Standards safety audit specifications

Management must institute procedures to assess levels of compliance with agreed standards for safety. Techniques include environmental and/or biological monitoring, health surveillance, safety audits, safety inspections, and procedures for accident reporting, investigation and analysis. Communication is essential, e.g. by provision of information (on specific chemicals, processes, etc.), safety meetings, notices, safety bulletins etc. 

First, determine what needs to be audited. You might want to audit specific occupations (e.g., machinist), tasks (e.g., welding), topic (e.g., electrical), team (e.g., rescue), operator (e.g., crane operator), part of the worksite (e.g., loading/unloading), compliance with an OSHA regulation (e.g.. Hazard Communication Standard), or the complete worksite. You may want to perform an audit if any of the previous items or activities have unique identifiable hazards, new tasks involved, increased risk potential, changes in job procedures, areas with unique operations, or areas where comparisons can be made regarding safety and health factors. 

Many local authorities use the Standard together with the IHT Guidelines as a basis for carrying out their Road Safety Audits. However, some authorities have developed their own Road Safety Audit procedures to reflect local conditions and more specifically geared to their own particular needs. Transport for London has procedures for carrying out Road Safety Audits in the capitaL ... 

The health and safety audit subjects the whole work system to closer examination. In this context, the work system includes both the work environment and the management environment. The management environment includes responsibilities that are reflected at the workplace in specific quantifiable terms. The need to establish standards that measure variables, such as the provision of information, the adequacy of instruction and training, and the levels of cooperation and consultation, are now imperative as these matters are factors in the legislation of most jurisdictions. 

Reviewing documentation is a standard safety conformance appraisal (audit) technique. It is important to understand whether hazards are tracked to completion and if the tracking system is effective. In addition, it can be used to determine the quality of specific activities—for example, activity-based safety, behavior-based safety, self-inspections, or routine hazard analyses. 

Safety audits are audits of particular safety management arrangements at (normally) a specific plant or location, against internal (company-specific) or external (national or international) standards. There will normally be an internal sponsor of the audit (i.e., someone who is an internal advocate of the need for the audit), although funding may be internal or external, depending on circumstances. 

An audit is an independent examination of a work product or set of work products to assess compliance with specifications, standards, contractual agreements, or other criteria. There are many different types of audits, such as functional configuration audit (FCA), physical configuration audit (PCA), software audit, and safety audit. The purpose is to conduct an independent review and examination of system records and activities in order to determine the adequacy and effectiveness of the work performed, to ensure compliance with established policy and operational procedures, and to recommend any necessary changes. An audit can be either a formal or informal review of a program, to determine if objectives and requirements have been met. An audit also involves identifying deficiencies, problems, and issues. 

A safety audit is an independent examination of an SSP to assess compliance with specifications, standards, contractual agreements, or other criteria. The purpose is to conduct an independent review and examination of system records and activities in order to determine the adequacy and effectiveness of the work performed, to ensure comphance with established pohcy and operational procedures, and to recommend any necessary changes. 

Requirements for written safety and health SOPs are found in paragraphs (b)(4)(I) of the HAZWOPER standard. None of the sites audited had developed comprehensive, site-specific SOPs that specify the controls necessary to complete each task. The contractor s SSAHP at Site B did discuss generic task-related hazards and SOPs however, the task-specific SOPs lacked detail. Eor example, the SOPs did not specifically identify the site locations where hazards were likely to occur, nor did they specify the appropriate types of controls. 

Since SYSCO does not itself manufacture, a quality assurance team of more than 180 professionals determines specifications for each own-brand item and also sets criteria for raw materials and for the standards that manufacturers and processors must follow for food safety, quality, and consistency, as well as for social responsibility and supplier codes of conduct. This quality assurance team identifies and establishes supply sources and audits those suppliers to enforce SYSCO s strict standards for various factors like facility conditions and sanitary measures. Inspectors are at the plants as bacon comes off the production line, or follow produce from field to cooler to assure proper holding temperatures and product integrity. SYSCO s program is unmatched in the food industry. The number of people and level of resources committed to supporting the integrity of the products are far superior to those of other industry competitors, who may devote merely a handful of personnel to these tasks, if they are undertaken at all. 

Conformity assessment refers to the demonstration that specified requirements relating to a product, process, or system are fulfilled or conform to specific requirements or standards. Conformity assessment helps to ensure that requirements of standards for consistency, compatibility, effectiveness, and safety are met. Conformity to these requirements can be demonstrated through mechanisms such as regular audits and inspections, and is best affirmed through third-party certification or accreditation. 

Health and safety representatives who have received specific accident investigation training could be used to assist in accident and near-miss incident investigations. Since they will be conducting both formal and informal inspections, a training session in auditing techniques will help them to audit safety standards in their own areas. 

The Worksheet is, in a sense, an audit form. As will be shown in Chapter 21, ZIO, Other Safety Standards and Guidelines, and VPP Certification, the VPP safety management system requirements have great similarity with the ZIO provisions. However, there are differences. Some of the VPP requirements are not as specific as comparable provisions in ZIO. Those provisions are identified below along with cross-references to the relevant chapter in this text ... 

Similar standards of excellence should be the aim in health and safety since the attitudes and procedures are identical, namely clear specification, audit and report back, monitor to identify and correct deviations in materials, behaviour and systems, sample checks and training. Where QA schemes exist or are being implemented, not only should the quality of the product improve but so too should the standards of safety and health. 

Specific standards have been developed by OSHA to reduce potenhal safety and health hazards in the oil and gas drilling, servicing, and storage industry. States also have requirements that provide further work and public safety protections. Before discussing each of the pertinent OSHA standards related to safe shale gas fracking operations, it is important to discuss and describe actual process practices, industry profile data, nature of the work, types of recorded on-the-job injuries specific to the industry, and the number and type of citations issued by OHSA during scheduled or unscheduled audits. 

With regard to ensuring employee safety and health, all of OSHA s subparts listed in Figure 9.1 could be employed by employers not only to protect workers but also to ensure OSHA compliance. In this section, we specifically list and describe those standards that are most often cited in Industry Group 138 for lack of compliance or willful violation of Occupational Safety and Health Standards (29 CFR 1910) found during OSHA audits and determined to be causal factors during post-accident/fatality investigations. 

The control arrangements should be part of the written health and safety policy. Performance standards will need to be agreed and objectives set which link the outputs required to specific tasks and activities for which individuals are responsible. For example, the objective could be to carry out a workplace inspection once a week to an agreed checklist and rectify faults within three working days. The periodic, say annual, audit would check to see if this was being achieved and if not the reasons for non-compliance with the objective. 

The audit activities often find deficiencies in the completion of maintenance activities and missing links between equipment and the safety barriers (Ratnayake et al 2012). It is essential to know the links and interconnections between maintenance and technical safety disciplines. The safety analyses and identification of safety functions should be transferred to the maintenance engineers in order to classify specific equipment accordingly. Results of safety-related analyses performed by technical safety engineers should be prioritized over results of maintenance criticality analyses. Clear links should be established in order to ensure that one discipline s output can be used as input for other disciplines. The mandatory Performance Standards (PS) required by the PSA may be seen as a potential major link between safety and maintenance disciplines (Fig. 9). 

Water supply is the safest bulk supply operation but it must comply with certain hygienic standards. Potable water tanks must be solely used for this purpose, maiataiaed under vessel s planned maintenance plan and audited under International Safety Management (ISM). Pumps and pipework should be flushed with super chlorinated water and than with fresh potable water prior refilling tanks. Hoses used for water transfer should be dedicated for this purpose and cleaned with chlorinated water on weekly basis. Each year hose need to be replaced. Water in potable water tanks of PSV typically may be stored for 7 da3 . After this time water is transferred to drill water tanks. Specific rules regarding water quality management usually are given in national regulations. 

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