Safety Stand Down

After a fatal accident, many organizations down tools and have a safety stand down. This is when work stops employees are grouped in various halls or lecture rooms and are addressed by management and union leaders. The discussion is almost a last ditch stand in an effort to stop high risk situations that have already had dire consequences. It is used as a major wake up call to all that what happened is unacceptable and that the situation must improve from now on. 

The stand down is a company-wide accident recall session. The details of the event, normally a fatal accident, are recalled, analyzed, and a line is drawn in the sand with management demanding an improvement in safety cultures, habits, and performance from that point on. Regrettably, the stand downs are normally held after the event rather than before the event. 

---

Safety Stand Down Based on Near Miss Incidents... 

Below is a report of a safety stand down that was held involving some 300 mine employees. 

Under the leadership of the Mine Manager, the entire development section of Mine Operations, consisting of some 300 employees participated in an 8-hour safety stand down. The stand down covered all employees within the division and took place on the A shift on Tuesday, 12 May, B shift on Thursday, 14 May, and C shift (Graveyard) on Friday, 15 May. 

Stand down means a driver is temporarily removed from the performance of safety-sensitive functions based only on a report from a laboratory to the medical review officer (MRO) of a confirmed positive, adulterated, or substituted drug test. The removal of the driver from safety-sensitive functions happens before the MRO has completed verification of the test result. 

Checklists of important observations required for safe, pollution-free, and efficient operations of the plant which are to be made every half an hour, every two hours, and every four hours shall be clearly written down in standing instruction book. Instructions shall also be available for checking all safety devices while taking charge of the plant from previous shift and while handing over charge to next shift. 

The FHA is a top-down process and can be illustrated as in Fig. 3.2. Each step is explained in Sections 3.2.1-3.2.4. Some assessors prefer to have issue a stand-alone FHA (i.e. not part of the SSA). With reference to the safety assessment strategy in Fig. 2.4, this process assumes that the FHA in integrated into the SSA. 

---