Safety Assurance Compliance Program

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) OSHA develops and implements standards and regulations, conducts inspections and investigations to assure compliance, issues citations and proposes penalties for violations. It also provides help to employers in meeting standards and regulations through consultations, training programs, and publications. 

Audits and Corrective Actions. Audits are methodical, independent, and usually periodic examinations of local installations, procedures, and practices. Audits help assure compliance with a sound process safety program and that risks are being properly managed. The frequency of audits should be determined by the hazards of the facility. Corrective actions are the steps taken by a company in response to recognition of a process safety deficiency, either through an... 

Assuming that enforcement is justified, it would appear that the FRA already has the powers that it needs. Under the 1994 Safety Assurance and Compliance Program the FRA has established a procedure where the FRA s concerns are reported to management and unions. Railroads then have to prepare a one-year plan of action, a remediation plan to correct the alleged deficiencies. The FRA withholds imposing any fines or penalties for violations found while the railroad is making a good-faith effort to implement their remediation plan. 

The proposed delinquency system incorporates elements of both of the FHWA and OHSA systems. The proposed system has an information phase that identifies those railroads with poor and/or declining safety records, and a remediation phase into which offending railroads would be enrolled which would be similar to the FRA s current Safety Assurance and Compliance Program. 

The Quality Assurance and Laboratory Inspection Section at DCLS consists of a staff of five, and is responsible for a number of functions in addition to its QA function. Staff members inspect and certify independent and municipal laboratories in Virginia that conduct analyses covered by EPA s Safe Drinking Water Act. In addition, the section is responsible for administering the safety program for the laboratory. Another function of the section is to evaluate a number of products for compliance with bid specifications in support of procurement activities for the Division of Purchases and Supply. Because of these... 

About 40 nuclear power plants are presently in operation in Japan and local governments where these are located routinely monitor environmental radioactivity and radiation around sites as a part of the regional environmental safety programs. Results of those analyses and measurements have to be assured in compliance with the principle based on ICRP publication 43 (1984), Chapter Quality Assurance . 

Audits or some equivalent means of operational reviews are an important segment of any quality assurance program. They provide feedback to management and are the means of ensuring a continuous improvement of the system and overall facility. In the context of audits for process safety there is a close linkage with quality assurance. Quality assurance encompasses the spectrum of not only ensuring that the requirements are met, and it also provides a system to achieve continuous improvement, in addition to compliance. 

It cannot be overemphasized that the principal elements of a sound industrial safety program, with its primary purpose of OSHA compliance, work hazard reduction, assurance of employee/job safety and health, and the evaluation of jobs or tasks (through the ISA or another comparable method), can, in most cases, be achieved through application of the system safety process. The connection between the two programs, while not entirely obvious, is quite understandable, as described above. Perhaps the most important thing to remember here is that the industrial or occupational safety and health professional can utilize the time-proven techniques of hazard reduction and system safety analysis to accomplish the desired goal of both programs ... 

Underwriters Laboratories and FM Global are independent, third-party nationally recognized laboratories that list (UL) or approve (FM) Safety Cans to stringent construction and performance (test) criteria. Both have follow-up quality assurance programs that insure compliance to OSHA, the National Fire Protection Association, and give confidence to users in the field. 

Lockout/Tagout consulting services improve your safety program helping assure OSHA compliance. Exclusively from Master Lock. 

---