Observed hazards, audits

Auditing and hazard identification Incident reporting and analysis Communications Task analysis and observation Dealing with emergencies Working with contractors Risk analysis Hazard control Industrial hygiene Specific hazard issues such as ... 

The audit/inspeetion form that you should use ean be developed from the safety plan. A qualified person should examine the safety plan and eome up with a eheeklist that should serve as an audit/inspeetion form. Allowanees should be made to inelude items not speeifieally noted in the safety plan but that may be observed during field walk-throughs. Certain highly pertinent seetions of what OSHA uses when performing a eomplianee inspeetion of hazardous waste sites is ineluded in Appendix D. This inspeetion/audit form eovers many of the basies and ean be used a general guide. 

Advertising successes of the process safety improvement effort demonstrates that improvement is possible. Well-crafted stories also explain the benefits that accrue to everyone in the organization. Of particular interest are stories where a process safety weakness was observed, possibly during a process safety audit, and an improvement effort corrected the identified weakness before it could manifest into an accident. Metrics can validate such improvements. Another example is improved reliability from timely maintenance of safety devices as demonstrated by metrics that educate personnel not only about the hazards, but also about the importance of reliable safety systems in managing those hazards. 

Despite the many demands that require safety and health professionals to be chained to their desk, it is essential that safety and health professionals allot time in their weekly schedule to be actively involved within the operations. Although safety and health professionals often perform weekly inspections, job hazard observations, safety audits, and related activity, it is import for safety and health professionals to make time to meet and talk with every employee on every job. Safety and health professionals should engage the employee and ask the employee to explain what he or she does in his or her job function. 

Having collected the information—say for an audit or a hazards analysis—the report writer must write the draft report as quickly as possible. No matter how effective and thorough the auditor s note taking may have been, there will always be some observations and facts that were not fully recorded in the auditor s notes, or that are not easily understood a few days after the audit has concluded. In order to capture these thoughts, and to clear up any potential ambiguities, the auditor must write the draft report right away. 

Consider this situation for an opposite and real picture. A safety professional is making an audit of the quality of hazards management. The maintenance superintendent displays an elaborate computer-based maintenance program, of which he is very proud. During the plant tour, many hazardous conditions are observed. A supervisor is asked why work orders aren t being sent to the maintenance department to have those conditions corrected. And the response is, We don t do that anymore. Safety work orders are the last priority for the maintenance department. Later it is determined that a great number of safety-related work orders are over six... 

There are some considerations that are supra to the individual elements in safety management systems. 1 have concluded that most safety, health, and environmental management system audits, intended to measure the quahty of hazards management in place, are deficient in purpose and content. 1 include in that observation the guidehnes used for the audits 1 drafted for individual client needs, the many audit reports 1 reviewed, and a study of several audit systems. 

In Chapter 24, Measurement of Safety Performance, it is said that precise and certain measures of safety, health, and enviromnental performance are difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, audits can be highly effective measures of the quality of hazards management in place if they are well conceived and well done. I suggest keeping in mind the observation made by Kase and Wiese concerning the purpose of a safety audit ... 

A third important component of the audit process is the performance indexing of the audit results. The task of performance indexing requires the results of the audit to be quantified in a manner that allows for comparisons against performance benchmarks. While the actual audits may identify the number of unsafe actions performed by personnel during an observation period, the raw numbers are really meaningless until they are placed in a context which is comparable to an established index. The performance indices established from an audit can include the percentages of unsafe acts performed, the frequencies of hazardous conditions identified, or the accident rates for a period of time to name a few. 

Inspections are conducted to identify new or previously missed hazards and failures in hazard controls an effective safety and health program will include regular site inspections. Inspections are planned and overseen by certified safety or health professionals. Statistically valid random audits of compliance with all elements of the safety and health program are conducted. Observations are analyzed to evaluate progress. 

The purpose here is to assure that hazards, risks, and safety and health management deficiencies observed in the monitoring and measurement, audit, incident investigation, and corrective and preventive action activities are properly communicated and considered in the continual planning and management review processes. 

In addition, hazardous situations observed during an audit that might be the causal factors for serious injuries, illnesses, or fatalities are to be immediately communicated to the appropriate decision makers so that actions may be taken on a high-priority basis. This is in concert with one of the principal themes in this book—serious injury prevention. 

Physical or operational hazardous situations observed during a safety audit should be viewed principally as indicators of inadequacies in the safety management processes that allowed them to exist. Assume that management takes corrective action to eliminate every hazardous situation noted in an audit report. Still, little will be gained if no change is made in the overall decision making to improve the management systems that allowed the hazardous situations to arise and continue. 

The approach to conducting audits may vary. Generally, employees should be notified when their work practices wiU be observed. Audit teams should discuss with employees the nature of their jobs and any hazards they are likely to encounter. To obtain a more realistic sample of work behaviors, however, the audit team may occasionally make unannounced audits and enter work areas by different routes. Before announcing that an audit wiU be conducted, note that the audit may simply determine an approach for a future audit. 

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