Mr CEO Is your work place

safe?

A CALL IN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY

Rotary Club of Akurdi
22nd May 2011
20 slides/20 minutes

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 How would you rate the safety
system followed in your company?
• 20.5%
Excellent
• Good
51.8%
• Average
19.6%
• Fair
5.6%
• Poor
1.9%
• No
0.5%
By theiranswer
(round
own admission off
>50%error)
felt that they are not excellent but they
felt they are successful by their own yard sticks

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

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 How strange !!!
• We want our
• Financial Performance to be excellent
• Customer satisfaction to be excellent
• Market share to be excellent
• Growth to be excellent
• Product quality to be excellent
• BUT WE WANT SAFETY ONLY TO BE
GOOD AND WE ARE NOT UNHAPPY !!
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Should we be satisfied?
• Anything less than excellent will not do
and only 20% felt that they are excellent.

• We want “superior” performance in safety

and not even “successful” performance will
do.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Disturbing statistics
• Construction has become the most
dangerous land based industry now.
Builders to note.(Fishing remains the most
dangerous off shore.)
• 1225 fatalities in US /year
• 13/100,000 is the rate of non fatal injuries
in a year. (not very different in EU)
• Illness 7% in workers in Europe
• Mediclaims mounting every where.
2001 statistics C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Study on safety Practices in
construction sites in India
• Mangers in the survey told that 58% of accidents
are due to workers.
• Yet they agreed that
– 30% of sites only had a safety department.
– 25% of sites project managers attend the safety
meetings.(65% of sites workers attend the meetings)
– In 95% of sites undue pressures on schedule exist.
– Only 7% of sites had a Doctor.
– 6% of sites gave awards for safety performance.
– Only 60% of sites gave protective gear to workers.

Ref: Sanddakumar and E Arumugam Benchmarking studies on safety management

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
Some world class figures on safety
• 2.26 man hours lost out of 2,00,000 man hours-
Factory in USA
• 0.04 day lost in a year- Intel factory.
• A textile factory- lost man day- 1 since 1992.
• Field crest Cannon cut musco skeletal injuries
from 121 in 1993 to 21 in 1996.
• Perdue Farms -No lost hour since 1996.
• A manufacturer with 600 employees has lower
than average injuries for the last 15 years.
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 What is the role of management?
• We will achieve the level of safety that we
“demonstrate” in our approach because
safety is “culture” driven.

• People do what management “does”.

• If they see management is keen,

• they do respond.
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
Role of management is significant
• Dr Deming said that 85% of Quality problems
are in the purview of management and 15% in
the purview of workers. He called these as
chance causes and assignable causes. This
revelation led to tremendous improvements in
Quality.
• This applies to safety also.
• System improvements is safety are in the area
of responsibility of management.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Is that culture getting built?
• Stringent “result orientation” in the mind –
only paisa at the end of the day.
• Lack of appreciation of ergonomics.-
people need to adjust to machines not the
other way.
• Health of worker ignored by all.
• Last but not the least “Insurance” oriented
thinking.
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Why mangers ignore safety?
• In 1930s, One Heinrich (working in an Insurance
company) after studying the accident claims
data, declared that 88% of accidents are due to
“unsafe acts” by workers.
• This questionable conclusion led to undue focus
on workers, their behaviour, their way of
thinking, working and even their parentage .
• This in one stroke has stopped the progress and
a systemic approach to safety did not evolve.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Myths and facts
• Single cause- • Multiple causes are
Worker is the responsible for
cause of accident. accidents.
• Risk is pertaining • Risk is in
to an Occupation pertaining to an
and is constant. activity and varies
every minute
depending upon
• Reform the activity and place.
employee • Reform the system
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
• • Prevent “Error
 Case 1-Forklift accident
• A semi trailer arrived at the factory to unload a
large quantity of electronic components. The
semi trailer’s access to a loading ramp was
blocked by a number of large storage racks.
each 1.3 m high and weighing 400 Kg. Five were
stacked one on another. (Oral procedure did not
permit more than 3 stacks.) Supervisor asked a
worker to remove the stacks with a forklift truck.
Forklift operator picked up the racks and started
moving. The stack touched a electric cable 5m
high. Top rack fell on the forklift truck causing
immediate death of the worker.
• Accident reported as due to unsafe act by the
worker and file closed.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Investigations revealed….
• Overhead protection in forklift truck absent.
• The operator was not a “trained “ person.
• Supervisor asked him because ”he was there”.
• No route was advised. Just told to “move”
• The stacks were 5 high and not 3 high as per
procedure but no action was taken.
• The stacks were blocking the ramp for days but
crisis was created when trailer arrived.
• Which of these was unsafe act by the worker?
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Case 2-Conveyor Belt accident
• A production conveyor was used to deliver parts
to a machine. The design of the conveyor was
such that the parts fell down if the parts
accumulate which happened very often. Since
the operator was answerable for Quantity every
hour, she used to go below the belt to retrieve
the parts every time the parts accumulated. One
day her hair got caught and she was severely
injured.
• Report filed as “unsafe act” by the worker and
file closed. C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Learnings from investigation
• Design of the conveyor was never validated for
actual use.
• Part accumulation happened due to line
balancing issues.
• Supervisor knew this but kept pressurising her
for numbers.
• No guard was provided to prevent entry of
operator below the belt. Nor was she prevented
from doing this earlier.
• Which of these was “Unsafe act” by the worker?
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Learnings from the case
• Causal factors were identifiable by
management much before the incident.
• Causes related to high risks were
accepted by the management as OK.
• Causes were related to work systems and
not only to workers.
• Workers were “provoked” into committing
an error.
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Safety is a larger issue than a
discipline problem
• Managers please ask yourselves
• DID I PROVOKE MY WORKER TO
COMMIT AN UNSAFE ACT TODAY?
• Then the error provoking decision and
error provoking situation is as much an
unsafe act like that of the worker.
• Manager is as much responsible, if not
more for the incidents in such cases.
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
What are Error Provoking situations
• Does it violate the normal expectations of a
skilled worker?
• Does it require performance beyond what is
reasonable?
• Does it induce early fatigue?
• Is it dangerous to some one’s life?
• Is the worker getting into it with no information
as to how to come out of it?
• Does it deny any basic facility for example to
have fresh air? (chemical tank cleaning work)
• If answer is yes to any one of the above then
you have an error provoking situation on hand.
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Put the person in centre and
error provoking factors around
Work Place

Task standards
Equipment

Human being
Risk
Work Design
Policies

Communication

LOWER THE RISK BETTER

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Thinking has to change
• Legal mentality • Human mentality
– “If ammonia leaks and
a person is killed how
much should I pay?” –
actual statement of a
manager supplying
refrigeration systems

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Thinking has to change
• Accident as a goal • Risk as the goal
– “we did not have any – Make the risk
accident in the last reduction as the goal
200 days”- Notice in not accident reduction.
front of a company
which is 225th in
Fortune 500
companies.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Thinking has to change
• Safety manager is • Take the ownership
responsible for safety treat the factory as if it
– “If we have accident, is your house.
what is safety • You own the place .
manager is doing?”
You own the risks.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Thinking has to change
• Life is having different • Life is precious
value for different irrespective of
peopl whether he is a
chairman or a
cleaner.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Questionnaire
• Please answer the Questionnaire given to
you individually.
• Time 10 minutes
• Please score the sheet and retain with
you. That is the baseline as we start today.
• We may discuss one on one separately
about the issues, if any.

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

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Discussions
• Let us discuss the scores of the
Questionnaire

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 OHSAS says-Reduce “Risks”
• Risk is a combination of likelihood and
consequences of a specified hazardous
event occuring in a defined work area.
• To reduce the risks to an acceptable level
– Take the ownership of the workplace and
make it less and less risk prone.
– Eliminate “error provoking” situations.

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

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Central idea is –
Hazards identification
• Hazard is a source or a situation which
has potential to harm in terms of injury or
ill health.
• Potential Hazards exist in all activities.
• Eliminating them is our goal.

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

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Most popular is HIRA Table
• Activity wise hazard identification.
• Collates routine activities and non routine
activities.
• Takes into permanent and temp employee
being present.
• Projects risk in each case with severity
and occurrence.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Potential hazardous event
S Type
Other
r Materi Chemica Machine Of
Activity Equip
N al l s Peopl F/
o . Ph Ps Ch El To
e E

  2. Sources of
Direct Activities for Drilling                      
hazard
1
setting of jigs/fixture,tools     X
3. Potential   T X          
2
hazardous event
loading of comp. X   X   T X          
3
le
operating the m/c X  
am
p X   T X     X    
4 1. Activity Ex
seen T
unloading the comp. X   X   X          
5

Removal of Burr with brush X   X Brush T X          

6

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

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

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Evaluate Potential Hazardous
events in terms of risks
• Severity of hazardous event.
• Probability of this situation being present in
shop.
• Duration, if relevant
• Scale to know whether the situation will spread
to other areas
• Risk= Severity*Probability*weightage for
duration
• High Scaling possibility makes it emergency

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 HIRA delivers risks
• Risks perceived can be prioritised as per
the number.
• The “acceptable” level is defined for a
work place.
• The controls are initiated for
“unacceptable” risks.
• These controls are a) Process change b)
Worker upgradation c) Operations
redesign d) PPE issue e) Poka Yoke
C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Sustaining the OHSAS
• Every week , check whether the controls
are in place. Workers/staff can do this
checking in absolutely random way. The
decision is displayed in the chart and is
totally visible.

OK Risks are under control

Not OK Risks are not under control

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 PPE is a part of control rigour
• PPE should be specified correctly.
• PPE should be inspected in incoming
stage and tested, if needed.
• It should be calibrated/validated after a
specified frequency.
• It should be replaced immediately after its
specified life.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Tracking the total picture
• Consecutive 3 reds make the workplace a
chronic unsafe place. Owner of the
workplace is exposed to risks.
• Plant Head should take a target of
reducing % reds in the factory and in
offices.
• Plant Head should also take target of
reduction in tolerable risk itself.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 Audits
• 2 rounds of Internal audits planned after a
thorough implementation.
• Certification, though optional, is planned at
the end of six months.
• It is also expected to help TBEM
application score next year.

C P CHANDRASEKARAN
 References

• Construction Health and safety training Manual-

e book on www. scribd.com
• Construction site –safety roles- T Michael Toole
• On the practice of safety- Fred A Manuele
• Paper on benchmarking practices Sandakumar
• Paper on Safety management in Hongkong
Syed Ahmed
• www.ohsa.org
• www.bcsp.org
C P CHANDRASEKARAN