Safety committee team

As expected, new safety campaigns did havesome initial impact but the improvements were either not maintained or were disproportionately small in comparison to the efforts and expenditure involved. One of these initiatives involved a system of hazard spotting by safety committee teams, but the impact of this was minimal. 

Refer to Appendix N for an Example of a Safety Committee Team Charter . 

Clear and concise expectations must be for the Ad Hoc JHA team. As each committee and subcommittee must have a charter, the JHA team charter must be developed to clearly define and outline the team s roles and responsibilities in the development of a comprehensive portfolio of JHAs (see Chapter 8, Getting Your Employees Involved in the Safety Management System and Appendix N, Example of a Safety Committee Team Charter). 

Appendix N Example of a Safety Committee Team Charter ( Managing Worker Safety and Health, Illinois, Public Domain, Adapted for Use, n.d. Roughton < Crutchfield, 2008)... 

The points of agreement of Chemical Process Safety Committee meetings should be captured in meeting minutes. In some organizations a review team of senior management reviews the minutes and approve the conclusions. Once the minutes are accepted, the commitments made by various participants should be recorded and the progress of each recommendation should be periodically reviewed until such items are accomplished. 

Safety committees or teams can be a valnable asset and serve as an edncational resonrce. All stndents should have access to information (MSDSs, books, etc.), know about the hazards of the substances they handle, and be prepared to respond in emergencies. For students conducting research, thorough risk assessments must be carried out to evaluate potential hazards associated with planned experiments. In the event of an accident, formal review of the incident and appropriate follow-up actions must occur. A safe environment must be provided in all classrooms and laboratories. 

There is no universally correct answer to the problem of centralized versus decentralized risk bargaining the costs and benefits will differ greatly from one situation to another. An effective system would therefore have to be flexible, permitting individuals, work teams, safety committees, and collective bargaining entities to negotiate risk and reward as circumstances indicate. 

At the end of the trial, the study team can assess risks and benefits because the available data speak to both. Early on in the trial, on the other hand, data on efficacy may not have yet emerged, so that judgment about risks and benefits are related to observed risks and anticipated, but as yet unseen, benefits. Many industry sponsors structure their DMCs purely as safety committees. In such cases, DMCs see only adverse events, data from safety laboratory parameters, and concomitant medications. Not even a glimpse at emerging efficacy data is provided. Such a structure complicates assessment of the importance of emerging harms because of the lack of information about benefits. 

Examples of the type of counsel-giving activities by safety professionals in an existing setting for which redesign considerations should be paramount are any discussion of hazards, task reviews, giving advice to safety committees and inspection teams, and job hazard analyses. 

If all of the above listed positions are filled, you will have a large safety committee. The advantage of this is that many safety champions are being developed at one time. That is in alignment with lean thinking—engaging employees in continual improvement activity. Smaller companies may not have the resources to staff a team of that size and may have to ask participants to wear more than one hat. 

Obviously many people can be engaged in a safety program with the use of subteams. If a company does not want to develop and engage their employees in safety improvement, they can hire a safety director to accomplish all that is noted above. A single lean champion cannot build a lean culture nor can a safety director build world-class safety alone. It will take a team or a committee. The team can be composed of new volunteers and a few staff members who are committed to developing the volunteers. Another option is that the committee can be composed of some current staff members who will tell others they were voluntold by their bosses to be part of the safety committee. Who is going to get your plant to world-class safety ... 

Forming the safety leadership team (SLT) and arranging an external safety and health audit are already steps toward structuring a safety system. Setting up the system also calls for the constitution and establishment of different-tiered safety committees. It also establishes a safety culture baseline based on the audit findings. The big question now is What is the next step in the implementation of a safety system, and how is it done The short reply is that it s like eating an elephant—one bite at a time. Bite one is getting the workplace in order. 

Once a formal safety system is in place, managers are clear on their safety role and responsibilities. They are participants in safety that is facilitated by them being a member of the safety leadership team committee or other safety committee on their level. Their job descriptions also contain their safety dnties, actions, and functions. Often performance ratings are linked to key performance areas that are proactive safety activities, such as scoring 90% or more on monthly honsekeeping inspections, achieving an internal safety audit score of 85%, etc. 

After a few months 1 managed to persuade the leadership to form the executive safety committee (the safety leadership team) chaired by the CEO and attended by all the general managers. A start was made on developing safety standards and policies, and the committee reviewed my restructuring proposals of the SHE department with skepticism (Figure 16.1). 

The safety leadership team committee (SHE executive) was formed and met monthly. 

Some states now require safety committees with participation by both management and labor. Building a cooperative environment and a team effort to reduce hazards and risks often lowers the number of incidents and claims. 

All members of the organization must buy into safety to establish a safety culture. This only happens with support and continual input from top management. The safety practitioner does not lead the safety effort but rather acts as a member of the different safety teams throughout the enterprise. Teams may be in the form of safety committees, individual crews, or work cells. It is the safety practitioner s responsibility to help those teams help themselves relative to safety. The safety professional acts as a resource or guide in helping the team establish itself. Management of safety becomes a responsibility of the leader of the work group and the individual members. 

If a proposed change falls outside of plant specifications, codes of practice, or is relatively new technology, then a chemical process safety review team evaluation may be in order. Different organizations provide various names to process safely review teams, such as Safe Operations Committee, Hazards Review Committee, Technical Support Team, Facility and Operations Change Review Committee, or Chemical Process Safety Review Team. Typically, this technical safely committee is chaired by... 

You may conduct the audit alone or using a team. (See the section Structured and documented inspections earher.) Just as for inspections, it is important to consult with employees, employee representatives, and health and safety committees on the audit process, design, development, workplace approach, evaluation and reporting. That does not mean they physically conduct the audit. 

A continuous audit programme ensures that critical areas and activities within the workplace are under constant review. The audit team, which should include representation from the health and safety committee, must receive appropriate training in audit procedures. 

Does the safety committee or involvement team have the ability to correct unsafe conditions Y N... 

Traditional safety management systems place the responsibility for safety on managers and, perhaps, the safety committee. However, a right-sized management team often complain about their limited opportunities for being at the sharp end. Neither can they be omnipresent and police a safety environment (it is doubtful that this would be tolerated anyway ). Also, the safety committee often lacks the power and authority needed to make a real difference. So, consider the safety limitations in the next two scenarios ... 

A senior management safety policy and support team was set up to provide support for the safety committees. This was only partially successful because it became too involved in detail and simply created another level of safety management. 

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