Employees in Establishing the Inventory

Always use the knowledge that your employees have gained from their close involvement with equipment, materials, and processes. You should encourage your employees to communicate openly with the professionals who do the comprehensive surveys [2]. 

Do not make the mistake of limiting your employees participation to what they can tell the professionals. Make sure that employees participate in the various types of hazard analysis. It makes good sense to involve employees in change analysis of new equipment and/or processes because of their valuable insights into how things really work. As indicated in Chapter 15 on job hazard analysis, many companies regularly include employees in this activity. Employees can play a similar role in 

Something as basic as a new facility needs to be reviewed carefully to identify hidden hazards— for example, the fire system, security, and environmental issues. This is often overlooked. A design that seems to enhance production of your product and appears to be a marvel to the architect may be a harmful or even fatal management decision. Safety professionals should take a careful look at all design/building plans prior to final approval [2]. 

When you lease a facility that was built for a different purpose, the risk of acquiring safety problems is even greater. This a true unknown. You should make a thorough review of the facility, by reviewing the blueprints and/or plans for any renovations. One of the most obvious concerns in acquiring an existing facility is whether any environmental issues such as 

Equipment manufacturers do not know how their products will be used at your facility. Therefore, you cannot rely on the manufacturer to have analyzed and designed guarding, controls, or safe procedures for the equipment. Another issue to take into consideration is if the equipment is produced in a foreign country. It may not meet U.S. requirements and laws. Therefore, you should also involve a safety professional in the purchasing decision, as well as in installation plans and startup [2]. 

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