Management, responsibility for safety

One safety-conscious company I visited had just had a major safety failure. It had always believed in management responsibility for safety, but this it turned out had not had the intended impact on the thinking of middle managers. Following the failure the company therefore adopted a policy of management accountability, which meant that managers salaries and even careers would henceforth be affected by their safety performance. This, it was hoped, would lead to even higher standards of safety. 

Recent legislation makes management responsible for safety and health in the workplace. 

Q This redesign, like all the others that have been implemented, will put the responsibility for safety and environment onto the shoulders of operators and technicians. Management will now to able to put the blame for poor performance elsewhere. 

Managers responsible for services within works, offices or premises have an additional task in that when engaging service contractors they then have joint responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 for the health and safety of the contractor s employees while on their premises. When engaging contractors to carry out work within the premises, systems must be implemented by which the contractor s employee works in a safe manner and does not create a hazard to the premises occupants or staff while carrying out this work. This responsibility is greater when there is an employee or service contractor working alone, as in most instances the premises communications do not allow for such circumstances (e.g. the lone employee may be working in remote areas such as plant rooms). 

The precursor was identified in the maintenance sub-process. In practice, the operators from technical support observed the presence of substances inside the packaging machines. Subsequently, they consulted the chief operator on how to remove the substances from the machines and perform the most suitable intervention. These actions correspond with the control elements on the operational control level. The actions were performed in order to resume production quickly, and adhere to planned schedules. Additionally, experience and training provided the operators with guidelines on how to perform the maintenance effectively. In practice the production manager, responsible for any preventive solutions was not aware of the existence of this precursor and consequently had no overview of these deviations even though the company s quality and safety standards required an overview of all deviations and... 

This two-volume book provides industrial exposure data and control technologies for more than 650 substances currently regulated, or candidates for regulation, by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), The health, toxicity, economic and technological data provided for each substance are intended to serve as a reference for those who are potentially exposed to one or more of these substances in their workplace, or for those who have supervisory or management responsibility for workers potentially exposed. OSHA "permissible exposure limits" (PELS) for these 650 substances reflect all updates and changes as presented in the Federal Register. 

However, the policy assigns ultimate responsibility for safety to line management. Even the chairman of the board of directors Environment, Health and Safety Committee is a line manager as vice president for manufacturing. 

Since line management carries the responsibility for safety, loss prevention, and security, job performance ratings reflect managerial performance in these matters. 

One year later the U.K. Department of Health (DoH) GLP Monitoring Unit pubhshed its expectation for computer systems in laboratories conducting human health and environmental safety studies.23 It identihes laboratory management responsibilities for ... 

Dr Attila Molnar is named as the individual responsible for safety and environmental protection on the board of management of Bayer AG. Every business group also has its own environmental and protection and safety unit, and there are specialists at plant level. There is strong evidence of routine internal auditing. 

Site mobilization activities should be managed by the project manager, responsible for the experiment. He has to ensure that the field personnel and subcontractors are familiar with the project protocols and obtain the necessary entry badges and approvals. An initial meeting with the field personnel and any personnel whose attendance is reqiured, should be made to review the heath and safety guidelines. The personnel should be briefed on the proposed activities, schedules and any contingency plans for unexpected conditions. 

Within the Chemical Management area, the planning of work includes an integrated identification and analysis of hazards, and development and specification of necessary controls. There is an adequate process for the authorization and control of work, and a process for identifying opportunities for feedback and continuous improvement. Within the Chemical Management area, line managers are responsible for safety clear roles and responsibilities have been established and there is a satisfactory level of competence. 

Safety audit report written records, together with the audited entity feedbacks are responsible for safety audit for review, modification to form an audit report. Then the reports should be submitted to the audited entity and signed by management layer. 

It is important that middle-level managers know how accidents happen and, specifically, how they can prevent the incidents as part of the overall program picture. Additionally, middle-level managers want to know how much time and effort will be required to perform these specific tasks. Middle-level managers and supervisors are often heard saying, I already have more than enough to do, and now Fm responsible for safety. Isn t that the safety person s job . 

At each level of the hierarchical structure, inadequate control may result from missing constraints (unassigned responsibility for safety), inadequate safety control commands, commands that were not executed correctly at a lower level, or inadequately communicated or processed feedback about constraint enforcement. For example, an operations manager may provide unsafe work instructions or procedures to the operators, or the manager may provide instructions that enforce the safety constraints, but the operators may ignore them. The operations manager may not have the feedback channels established to determine that unsafe instructions were provided or that his or her safety-related instructions are not being followed. 

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