This fire triangle model conveys components of a fire.

The first element is heat in a fire triangle which is considered as the most
leading factor due to absence of which fire cannot be ignited. Unless there is
certain amount of heat provided the event of fire cannot take place. Once the
fire incident takes place the foremost thing the firefighters do it to stop fire
from expanding by applying water on it which acts as a cooling agent. By
removing source of heat from the entire building would also assist in
eliminating the fire (example wood embers, turning off electricity supply
etc.).

Fuel holds the second position in the fire triangle which is also required by
fire to take place in actual. A fuel is also desirable for the fire to occur.
Anything which is flammable could be considered as fuel source like fire
hazardous chemicals, fabrics, paper or wood. Once this fuel element is
eliminated the fire will also be extinguished.

Oxygen is another essential element which holds third position in a fire

triangle. For starting and beginning the fire the presence of oxygen is highly
desirable. Extinguishing small fire with non-flammable blanket or sand will
discontinue the oxygen content and ultimately stopping the fire. Therefore a
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combustion process could be retarded by decreasing the concentration of
oxygen. But this is not feasible in case of large fires occurring in an extended
area.

Lastly the fire triangle is holding a center position for another element aiding
in fire that is called as chemical reaction. So firefighters need to utilize a
different approach while dealing with fires concerning with metals like
magnesium, lithium, titanium as these chemical leads to chemical reactions.
This is also called as class-D fire and this type of fire cannot be stopped with
water supply as these metals reacts more with water rather than oxygen and
further releases more energy as a result of their reaction. The exothermic
reaction takes place once the fire has taken place and allow it to keep going
until and unless one of the element causing fire is eliminated or blocked.

Heat

Chemical
Reaction
Caisomg
Fire
Fuel Oxygen

Figure 4.1: The Fire Triangle

4.2.3 Main causes of fire

An industrial fire involves large and destructive fire that often, but not always
occurs with explosions. These fires generally occur in the areas which are
involving a lot of flammable materials (examples includes petroleum
products, oil depots, chemical plants, natural gas processing plants, etc.). The
leading causes of fire are shown in Figure 4.2 and other ruling causes
occurring in wood working industries, chemical industries, food industries,
metal working industries as well as pharmaceutical manufacturing industries
is due to presence of deadly combustible dust in atmosphere which is
generally overlooked by the employers, managers and labours working in
those environment. Also those materials which are not possessing any risk
when in larger form but they may become the reason of combustion while
converted in dust form.

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 Fire Safety

Figure 4.2: Leading Causes of Fire Hazards in Industries

 Combustible Dust

Sometimes there are chances that some small incidents of fire may take place
at the worksite and that may go as unreported incident but these small fires
also cause harm to the employee, loss to the products kept in the vicinity of
that area and ultimately loss of time. The result of such small fire incidents
can be devastating like if that particular area is involving combustion dust in
the atmosphere then secondary explosion might take place by spreading and
reacting with the atmospheric dust and further multiplying the severity of the
fire incident. Also these combustible dusts could ignite by themselves and
could cause severe explosion inside the factory causing break down of entire
facilities, leading to devastating losses and fatalities. These dust explosions
are capable of causing potential damage to the entire building, loss of life,
involves multiples injuries and damage to the environment and surrounding
communities. The dust itself acts as a key ingredient for dust fires and
explosions.

Controlling dust related fire: The major role in controlling the combustible
dust related fire in the environment will be played by the employee and his
employer. Employers should provide provision for conducting safety
equipment training for his employees and labours from time to time. He
should also ensure that his employee is wearing that safety equipment while
delivering his job on workplace. Employee should make use of safest
industrial vacuum for his desired application so that he can stay safe by
selecting proper equipment.
 Hot Working Activities

All those industrial activities which involve hot working practices like
brazing, soldering, welding, burning, heating, torch cutting, grinding,
chipping, drilling are prone to fire incidents. These practices pose fire hazards
as they generate sparks, flames and heat which can sometimes leads to fire.

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These resulting sparks can help combustible dust in the surrounding area to
ignite and lead to huge fires.
Controlling hot work related fire:

Hot work related fires can be inhibited by adopting few safety procedures.
Although avoiding hot working practices is not possible solution but if some
alternative is there then one must adopt that procedure to lessen the chances
of fire or explosion. The personal performing hot work related job must be
trained enough and he must be aware of the possible hazards associated with
the hot work. One must also be familiar with the site related hazards, use of
safety equipments and must have knowledge of policies and procedures too.
The supervisor must also makes sure that the area in which hot work related
activities are being performed is clear of flammable and combustible
materials that may be in any of the form like gaseous form, liquid form or in
dust form.
 Equipment and Machinery

Industrial fires could also be caused due to faulty equipment and machineries.
The largest issues are faced due to equipments which are related to heating
and hot working activities like furnaces which are not maintained or serviced
for longer period of time. Moving parts of equipment results into friction that
in result becomes a leading reason for fire hazard.
Controlling equipment and machinery related fire:

The fire hazard related to equipment and machinery could be eliminated by

simply performing regular cleaning and maintaining the equipment like by
lubricating different parts of it. Under unfortunate conditions even harmless
equipments or machineries could become hazardous equipments. Keeping
equipment surrounding area clean can prevent chances of fire incidents to a
great extent. By adopting and following manufacture’s maintenance
procedures for the delivered equipments could also reduce the risk of fire in
plant by preventing over heating of the machinery.
 Electrical Hazards

There are numerous fire hazards which may be confronted in an industry

owing to electrical faults. Electrical systems in any industry include extension
cords, overloaded outlets, static discharges and overloaded circuits. From
Figure 4.2 it can be clearly depicted that electrical faults are the leading
causes for fire hazards in industries. A small spark in any equipment or
machinery may turn into a big hazard if overlooked and not checked on
routine basis.
Controlling electrical related fire:

Electrical related hazards could be eliminated by preventing overloading of

electrical equipments of circuits. Also making use of antistatic equipment
reduces chances of electrical related fire hazard. Make preventive steps for
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eliminating combustible dust and hazardous materials from the environment Fire Safety
where machineries and equipments are running. Fire hazard could also be
eliminated by providing provisions for reporting system which alarms in case
whenever incident of fire takes place. By conducting regular dust hazard
analysis can help in preventing fire and explosion hazards in industries.
Establishing fire escape plans and prevention and emergency procedures
could also help in reducing the risks related to fire in a plant. Making use of
personal protective equipments also helps in preventing fire related hazards
and also it prevents from electrical shocks. Attaining fire safety training
could also help in eliminating risks related to electrical fire hazards.
 Lack of Awareness and Human Error

Human errors play a significant role in industrial fire as this is the most
common fault from worker’s side. Huge fires could be resulted from a silly
mistake or worker. Suppose a person by mistake spills flammable liquid on
shop-floor or some combustible dust has accumulated in the environment of
factory and he forgets to clean it, then this flammable liquid or dust might
ignite due to heat and can leads to fire. Also secondary fire could be faced if
primary fire is not suppressed on time.
Controlling human error related fire:

Human error related and other causes leading to fire could be ceased by
installing fire alarms for notifying the workers in the building or plant. Fire
outbreak could also be notified to the labours by installing tank fire control
system in the plant.

Although it nearly impossible to completely reduce the industrial fires and

explosions but by taking proper preventive steps the employees and worker’s
life could be saved.

4.3 EXTINGUISHMENT OF FIRE

The fire can only be extinguished by eliminating or suppressing any one of
the element from fire triangle viz. fuel, heat or oxygen, or disturbing the
chemical chain reaction. Until and unless any one of these elements is not
stopped the fire will keep on burning causing huge losses. Fire
extinguishment could be achieved by undertaking following processes:

 Starving the fire:

This is a method of removing the fuel from the picture like removing the
unburnt material from the place and turning off the gases in the case of
Class-C fire.
 Smothering the fire:
This is a method of preventing combination of oxygen with the fuel in
case of the fire. For this purpose fire resistant blanket could be used for
cutting off the oxygen supply.
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 Cooling the fire:
This is a method of bringing down the burning temperature of substance
or material below its ignition temperature. Burning of solid combustible
materials causing Class-A fire could be prevented by using water as
extinguishing agent.
 Interrupting or disturbing the chemical chain reaction:
Fire can be extinguished by interrupting the chemical chain reaction by
using dry chemical powder extinguisher. Some of the fire extinguishers
are capable of disturbing the chain reaction and fire at the same time.
Fire extinguishment can be accomplished by any one of the four following
methods:
 Hand extinguishers:
This is a portable extinguisher which is operated by civil service or
military personal to control the fire.
 Automatic sprinkler system:
This system gets activated as soon as it detects smoke in it vicinity and
releases water from sprinklers. This system gets activated in temperature
range of 135 °F – 280 °F.
 Hose lines:
This system is generally utilized by civil service people, military people
and by fire fighters also to suppress the fire with water.
 Volume extinguishment system:
This system generally releases gases into the room atmosphere which
combats with the chemical reaction causing the combustion process.

4.4 CLASSIFICATION OF FIRES BY DIFFERENT

TYPE
There are different types of fires that are categorized into following classes:
Class-A Fires:

This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due ordinary
combustible materials. This type of fire leaves ash behind. Common
examples generally include rubber, pulp, paper, wood, cloth, and plastics of
various types. This method generally focuses on extinguishing fire via heat
removal method. Common types of agents that can be utilized for
extinguishing fire of this class include water, halon, dry chemicals,
halogenated agents and foams. Table 1 depicts all the class of fire along with
their extinguishing agent types.

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Class-B Fires: Fire Safety

This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due to flammable
and combustible liquids or gases which may include propane, gasoline, oil,
tar, paint and natural gas. Various types of fire extinguishing agents are
available to suppress the fire of this class type making use of all the theories
of fire extinguishment. The type of agent to be utilized depends upon the
circumstances involved. Usually these flammable liquids do not ignite by
themselves but the vapors generating from these liquids ignites and leads to
fire. The combustion process starts in this case once the ignition source
interacts with the mixture of oxygen and vapors.
Class-C Fires:

This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due to live electrical
equipment. Therefore this class of fire could be suppressed by making use of
extinguishing agent which does not conduct electricity back to the fire
extinguishing personal. Electricity here acts as a source of energy or source
of ignition, but it will not burn on its own. Instead, these electrical
equipments act as a source of ignition for Class-A type fire or for Class-B fire.
Class-D Fires:

This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due to combustion
of exotic metals like sodium, magnesium, titanium, and zirconium. These
fires are suppressed by using special agents like dry powder etc. The
extinguishers which are utilized for suppressing class A, B, or C fires cannot
be utilized here for this class of fire. Suppose firefighter tries to suppress the
fire with water, he may help the fire to expand by reacting with burning
metals and increase the intensity of fire.
Table 4.1: Types of fire and type of Extinguisher
Fire Class Type of Fire Type of Extinguishing
Agent
Class-A Fires Includes ordinary combustible: Water,
rubber, pulp, paper, wood, Halon,
cloth, and plastics Dry Powder
Class-B Fires Includes flammable liquids and CO2,
gases like propane, gasoline oil Halon,
and natural gas Dry Powder
Class-C Fires Fire caused due to live electrical CO2,
equipments Halon,
Dry Powder
Class-D Fires Fire caused due to combustible Special Agents like dry
metals or metal alloys like powders and special
Magnesium, Titanium, application techniques
potassium, and sodium

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Class-K Fires Fire caused due to cooking Wet chemical
appliances that involve extinguishers
combustible cooking media like
animal oils, vegetable, and fats

Class-K Fires:

This class of fire generally takes into account the fire that is caused due to
cooking appliances that involve combustible cooking media like animal oils,
vegetable, and fats. Special agents like wet chemical extinguishers and
extinguisher which is alkaline in nature and possesses cooling capabilities are
used to suppress fires of this class.

4.5 DIFFERENT AGENTS TO FIGHT FIRE

While using these agents, the personal should have complete knowledge
about the type of fire to be controlled as wrong extinguisher in such case may
promote the fire or reignite the fire. There are following ranges of fire
extinguishing agents available in market:
 Water and Foam extinguishing agents

The extinguishers which are capable of eradicating heat element from the fire
triangle are composed of water and foam as extinguishing agents. Water
extinguishers are used for suppressing Class-A type fires only. As it is a
known fact that water has low boiling point, possesses high heat capacity, is
non-toxic, is cheap, and easily available which is why it is used as
extinguishing agent for fire caused due to ordinary combustible materials.
These types of extinguishers are use in case of fire due to organic materials
like paper, wood, fabrics, coal, textiles etc.

Foam agents are generally of two types; chemical foam and mechanical foam.
Amongst these two, chemicals foams are obsolete and generally do not find
its applications these days. Chemical reactions are generated amongst two
materials that generates form layer which covers the flammable liquid surface
and thereby securing the resulting vapors. Mechanical foams make use of
mechanical injection to inject air for expanding and forming bubbles. These
agents are either aqueous foam or film forming foam. Mechanical foams
include aqueous film forming foam (AFFF), protein foam fluoroprotein foam,
Alcohol type AFFF/FFFP, Mid/High expansion foam etc. Water and foam
based extinguishing agents cannot be utilized in case of fire caused due to
electrical fault, kitchen fires, flammable metals, gases or liquids.
 Halogenated or clean extinguishing agents

The fire in a combustion process is suppressed by terminating the chemical

chain reaction with the help of halogenated agents which reacts with fire
chemically instead of physically. How this chain reaction breaks is not
understood completely till now. The agent that is utilized for suppressing the
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fire releases bromine the helps in decomposing the fire by carrying away the Fire Safety
free radicals which helps the combustion process to outgrow. Thus in case of
huge fire more bromine is required to break the chemical chain reaction
process. Most of these halogenated extinguishing agents are considered as
ozone depleting agents. But there are manufacturers in the market who have
developed such extinguishers after use of such agents, recapturing of these
agents is possible and thereby inhibiting their release into the environment
under non fire situations. All the features related to service, usage and
maintenance related questions associated with the equipment are enclosed
and provided by the manufacturer in the user manual. Halogen agents provide
a big advantage that there is no cleaning required after their usage.
Sometimes by discharging other agents like water or dry chemical in some
environment involving electronics, high tech equipments, jet engines and data
processing may leads to devastating loss to the property than the fire itself.
These are usually used for Class-B and C type fires.
 Dry powder extinguishing agents

Powder or granular particles make up this type of extinguishing agents that

are specifically utilized to suppress the fire of Class-D type which includes
fires due to metals and metal alloys. There are various powder agents
available to extinguish fire caused due to metals like copper, sodium chloride,
and graphite. These dry powder based extinguishers are selected based upon
the type of metal that is the reason for fire. These agents are capable of
eliminating any one of the elements either O2 or by removing heat element
from the fire triangle. These are limited to be utilized for combustible metal
fires only. Whereas these agents are incapable of extinguishing fires in other
class type fires which may involve fires due to cooking oil, electrical
equipments, etc.
 Carbon dioxide (CO2) extinguishing agents

Unlike water and foam based extinguishing agents, CO2 based extinguishers
are utilized for suppressing fires caused due to Class- B and C type by
eliminating oxygen element from fire triangle. This type of extinguisher is
also capable of eradicating heat element from the triangle with a cold
discharge thereby inhibiting the fire. CO2 based extinguishers are ineffective
for Class-A type fires. CO2 gas is characterized as dry and non-corrosive gas
which is inert as soon as it comes in contact with the other substances. Its
main advantage is that it does not leave behind any residue which can
damage the machines or electrical equipments. Fires due to reactive metals or
alloys (titanium, potassium, sodium, etc.) cannot be suppressed by CO2
extinguishers. Reason for this is that owing to high temperature these reactive
metals causes decomposition of CO2 and thereby continues to burn. Care
must be taken while dealing with CO2 extinguishers in confined spaces as
this gas may lead to unconsciousness, suffocation and death.
 Dry chemical extinguishing agents
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These agents are capable of extinguishing the fire by disturbing the chemical
chain reaction of fire triangle. These are also called as multipurpose dry
chemical extinguishers as these are effective in suppressing fire of Class A, B,
and C type fires. In Class-A fires these agents build a barrier between oxygen
and fuel element.
 Wet chemical extinguishing agents

These extinguishing agents build a barrier between oxygen and fuel element
of the fire triangle resulting in removal of heat element. This type of
extinguishers finds their applications in case of Class-K fires. These
extinguishing agents are capable of preventing re-ignition. Commercial
cooking operations like deep fat fryers are prone to fire accidents. For such
operations wet chemical extinguishing agents are utilized in case of fire
accident. These can be used for suppressing fires related to commercial
kitchens as well (Class-A type fire).
 Water mist extinguishing agents

These types of extinguishers are recently developed extinguishers that are

capable of suppressing fire by taking heat element away from fire triangle.
They are substitute for clean agent extinguishers where main concern was
contamination of agent. Water mist extinguishers are capable of suppressing
fire of Class-A fires and Class-C fires.

4.6 DETECTION AND WARNING SYSTEMS

It is higher authorities responsibility to ensure the safety of its work force in
advance and must be prepared if any incident of fire take place inside the
plant or building. In order to detect fire in the areas fire detecting devices and
warning systems are installed inside the building that are capable in notifying
the labors so that they can undertake evasive actions to evacuate the building.
A fire detection and warning system is designed in such a way that it can
detect smoke, excessive heat as well as fire in a particular area and alerts
workforce about the possible hazard. If any fire event is sensed by these
detectors, these systems warn the labors in advance. While working in any
department of industry, each and every individual must be aware of all the
associated hazards, must be able to assess possible risks and must be aware of
fire safety risk assessment. Detection and warning system must also be
installed inside the building so that labors could bewarned about the possible
fire hazards and they can escape the plant in case of emergency. If proper
detection and warning systems are implanted inside the plant then proper
preventive measures could be taken to fight the fire and workers could be
evacuated on time from the accident place.

All the places inside the plant should have installed fire detecting alarms.
More attention must be paid to those areas where fire could start and spread
to other parts unnoticed. These places could be basement or storage areas that
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don’t need regular visits, or it can be a part of building that has been Fire Safety
abandoned for some time like while having mealtime. Serious dangers must
be faced by the workers in the workplace if any fire incident erupts and
spread undetected. Workplace must include escape routes like staircase or
fire resisting doors that could be used in case of fire.

Installing effective and reliable automatic fire detectors in the workplace will
warn working people about the fire. These warning systems can also help
people in evacuating the plant on time. These fire detection and warning
system are considered to be the cost-effective and advantageous system in
case of protecting against hazards of fire. High degree of structural protection
is also ensured by utilizing these fire detection systems. Sometimes choosing
false fire detectors for plant may result into fatal accidents without warning
about the incident. So choosing right type of fire detectors is also imperative
to protect the labor against risks associated with the fire. Manufacturing
practices and business activities gets severely affected by false alarms by
these detectors.

All the buildings must have installed fire alarm sounders with a manual call
points near the exit routes. Warnings send by these alarms must be clearly
audible to all the labors working inside the plant. The sound used by these
alarms must be different from those sounds which are heard on the shop floor.
In case where hearing impaired workforce is working, provision for visual
alarm must be provided that can warn these labors by different flashing and
rotational lighting system. Voice evacuation system must be installed in case
of complex buildings like retail shops and where people are unaware of the
fire warning systems. Supervision of fire control system and all related
suppression system must be done on regular basis to ensure their smooth
operational conditions. There are different types of detectors available in the
market depending upon the fire type (Figure 4.3).

Fire Detectors

Heat Smoke Flame Fire-Gas

Detectors Detectors Detectors Detectors

Fixed Rate-of- Photo- Ionizat Ultravi Infrare

temp type rise type electric - ion o-let d (IR)
heat heat Light
detector detector (UV)

Figure 4.3: Types of Fire Detectors Available

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Introduction to
Industrial Safety 4.7 MAINTENANCE AND INSPECTION OF FIRE
EXTINGUISHERS
The fire extinguisher inspection, maintenance and testing must be done in
accordance with local, state and national codes and regulation on regular
basis so as to reassure its proper working. This inspection can be done
manually or by use of electronic means at frequent intervals so that they can
maintain their effective working order. These inspections are done for
checking the expellent gases, fire extinguishing agents, and mechanical parts
of extinguisher. For conducting these inspection only trained and experience
professional are called upon as they only are aware of proper actions to be
taken by looking at the manuals, parts, lubricants, tools, etc. These fire
extinguishers require quick checks within every 30 days. Following questions
may be answered to check the functioning of fire extinguishers;
Whether the fire extinguisher is placed in correct location?
Is that fire extinguisher visible as well as accessible to all?
Does the pressure gauge or indicator displaying correct pressure or not?
Also there are certain procedures or checks that must be followed to check
for any problem in the extinguisher:
 Designated position of the extinguisher and mounted correctly
 Easily approachable or visible to all
 Operating instructions are facing outwards and are clearly readable
 Check for broken or missing safety seals and tamper seals
 Check for fullness by weighing or by lifting
 Examine the extinguisher cylinder for any sort of physical damage,
leakage, visible dents, clogged nozzle, cracks or corrosion.
 Check for pressure gauge reading or indicator.
 Check for appropriate condition of hose (if attached), wheels, tires and
nozzles

The expert person conducting these checks must record all these corrective or
defective things. These inspections must be performed on monthly basis and
details of the person conducting the tests with date must also be recorded.
Figure 4.4 indicates all the anatomy related to fire extinguisher.

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 Fire Safety

Figure 4.4: Labeled Diagram of a Fire Extinguisher

4.8 USE OF EXTINGUISHERS TO FIGHT

DIFFERENT TYPES OF FIRES
While using these extinguishers, the personal should have complete
knowledge about the type of fire to be controlled as wrong extinguisher in
such cases may promote the fire or reignite the fire. There are following
ranges of fire extinguishers available in market:
 ABC powder fire extinguisher

This extinguisher is a multi-purpose extinguisher that possesses

distinguished advantages and the most commonly used amongst all the
available extinguishers. This is called as powder extinguishers because
they spray a very fine chemical powder that is generally composed of
monoammonium phosphate. This thin layer of powder acts as a layer
between fire and cuts of oxygen supply and thereby suffocating the fire.
Fires of Class-A, B and C type can be suppressed by using this type of
extinguisher. But this extinguisher is not capable in suppressing fire
related to electrical hazards.
 CO2 fire extinguisher

CO2 extinguisher is considered to be the cleanest type of extinguisher

because after utilization it leaves no residue and also does not require
any cleanup. It is capable of starving fire for oxygen as it eliminates
oxygen element from the fire triangle and thereby suffocating the fire.
This type of extinguisher is capable of extinguishing fire caused due to
flammable liquids and fires due to electrical faults (Class-B type fire).
 Wet chemical fire extinguisher

This fire extinguisher is capable of extinguishing fire caused due to

kitchen cooking media like oil, animal and vegetable fats. Potassium
solution in this extinguisher sprays two prolonged assault upon fires. In
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Introduction to
Industrial Safety
first step, the sprayed mists cools the fire and in second stage a thick
soap like foams are formed due to chemical reaction between cooking
medium and mist of extinguishing agent. This aids in preventing the
liquid to re-ignite. This type of extinguisher prevents fire due to Class-K
type fire. Whereas they are found to be useful for shutting down fire due
to wood and paper as well.
 Water mist fire extinguisher

These days these sets of extinguisher are capable of shutting down fire
across most class of fires. They are also considered to be the most
versatile extinguishers. The microscopic water molecules that are
released through this extinguisher are capable of fighting fire at different
levels. This mist releases water in such a microscopic fog like form that
oxygen concentration is reduced in the air, thereby suffocating the fire.
In second stage it cools down the fire by reducing the temperature. Water
is de-ionized in this case of extinguisher so these extinguishers are
capable in shutting down fires that are taking place due to electrical
faults. These extinguishers are utilized for fires due to Class-A, B, C and
K type fires.
 Foam fire extinguisher

Foam agents are generally of two types; chemical foam and mechanical
foam. Amongst these two, chemicals foams are obsolete and generally
do not find its applications these days. Chemical reactions are generated
amongst two materials that generates form layer which covers the
flammable liquid surface and thereby securing the resulting vapors.
Mechanical foams make use of mechanical injection to inject air for
expanding and forming bubbles. These agents are either aqueous foam or
film forming foam. Mechanical foams include aqueous film forming
foam (AFFF), protein foam fluoroprotein foam, Alcohol type
AFFF/FFFP, Mid/High expansion foam etc. Water and foam based
extinguishing agents cannot be utilized in case of fire caused due to
electrical fault, kitchen fires, flammable metals, gases or liquids.
 Clean agent fire extinguisher

The fire in a combustion process is suppressed by terminating the

chemical chain reaction with the help of halogenated agents which reacts
with fire chemically instead of physically. These agents are capable of
suppressing fires due to gases. These are non-conductive, leave no
residues and are eco-friendly. It reduces oxygen level in the air and
interrupts chemical chain reaction thereby ultimately suffocating the
flame or fire. Halon is generally utilized gas in this sort of
extinguishers.

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 Fire Safety
SAQ 1
a) State True or False T/F

i) The dust itself acts as a key ingredient for dust fires

and explosions.
ii) Class-D type of fire cannot be stopped with water
supply.
iii) The automatic sprinkler system gets activated in
temperature rang of 135 °F – 280 °F.
iv) The extinguishers which are utilized for suppressing
class A, B, or C fires can also be used to suppress
Class-K fire.
v) Halogenated agents react with fire physically.
b) What is fire? Explain general chemistry of fire.
c) What is the basic concept of fire triangle? Explain all the three
elements of fire triangle.
d) What are the leading causes of fire in industries?
e) How fires can be classified under different classes?

4.9 LET US SUM UP

Fire is a combustion process which takes place as a result of chemical
reaction between some sort of fuel and oxygen present in air. The outcome
products of fire are different as compared to the starting material. In order to
lead combustion to take place it is desirable to heat up the fuel to its ignition
temperature. Whenever any structure or building is constructed all the
measures need to be set up in advance to prevent the nuisance of fire in that
particular building. The presence of oxygen, fuel and heat aids in continuing
the process of fire, this is generally termed as fire triangle.

For industrial buildings fire incident is considered as a very serious hazard.

Fire at factories usually takes place due to some electrical fault or
somebodies carelessness due to which these factories are considered to be at
high risk of fire incidents. These fire incidents in industries are costing in
billions of dollars every year to the companies as well as the government.
Also in addition to this, loss of life is also associated with such incident
which is irrecoverable thing. These fire incidents are resulting in number of
civilian deaths, various civilian injuries and also loss and damage to property.
There are many reasons for happening of these fire incidents in factories. Fire
disaster may take place due to unawareness of the related risks surrounding
the labours at their everyday work.

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Introduction to
Industrial Safety 4.10 KEY WORDS
Dangerous goods – Also referred to as hazardous materials. Any solid,
liquid, or gas that can harm people, other living organisms, property, or the
environment.
Fire precautions: The measures taken and the fire protection features
provided in a building (e.g. design, systems, equipment and procedures) to
minimise the risk to the occupants from the outbreak of fire.
Fire prevention: The concept of preventing outbreaks of fire, of reducing
the risk of fire spreading and of avoiding danger to persons and property from
fire.
First aid: The skilled application of accepted principles of treatment on the
occurrence of an accident or in the case of sudden illness, using facilities or
materials available at the time.
Risk -When we refer to risk in relation to occupational safety and health the
most commonly used definition is 'risk is the likelihood that a person may be
harmed or suffers adverse health effects if exposed to a hazard.
Explosion -An explosion is the result, not the cause, of a rapid expansion of
gases. It may occur from physical or mechanical change.
Toxic- It is a chemical that has a median lethal concentration (LC50) in air of
more than 200 parts per million (ppm) but not more than 2,000 parts per
million by volume of gas or vapor, or more than 2 milligrams per liter but not
more than 20 milligrams per liter of mist, fume or dust, when administered
by continuous inhalation for 1 hour.

4.11 ANSWERS TO SAQS

SAQ 1
a) i) True
ii) True
iii) True
iv) True
v) False
vi) False
b) The visible effect of combustion process which includes various
chemical reactions into it is called as fire. The fire generally takes place
amongst some sort of fuel and atmospheric oxygen thereby giving
distinguished resulting outcome as compared to the starting one.
Attainment of ignition temperature is desirable for the combustion
process of fuel to convert it into fire.

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Chemistry of fire: Fire Safety

Fire generally takes place due to the combustion of fuel which can be in
any form i.e. solid, liquids or gases. Gases are released from the surface
of fuel once it is heated up to an extent which further leads to the
chemical reaction leading to fire. In combustion process different gases
made up of molecules reacts with each other. These molecules of gases
fragments apart once the gases are heat up to such an extent that causes
them to break into fragments of gases which further reacts with the
oxygen present in air to form new product molecules (H2O and CO2)
plus lots of heat and other byproducts as well in case if burning is not
complete. The proper mixture or combination of three major elements i.e.
heat, fuel and oxygen leads to chemical reaction resulting in fire. Once
ignited, fire must be able to sustain its own heat by releasing more heat
energy into the atmosphere. Presence of oxidizer gas (O2) is also
necessary to produce convection for continuing the fire.

c) Fire triangle illustrates all the three major elements which are required
for igniting a fire. These elements are heat, fuel and oxidizing agents and
combination of these elements in right mixture leads to event of fire. Fire
triangle indicates that fire can be stopped if any one of these three
elements could be prevented or extinguished from the fire triangle.
1. The first element is heat in a fire triangle which is considered as the
most leading factor due to absence of which fire cannot be ignited.
Unless there is certain amount of heat provided the event of fire
cannot take place. By removing source of heat from the entire
building would also assist in eliminating the fire (example wood
embers, turning off electricity supply etc.).
2. Fuel holds the second position in the fire triangle which is also
required by fire to take place in actual. A fuel is also desirable for the
fire to occur. Anything which is flammable could be considered as
fuel source like fire hazardous chemicals, fabrics, paper or wood.
Once this fuel element is eliminated the fire will also be extinguished.
3. Oxygen is another essential element which holds third position in a
fire triangle. For starting and beginning the fire the presence of
oxygen is highly desirable. Extinguishing small fire with non-
flammable blanket or sand will discontinue the oxygen content and
ultimately stopping the fire. Therefore a combustion process could be
retarded by decreasing the concentration of oxygen. But this is not
feasible in case of large fires occurring in an extended area.
Lastly the fire triangle is holding a center position for another element
aiding in fire that is called as chemical reaction. So firefighters need
to utilize a different approach while dealing with fires concerning
with metals like magnesium, lithium, titanium as these chemical leads
to chemical reactions.
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Introduction to d) The following are the leading causes of fire in industries:
Industrial Safety
 Combustible Dust
Sometimes there are chances that some small incidents of fire may
take place at the worksite and that may go as unreported incident
but these small fires also cause harm to the employee, loss to the
products kept in the vicinity of that area and ultimately loss of
time. The result of such small fire incidents can be devastating
like if that particular area is involving combustion dust in the
atmosphere then secondary explosion might take place by
spreading and reacting with the atmospheric dust and further
multiplying the severity of the fire incident. Also these
combustible dusts could ignite by themselves and could cause
severe explosion inside the factory causing break down of entire
facilities, leading to devastating losses and fatalities.
 Hot Working Activities
All those industrial activities which involve hot working practices
like brazing, soldering, welding, burning, heating, torch cutting,
grinding, chipping, drilling are prone to fire incidents. These
practices pose fire hazards as they generate sparks, flames and
heat which can sometimes leads to fire. These resulting sparks can
help combustible dust in the surrounding area to ignite and lead to
huge fires.
 Equipment and Machinery
Industrial fires could also be caused due to faulty equipment and
machineries. The largest issues are faced due to equipments which
are related to heating and hot working activities like furnaces
which are not maintained or serviced for longer period of time.
Moving parts of equipment results into friction that in result
becomes a leading reason for fire hazard.
 Electrical Hazards
There are numerous fire hazards which may be confronted in an
industry owing to electrical faults. Electrical systems in any
industry include extension cords, overloaded outlets, static
discharges and overloaded circuits. A small spark in any
equipment or machinery may turn into a big hazard if overlooked
and not checked on routine basis.
 Lack of Awareness and Human Error
Human errors play a significant role in industrial fire as this is the
most common fault from worker’s side. Huge fires could be
resulted from a silly mistake or worker. Suppose a person by
mistake spills flammable liquid on shop-floor or some
combustible dust has accumulated in the environment of factory
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 and he forgets to clean it, then this flammable liquid or dust might Fire Safety
ignite due to heat and can leads to fire. Also secondary fire could
be faced if primary fire is not suppressed on time.
e) Class-A Fires:
This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due ordinary
combustible materials. This type of fire leaves ash behind. Common
examples generally include rubber, pulp, paper, wood, cloth, and
plastics of various types. This method generally focuses on
extinguishing fire via heat removal method. Common types of agents
that can be utilized for extinguishing fire of this class include water,
halon, dry chemicals, halogenated agents and foams.
Class-B Fires:
This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due to
flammable and combustible liquids or gases which may include
propane, gasoline, oil, tar, paint and natural gas. Various types of fire
extinguishing agents are available to suppress the fire of this class
type making use of all the theories of fire extinguishment. The type of
agent to be utilized depends upon the circumstances involved.
Class-C Fires:
This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due to live
electrical equipment. Therefore this class of fire could be suppressed
by making use of extinguishing agent which does not conduct
electricity back to the fire extinguishing personal. Electricity here acts
as a source of energy or source of ignition, but it will not burn on its
own. Instead, these electrical equipments act as a source of ignition
for Class-A type fire or for Class-B fire.
Class-D Fires:
This class of fire generally takes into account fire caused due to
combustion of exotic metals like sodium, magnesium, titanium, and
zirconium. These fires are suppressed by using special agents like dry
powder etc. The extinguishers which are utilized for suppressing class
A, B, or C fires cannot be utilized here for this class of fire. Suppose
firefighter tries to suppress the fire with water, he may help the fire to
expand by reacting with burning metals and increase the intensity of
fire.
Class-K Fires:
This class of fire generally takes into account the fire that is caused
due to cooking appliances that involve combustible cooking media
like animal oils, vegetable, and fats. Special agents like wet chemical
extinguishers and extinguisher which is alkaline in nature and
possesses cooling capabilities are used to suppress fires of this class.

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Introduction to
Industrial Safety 4.12 REFERENCES AND FURTHER STUDIES
Web links
 ohsonline.com
 www.researchgate.net
 https://www.amerex-fire.com/upl/downloads/educational-documents/fire-
and-fire-extinguishment-99cd88b2.pdf
 http://informationtechniciantraining.tpub.com/14222/css/Fire-
Extinguishment-109.htm
 http://www.mfs.sa.gov.au/site/community_safety/home_fire_and_life_saf
ety_information_sheets_domestic/extinguishing_a_fire.jsp
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_extinguisher
 https://www.colorado.edu/firelifesafety/sites/default/files/attached-
files/fireextinguisherrequirementsprocedures.pdf

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