Project safety commitment

Primary to accomplishing your goals will be your enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is contagious You need to project your commitment, concern, and confidence in the safety program. If you cannot muster this type of enthusiasm for safety, then how can you expect employees to be interested in it. 

Safety/ industrial hygiene If the QRA involves consequence estimation, the team will need data on the hazards of the materials that could be released. For example, at what concentration does this chemical cause irreversible damage if exposure time exceeds 10 minutes Expect to commit a few staff-days of effort over the life of the project. 

Many large construction contractors, and even some large projects, have made clear commitments to zero in terms of their safety programmes, and it s easy to see why. From moral perspectives zero is an absolute necessity. It is the only possible benchmark - no one working in construction sets out to have an accident, or to cause one for someone else. So no other number will do. 

Needs analysis The starting point of any system design project is a perceived need. This need must first be established with enough confidence to justify the commitment of resources to satisfy it and understood well enough to allow appropriate solutions to be generated. Criteria must be established to provide a means to evaluate both the evolving and final system. If there are hazards associated with the operation of the system, safety should be included in the needs analysis. 

At the beginning of 1998, it was decided to make a total commitment to this project (fast studies and execution of sodium treatment and dismantling) while at the same time observing the safety and regulatory aspects. This option also met a keen requirement of the Department of the Environment for a technically irreversible operation so that reactor restart would no longer be an option. 

Occasionally, lump sum contract is adopted for foundation construction which should be avoided whenever possible (Chan 1996). The usual reason is that the client wants to fix the limit of his financial commitment and pass the financial risk of variation to the contractor. However, such a step has wide implications which are often not appreciated by clients. This is because at the tender stage, it is usually very difficult, sometimes impossible, to quantify all the technical and financial risks in the foundation construction. For example, in a difficult ground the real cost of foundation construction can exceed the estimated cost by 50% or more. As a result the tender has an element of gambling involved. The problem will arise if the ground conditions turn out to be far more unfavorable than were expected and this may place unbearable pressure on the contractor. In a worst case, the contractor may be tempted to choose between finaneial ruin or sacrificing the safety of a foundation, thereby jeopardizing the entire project. In view of the above, lump sum contract represent unsound business practice for both the contractor and the client. 

St Joseph s Medical C entre is a 16 5 -bed hospital in the heart of Illinois, providing a variety of services including open heart surgery and trauma care. The hospital has established a number of safety projects backed by a strong commitment to cultural change and backing from senior executives (Haig et al., 2004). 

These initiatives can be seen both as efforts to build commitment and as cooptation. This is particularly evident in the aims for the project Working Together for Safety where only two of the aims focus directly on safety issues, while the remaining focus on rebuilding trust and reputation of the industry. The inherent establishment of arenas for tripartite cooperation in these projects are other examples of the same. 

The development of the safety level in the Norwegian petroleum industry is a dominant issue. We have shown how representatives ofboth employers and employees used allegedly objective or neutral information sources such as statistics and reports from consulting firms to support their views. The politics of information also played an interesting role in the efforts to revitalize tripartite collaboration. By initiating the RNNS project, the authorities established a source of information and interpretations which both employees and employers would accept as neutral. A separate section of the RNNS included interviews with the members of Safety Forum, and thus provided the parties with a public chaimel where they could voice their opinions. This may have created additional commitment to the RNNS project and its results. 

A nuclear power plant embarking on an EOF project will need significant utility support during all phases of the EOF s development and implementation. The utility s support role is crucial because an EOF project is labour intensive, requires specialists and financial support and lasts for a number of years. Management should be fully committed to and supportive of EOF development and implementation because of the increase in operational safety that can be realized. 

Directive No. 89/391/EC, on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers, defines the employer s commitment to perform risk analyses at a workplace (Section II, Article 6, Paragraph 2, 3) and notify workers of same (Section II, Article 10, Paragraph 1). The enactment defines principles of occupational health and safety with the main principles being the commitment of designers, project engineers, and users of machines and machinery to assess risks. 

It has been found useful to require the most senior member of the project management team to sign the Safety Plan, thus demonstrating commitment to it. In some cases, principal contractors require the production of a project-specific statement of commitment to be placed in the front of the plan. For example see page 99. 

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