Employee data

Employee data. Companies should not discount the value of the information that can be obtained from talking and listening to employees. Employees have first-hand experience with customers that may lead to improvements in the product or service delivery. Surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews all can be used to collect data from employees. 

Fume hoods are intended to be used to house activities that should not be done on an open bench because of the potential hazard which the activities represent, usually the generation of noxious fumes. The ability of fume hoods to capture and retain fumes generated within them is especially vulnerable to air movement, either due to traffic or other factors such as the location of air system ducts, windows, doors, or fans. Clearly, they should be located, as in the standard laboratory module, in a remote portion of the laboratory selected for low traffic and minimal air movement. Other fume generating apparatus, such as Kjeldahl units, should also be placed in out of the way places where errant air motion will not result in dispersion of the fumes generated into more heavily occupied areas of the room. A point that needs to be considered is the work habits of laboratory employees. Data on the possible health effects of long-term exposures to the vapors from most laboratory chemicals is relatively scant, although there are beginning to... 

On further investigation the manager determined the information was sent to a group of customers as an attachment, when the intended file attachment was accidentally replaced by the employee data file by an administrative assistant It was an honest mistake. 

Chemical safety data sheets for individual compounds should be consulted for detailed information. Precautions for the higher aldehydes are essentially those for most other reactive organic compounds, and should include adequate ventilation in areas where high exposures are expected fire and explosion precautions and proper instmction of employees in use of respiratory, eye, and skin protection. 

AH Department of Transportation (DOT), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) rules and regulations should be reviewed prior to handling hydrochloric acid and all the regulations must be followed. AH employees handling HCl must be trained to ensure that they are familiar with the appropriate materials safety data sheets and appHcable regulations. 

Management and Employee Cooperation. Before beginning to collect data, the cooperation of the managers involved, including the first line supervisor, and of the workers should be secured. Management needs to be informed so that they can be confident that surveillance activities will not upset production or lead to injuries. Workers need to know what the valuation means to them and how the results are to be reported. Everyone needs to know how the measurement is to be conducted so that the actual measurement causes as Htde dismption as possible. 

Table 2 Hsts some of the physical, toxicity, flammabiUty, and reactivity properties of common chemicals (10,13,42,45—51). Also given are some of the quantities specified for reporting spills and for compliance with legislated requirements. The OSHA regulations require that material safety data sheets (MSDS) be developed for all process materials, so that the ha2ard data can be communicated to employees (52). Characteristics of toxicity, flammabiUty, chemical iastabiUty, reactivity and reaction energy, operatiag coaditioas, and corrosive properties of constmction materials must all be considered ia analy2iag ha2ard poteatials of chemicals and chemical operations.

Assessment Phase The assessment phase aims to collect data needed to identify and analyze pollution-prevention opportunities. Assessment of the facility s waste-reduction needs includes the examination of hazardous waste streams, process operations, and the identification of techniques that often promise the reduction of waste generation. Information is often derived from obsei vations made during a facihty walk-through, interviews with employees (e.g., operators, line workers), and review of site or regulatory records. One professional organization suggests the following information sources be reviewed, as available (Ref. 7) ... 

Process hazard analyses, waste manifests, bills of lading, employee exposure data and other records may need to be maintained beyond the life of the toll. It is typically the toller s responsibility to maintain records of activities that occurred at their site although the client company may choose to keep duplicate records when deemed appropriate. Some of these documents may be proprietary and should be maintained as such. 

Employee and environmental health data records system. Maintains medical exposure data of employees. 

MSDS Material Safety Data Sheet - a document that provides pertinent information and a profile of a particular hazardous substance or mixture. An MSDS is normally developed by the manufacturer or formulator of the hazardous substance or mixture. The MSDS is required to be made available to employees and operators whenever there is the likelihood of the hazardous substance or mixture being introduced into the workplace. Some manufacturers prepare MSDS for products that are not considered to be hazardous to show that the product or substance is not hazardous. 

After the hazard assessment has been conducted and the data has been collected, it should be organized in a logical outline that will estimate the potential for employee injury The organized data will help to decide the type of hazard(s) involved, the level of risk, and the seriousness of potential injury The appropriate levels of PPE are then selected based on the hazard determination and the availability of PPE. The user should be properly fitted for the specified PPE, and the employer should make sure that it is comfortable to wear. Hazard reassessments should be conducted as necessary based on the introduction of new or revised processes, equipment, and accident experience, to ensure the continued suitability of selection of the proper PPE. 

OSHA does not specify how the survey data is to be organized or analyzed. Employers should be able to verify that they have conducted an appropriate hazard assessment to identify the level of PPE required to protect the employee from any recognized hazards. The key here is recognized hazards. 

Quantitative assessment requires historical data which may be suspect for two reasons. There is the possibility that there are latent accidents not in the database. It is possible that past accidents have been rectified and will not recurr. In the absence of data, judgment based on experience and speculation must be used. Notwithstanding this weakness, the quantitative approach was adopted, d he investigating team identified situations that could cause a number of public casualties. R vents limited to the employees or which might cause single off-site casualties were not included in the assessment. 

Measuring employee understanding of appropriate quality objectives is again a subjective process. Through the data analysis carried out to meet the requirements of clause 4.1.5 and 4.2.8 you will have produced metrics that indicate whether your quality objectives are being achieved. If they are being achieved you could either assume your employees understand the quality objectives or you could conclude that it doesn t matter. However, it does matter as the standard requires a measurement. Results alone are insufficient evidence. The results may have been achieved by pure chance and in six months time your performance may have declined significantly. The only way to test... 

After collecting the necessary information from the plant s files and employees, it is crucial to have a structured approach to reduce and combine the raw data into a relevant form for analysis and failure rate computation. The following steps describe these procedures ... 

Probably one of the most important safety and healtli standards ever adopted is tlie OSHA hazard communication standard, more properly known as tlie right to know laws. The liazard communication standard requires employers to communicate information to tlie employees on liazardous chemicals tliat e.vist witliiii the workplace. The program requires employers to craft a written luizard communication program, keep material safety data sheets (MSDSs) for all haztirdous chemicals at the workplace and provide employees with training on tliose hazardous chemicals, and assure tliat proper warning labels are in place. 

The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is a detailed information bulletin prepared by the manufacturer or importer of a chemical tliat describes tlie physical and healtli hazards, routes of exposure, precautions for safe handling and use, emergency and first-aid procedures, and control measures. Infonnation on an MSDS aids in tlie selection of safe products and helps prepare employers and employees to respond effectively to daily exposure situations as well as to emergency situations. It is also a source of information for identifying chemical hazards. 

Record—A. collection of data items (fields) of various types, which may also be records themselves. If EMPl is a record in the master file of employees, EMPl.NAME may be a character field, FiMPl.ZIP an integer field, and EMPl.SAL a real field. 

Various sources publish data of permissible vibration levels for employees (usually as a graph of acceleration against frequency). These are designed to avoid injury and cannot be used as a guide to the degree of disturbance caused by vibration. Vibration caused by neighboring industrial premises when received at a residence as vibration (i.e. no noise implications) has been considered a nuisance when it is just perceptible. 

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