Safety Case commitment

The HMRI had the power to reject Railtrack s Safety Case and to question Railtrack on issues within TOC safety cases that they had accepted. It is pertinent to state that as far as this author is aware, no TOC safety case issue accepted by Railtrack has ever been challenged by the regulator. However, the Safety Case has been used by HMRI to test for compliance after an accident, and as it is a legal document, to mount prosecutions on the basis of non-compliance. Railtrack Safety Standards has been carrying out safety case compliance audits as part of its own safety case commitments to control risks imported by TOCs, and HMRI can sample audit the Railtrack audits as a check on their thoroughness. 

Formally accept (or reject) the Safety Case after it has been prepared and presented by the operator. Not only must the Safety Case as written be accepted, the operator has to demonstrate that his organization has the ability, management commitment and resources to properly assess and effectively control risks to the health and safety of staff and the general public. 

The effectiveness with which the commitments in the safety case are being implemented Monitoring the effectiveness of SMS and operator audits of them The degree to which the work force is involved in implementing the Safety Case Regime. 

Unlike the U.S. Final Safety Analysis Report, which is a single safety analysis document that includes both hardware and organizational (personnel) descriptions, the British safety case is a collection of documents with a hierarchical structure. The SMP is one element of the overall safety case. When a change takes place, neither the safety case nor the SMP are rewritten per se. Rather, new documents are issued describing the change. They become part of the current safety case, much as U.S. licensees maintain a collection of commitments as part of their current licensing basis. 

The commitment of management is also required. Given that the development and implementation of a Safety Case is expensive and time-consuming, management must commit the necessary funds and time to the key personnel— people whose services are always in demand elsewhere in the organization— for the development and implementation of the Safety Case. 

The effectiveness with which the commitments in the Safety Case are being implemented ... 

The development of a Safety Case does not, in and of itself, improve safety. Safety Cases are only as good as the commitment made to their preparation and implementation—an observation that is illustrated by the crash of a Royal Air Force Nimrod airplane in the year 2006 in which fourteen crew members died (Figure 8.2). 

Under the Rmlways (Safety Case) Regulations 1994, every railway operator (i.e. every operator of trains or stations, and infrastructure controllers) will have to prepare, and get accepted, a "safety case". This is a document in which the operator demonstrates that he has the capability and commitment to ensure that safe practices are followed at all times and that... 

Comments such as these emphasize that simply preparing a safety case does not ipso facto make that facUity safe. Its development requires the commitment of substantial amounts of time from key personnel—people whose services are always in demand elsewhere in the organization. 

Writing a health and safety policy statement is more than just a legal requirement - it is your commitment to planning and managing health and safety. It is the key to achieving acceptable standards, reducing accidents and cases of work-related ill health and it shows your employees that you care for their health and safety. 

In order to prevent incidents, a process plant must not only be well-designed, but also properly operated and maintained. To ensure that all safety aspects receive adequate priority, the commitment to safety from all levels of management is essential. In practice, conflicts of interest may arise between safety and other goals such as production demands and budgets. In these cases, the management attitude will be decisive. In reality, such a conflict of interests is only an apparent one because safety, efficiency, and product quality all depend on a reliable production facility with a low frequency of technical troubles and safety problems. 

The chlorinated chemicals assessed do not have the same risk profile. For the more volatile chemicals the safety margins between the actual exposure and the level at which no effect on the environment would be expected is quite high. For more persistent chemicals there is a need to look to the environmental compartment where they can be accumulated (mainly in sediments and biota). For some of these chemicals the safety margin is quite low and in worst-case situations serious effects may occur. For the very persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals (like dioxins, PCBs and DDT), acceptable environmental concentrations are so low and difficult to control that the industry is committed to reducing as far as possible releases to the environment through application of Best Available Techniques (BAT), mainly with respect to dioxins. For other chemicals (PCBs, DDT), production has already been halted for some years. 

With regard to innovation processes the significance and the direct effectiveness of individual committed promoters or blockers with their individual motives such as profit or occupational health and safety, consumer protection or environmental protection should, however, not be overestimated. Although committed promoters do play an important part in most substitution processes, a closer look at the individual case samples very quickly reveals their structural futility. Complex innovative processes cannot be moved by a limited number of actors or even by individuals alone. Many substitution processes simply do not progress, despite the fact that we cannot observe any definite opponents . These innovations are not impeded, they only become stuck, as the inertia of the system is simply too high. In order to gain an appropriate comprehension of the ability (and not just the... 

As discussed earlier, with a nozzle of 70 pm and a stream moving at 10 m/s, our system is committed to a vibration frequency of about 30,000 cycles per second (30 kHz) in order to get drops to form. If we prefer a margin of safety, we may want to charge and sort three drops at a time in that case, we will want a particle in no more than every third drop. This means that our total particle flow rate can be no faster than 10,000 particles per second. Because cells are not spaced absolutely evenly in the flow stream (they obey a Poisson distribution), most sorting operators like to have particles separated by about 10-15 empty drops. With a 70 pm nozzle and a stream velocity of 10 m/s, this restricts our total particle flow rate to about 2000-3000 particles per second. For sorting cells of very low frequency within a mixed population, this may involve unacceptably long sorting times. 

The only way to avoid this is by strict analysis of the supply chain from the customer order to final product delivery. Definition of the optimized (theoretical) process and sequential work towards a high service level approach allow the identification of gaps, and of opportunities which might not always be the cheapest (ship versus train versus plane) but could be the most effective way to reduce capital costs and shorten planning scope - an important aspect, especially in volatile customer markets with long production processes on the (chemical) supplier side. As in the case of CIP, this needs clear parameters, KPIs, commitment from all players, and regular tracking. The most important parameters are the lead time for all products, optimal lot sizes, replenishment points, and safety inventories. 

When diagnosing stakeholder value it is important to understand that perceptions can be as important as scientific facts. For example, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producers defend PVC on the basis of scientific arguments such as energy efficiency, low biomass accumulation, and product safety in normal use. Customers such as Nike, Sony, and Shaw Industries that have committed to eliminating PVC in their products as a precaution for their customers due to perceived health and environmental risks, are unlikely to change their perspective based on additional scientific facts provided by the chemical industry. As in the PVC case, manufacturers are vulnerable to value loss as a result of their customers perceptions of risks. 

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