Safety audit management commitment

Such audits may therefore be useful as a method of increasing safety awareness and management commitment to safety as part of a more general attempt to reduce accidents. They should be treated as first steps and management must be prepared to do more than just carry out a safety audit. The authors of safety audits must be prepared to provide guidance on the next steps in error reduction once the problems have been identified. 

Safety audits must also properly measure management commitment, primary evidence of which is a results-oriented accountability system. If such an accountability system does not exist, management commitment is questionable. 

While the objective of Road Safety Audit is to improve road safety, Road Safety Auditors should be aware of the legal implications of their task. Those involved in drawing up procedures for Road Safety Audit are advised to obtain clear management and political commitment for the task and to take legal advice on the procedures. 

Cease depehdehoe Oh inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate facility inspections to determine compliance to standards. Utilize demonstrated management commitment and audit the management system. If management is committed, safety compliance will be automatic. It is management s job to continually review the system. 

Since evidence of an organization s culture and its management commitment to safety is first demonstrated through its upstream design and engineering decisions, safety audits that do not evaluate the design processes are incomplete and fall short of the definition of an audit. 

A safety audit is a technique which submits each area of an organisation s health and safety activity to a systematic critical examination with the principal objective of minimising loss. Every component of the total working system is included, e.g. management policy and commitment, attitudes, training, features of processes, safe systems of work, personal protection... 

The purpose of safety audits must be instiUed in all management, from the front-line supervisors to the chief executive officer. Every person in the company must make a commitment to safety auditing. Auditing should also become a part of performance evaluations for hourly and supervisory personnel. 

The Product Stewardship philosophy of the Dow Chemical Co. is described. It is a management practice committed to making health, safety and environmental protection an integral part of every stage of a product s life. The implementation of a multi-level training and auditing programme is discussed. 3 refs. 

Periodic management review is a specific risk-based process safety (RBPS) element Providing regular checkups on the health of process safety management systems—including the metrics—will identify and correct any current or incipient deficiencies before they are revealed by an audit or incident. Such management reviews also demonstrate management interest and commitment to process safety and the metrics that describe the system. 

The entire safety control structure must be audited, not just the lower-level processes. Auditing the upper levels of the organization will require buy-in and commitment from management and an independent group at a high enough level to control audits as well as explicit rules for conducting them. 

The auditing program communicates management s commitment to safety. 

The strength of the process is more than an analysis of actions in the workplace and observations of activity. It works best where the employees take a leading role in managing and implementing it. Employees thus undertake the analysis of behaviours, add the consequences necessary to achieve the safe behaviours and subsequently audit each other. By this means greater commitment to improving safety occurs. In addition the workgroup often know how a job is actually done (as opposed to what the... 

Where management have not drawn up a safety plan, counting accidents is the only measure of safety performance available, apart, of course, from auditing compliance with statutory hardware requirements. This is a reason why safety management via accident rate comparison is attractive to the less competent and committed employer. 

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