Professionalism hazard avoidance

For the practice of safety to be recognized as a profession, it must have a sound theoretical and practical base. Application of that knowledge base will be effective in attaining hazard avoidance, elimination, or control and, thereby, achieving a state in which the risks deriving from those hazards are at an acceptable level. My belief is that there is a generic base for the work of safety professionals that must be understood and applied if we are to be effective. 

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1568/85, was the first attempt at modem health and safety legislation was which contained the general health and safety duties of employers, provisions for worker representation and requirements for employers in larger enterprises to appoint occupational healdi and safety professionals to advise them on carrying out their responsibilities. Article 26 of Chapter V (echoing Dir.80/1107/EEC) obliges the emplo r to take measures to avoid or minimize the exposure of workers to hazardous agents, wherever this is practicable. In all events the level of exposure must be lower that the level defined as the exposure limit value . 

Far greater use is being made of incident investigation teams. Safety professionals say that the time expended by those teams is a worthwhile investment since the activity communicates management s intent to avoid hazards-related incidents. Over time, large numbers of personnel are involved. 

Professional safety practice requires that the potentials for the greatest harm or damage be identified for the decision makers and that a ranking system be applied to proposals made to avoid, eliminate, or control hazards. 

Safety professionals must understand that the quality of the management decisions made to avoid, eliminate, or control hazards and risks are impacted directly by the validity of the information they provide through their performance measurement systems. Their ability to provide accurate information to be used in the decision-making is a measure of their effectiveness. 

A safety professional who gives advice on avoiding, eliminating, or controlling hazards in any of the three elements in the practice of safety (preoperational, operational, and post-incident) must understand how hazards-related incidents occur to be effective. It is basic in problem solving to define and understand the problem, to analyze the cause-and-effect relationships of the subsets of the problem, to consider alternate solutions, to choose and apply the solutions, and to subsequently evaluate their efficacy. 

Safety professionals apply differing and contradictory incident causation models, and the work of some of them is misdirected and ineffective. Professional safety practice requires that the advice given to avoid, eliminate, or control hazards be based on a sound incident causation model, a thought process, so that, through the application of that model, the desired risk reduction is attained. That will not occur if the causation model used does not require identifying the actual causal factors. 

Professional safety practice requires that the advice given be based on a sound hazards-related incident causation model so that, through the application of that advice, hazards are effectively avoided, eliminated, or controlled and risks are reduced. 

As safety practice further evolves, the required attention will be more often given to the avoidance of hazards in the design and redesign processes. As more safety professionals are successful in establishing themselves as consultants in those processes, they will become more fomiliar with concepts of risk and how risk reduction is effectively achieved. 

To effectively assist clients to avoid bringing hazards into the workplace and to minimize the distribution of hazardous products, safety professionals must influence the design process. Their purpose would be to provide counsel to designers and engineers with respect to the identification, analysis, and assessment of hazards and risks. 

During my discussions with Dr. Thomas A. Selders in developing a definition of the practice of safety, he offered this eritique The principal shortcoming in what safety professionals do is that they seldom are in a position to anticipate hazards and give counsel on their avoidance. Dr. Selders point was that our activity did not start soon enough in the decision stream, that it was not proactive. 

Hammer s statement applies to every aspect of safety, whatever it is called. His premise spells opportunity for safety professionals to provide counsel in the design process on a proactive basis, to anticipate hazards, and to give advice on their avoidance, elimination, or control. 

Safety, Health, And Environmental Professional. Serving as a member of the hazard review committee, the safety, health, and environmental professional will assist in identifying and evaluating hazards in the design process and provide counsel as to their avoidance, elimination, or control. Special training programs for the review committee may be recommended by the safety, health, and environmental professional. Also, consultants may be recommended who would complete hazards analyses, other than for the What-If system. 

Also, there has been an extended recognition that, after hazards have been identified and analyzed and risks have been assessed, taking engineering actions is the preferred course of action to avoid, eliminate, or control hazards. That extended recognition derives from several sources, among which is the involvement of safety professionals in ... 

In 1938 the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) was established. Industrial hygienists are safety professionals who work in various workplaces to help ensure the safety of the workforce by making measurements of chemical contaminants and providing recommendations for safe practices to avoid exposures to hazardous materials and operations. 

The role of the safety professional is to anticipate, identify, and evaluate hazards give advice on the avoidance, elimination, or control of hazards and attain a state for which the risks are judged to be acceptable. To achieve this, they adopt a system-safety concept that includes ... 

The methods used to avoid bringing hazards and risks into the workplace will be broadly discussed here, with the hope that safety professionals can adopt from the materials presented to their advantage. To assist in applying the ZIO design review provisions, this chapter includes ... 

To obtain information on how safety professionals are involved in activities to avoid bringing hazards and risks into the workplace, a request for comments on the subject was made through an Internet safety server. Here are some of the responses, the most unfortunate listed first. As they are reviewed, safety professionals may want to assess their place in the design process and look for hints on how they can improve their positions. 

A composite is provided here of the procedures in place in three companies for design reviews and for a safety sign-off before new or modified equipment can be released into normal operations. These procedures serve to avoid bringing hazards and risks into the workplace. In a way, these requirements represent culture statements Managements have decided that hazards and risks are to be dealt with as equipment is designed, and before it can be placed in operation. This composite presents a basis for thought as safety professional pursue the adoption of similar concepts and procedures. 

---