Safety management small company systems

Why do the site owners or contractors choose not to use other safety measures on top of the legal requirements Are safety measures useless on small sites From a safety officer s point of view, a safety management system is useless for a site like this small site. In addition to the time and resources required to implement safety measures such as OHSAS, there is also doubt about the effectiveness of these safety management systems. Without enough support from the client, the safety officer can report the adoption of safety measures in black and white, but nothing is likely to be done in reality to improve workers safety. Unless the client pays for safety measures, small companies as such do not want to invest. 

Environmental management has its evolution in health-and-safety and quality management. Most chemical companies, even small companies, operate to in-house systems designed to tackle the site environmental issues. For some companies these systems may not be formalised, however, environmental issues are generally being addressed. 

In 2002, the Construction Division of the HSE undertook four construction blitzes across the country. They concentrated on falls from height and gave advance warning of their visits. Work was stopped on nearly 50% of sites visited. A number of prosecutions followed involving large as well as small companies. There are some clear legal reasons for sound health and safety management systems. 

In addition to these selection criteria, the limitations of the author s contacts and the willingness of companies to participate, narrowed the search for a suitable case down to a small Dutch company (< 30 people). This company produces in batches, falls under the Dutch Seveso-II directive (BRZO, 1999) and authorized access to the relevant data. The selected company had experienced some serious accidents recently, in spite of using many technical safety systems. Thus the management was aware of the necessity to enhance both safety and the reliability of the operational process. 

Often fire alarm system needs can be accommodated on computer or communication systems installed for other purposes. For example, several companies sell small systems, primarily designed for energy management which are designed to accept inputs from other types of systems such as security and fire safety and they provide software packages to support them. 

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