Safety management systems fundamentals

A final, yet fundamental point to be made with regard to safety management systems is that their all-encompassing nature often means that safety can easily become cluttered with inspections, rules, objectives and methods for measurement. Yet when we look beyond their titles, within the Health and Safety Executive s safety management guidance, swift prioritisation is made of the ideas of hazard, harm and risk something that often forms only a part of safety management systems. 

Risk and risk assessment are one of the fundamental ways safety and unsafety is managed on UK construction sites, and are prescribed by law. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) require that risks associated with any work activity are assessed before work starts. Risk assessments form the basis of many Health and Safety Regulations, and a standardised format and prescribed approach to the process often forms part of the safety management system toolkit in the establishment of safe systems of work. ... 

The Systemic Safety Management System (SSMS) model is intended to maintain risk within an acceptable range in any organization s operations. The model is proposed as a structure for an effective safety management system. It may be argued that if all the sub-systems and connections are present and working effectively, the probability of a failure should be less than otherwise. Table 1 lists the fundamental characteristics of the SSMS model. 

A statement made in ZlO s advisory column next to employee participation is close to one I have often made and which I believe to be fundamentally true. If an employer does not take advantage of the knowledge, skills, and experience of the workers close to the hazards and risks, opportunities to improve safety management systems and reduce injury and illness potential may be missed. 

IEC/ISO Guide 51 1999, Safety aspects - Guidelines for their inclusion in standards ISO 9000 2000, Quality management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary... 

All Safety Management Systems (SMSs) share fundamental features, regardless of technology or location. Some of these features are listed below, and then discussed in the following sections. 

One of the most important lessons learned was the reaction of the Exxon Mobil company. Their management recognized that the causes went well beyond a single officer who had had too much to drink, or failure to maintain critical instrumentation. A fundamental rethink of safety management systems was needed. The company did go through this rethinking process and the results can be seen with respect to their response to the Blackbeard event, discussed in the next section. 

While the fundamental concepts of a safety management system can be the same, we will discuss in Chapter 5, Overview of Basic Safety Management Systems , how it is deployed and sustained will vary based on the organization s culture. Program elements, safety-related... 

Once the basic safety management system elements as discussed in Chapter 5, Overview of Basic Safety Management Systems , are implemented and deemed successful, your organization has reached a maturity that will allow you to move to the next level. The intent is to ensure that the organization has the initial fundamentals in place before taking on an advanced safety management system. 

The shift from a loss-based safety management system to one that is balanced between a focus on loss with a stronger emphasis on risk identification and control requires a fundamental change in perception held about safety. 

The JHA is a core process element of the safety management system and offers benefits in multiple areas. As mentioned above, if you have a JHA process, it becomes part of the network of communications that spreads job information and influences safe behaviors through the organization. It covers both the job design for potential latent, built-in errors that are hidden and for potential active errors by the employee (Job Safety Analysis A Fundamental Tool for Safety, n.d. Volume 1 Concepts and principles, human performance, improvement Handbook, 2009). 

A fundamental principle of RP 75 is that management is responsible for the development and implementation of the Safety Management System. Management must set goals, estabUsh timelines, set up internal communication procedures, determine accotmtabUity and — of critical importance — provide the necessary resources. The program must be written down, and it must address all twelve technical elements of the SEMS program. 

A root cause is a fundamental, underlying, system-related reason why an incident occurred that identifies a correctable failure(s) in management systems. There is typically more than one root cause for every process safety incident. 

Systemic safety management especially prominent after a major organisational disaster, which forces the organisation to take a fundamental look at its entire safety philosophy the appropriate view of human error is the system-induced error concept, which says that many human errors can be... 

RADWASS has been organized in a hierarchical structure of four levels of safety documents. The top-level publication is a document of safety fundamentals which provides the basic safety objectives and fundamental principles to be followed in national waste management programmes. The lower levels include safety standards, safety guides, and safety practice documents. The series has been structured in a logical and clear manner to reflect the systems approach to waste management. 

---