USING SAFETY CONSULTANTS

From time to time each of us is faced with problems or issues, which surpass our own training, experience, or expertise. An educated person is one who recognizes that he or she needs help. There are always plenty of individuals ready and willing to provide advice and help. But, make sure you get eompetent help that can truly and meaningfully provide the assistance, which you desperately need. 

When you know you do not have the knowledge to do what is required, it is good to be confident enough in yourself to understand your limitations. Find the appropriate individual to help you. This may take as much effort as you would use if you could have solved your own problem, but you cannot Thus you will want to make sure that you are getting what you paid for. 

The consultant that you need may be a specialist in a particular area of safety and health (e.g., an ergonomist) or an engineer who can help with redesigning issues. 

No matter who the person you need is, proceed in an organized fashion in selecting that individual and finally obtaining a solution to your problem. 

A consultant will likely draw on a wide and diverse experience base in helping to address problems and issues. He or she is not influenced by politics and allegiance and is therefore in a better position to make objective decisions. The professional consultant strives to give you cost-effective solutions since his or her repeat business is based upon performance and professional reputation. Also, consultants are temporary employees and the usual personnel issues are not applicable to them. Consultants work at the times of the day, weeks, or month when you have a need and not at their convenience. Most consultants have become qualified to perform these services for you through either education or experience. 

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The use of a consultant to lead a HAZOP or What-If review should be considered whenever the project design team support is unfamiliar or inexperienced in the safety review process. Due to the close contact with the Scribe, both the Team Leader and Scribe are frequently used as consultants, although only the Leader is primarily necessary. 

I believe that we can provide Matchbooks Extraordinaire with the information they want and have enlisted the help of Max Lightner of Solid State University and Julie Wickson of Fire and Rescue International, a world-renowned fire safety consultant company. Their memos are attached. Julie was kind enough to provide us with two SOPs, one that gives a specific procedure for the use of a Bunsen burner and one that uses a Bunsen burner to decompose potassium chlorate samples and determine the percentage of oxygen in the sample. Please address your report to Claude P. Schmellsmoak at Matchbooks Extraordinaire. 

Some 121 firms completed the survey forms, for a sample response rate of 53 percent. The survey consists of 11 sections, covering the general safety record of the company, company and employee characteristics, management culture, human resource practices, safety practices, and safety consultation programs provided by the Minnesota Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MNOSHA) consultation unit. Table 2.1 summarizes the question items included in the 22-page survey. These 121 firms have matched with about 5,125 workers compensation indemnity claims for the years 1990 through 1998— that is, the claims were filed by workers of those 121 firms. Federal employer identification numbers were only available for about 10 percent of fire sample and have proven to be unreliable for matching. Hence, we used the name of... 

Safety professionals give many names to the incidents to which a causation model would apply accidents, incidents, mishaps, near-misses, occurrences, events, illnesses, fires, explosions, windstorms, drownings, electrocutions, and so on. Pat Clemens, a prominent safety consultant, has said that the language used by safety practitioners lacks words to convey precise and understood meanings. It s probable that the people with whom safety professionals try to eommunicate are baffled by the many terms used to describe hazards-related incidents. 

HIPAP. 2008. Hazardous Industry Planning Advisory Paper No 4. Risk Criteria for Land Use Safety Planning. Consultation Draft.July 2008. http //www.planning.nsw.gov. au/plansforaction/pdf/hazards/haz hipap4 rev2008.pdf (downloaded 2009-04-01)... 

Local procedures are particularly important when local authorities have a variety of client/consultancy splits within engineering departments. Some local authorities carry out their own highway design work while others use external consultants. In addition, some local authorities use external consultants to carry out the Road Safety Audit task. 

The arrangements for dealing with violence should be included in the safety policy and managed like any other aspect of the health and safety procedures. Action plans should be drawn up and followed through using the consultation arrangements as appropriate. The police should also be consulted to ensure that they are happy with the plan and are prepared to play their part in providing back up and the like. 

Primarily targeted for smaller businesses, this safety and health consultation program is completely separate from OSHA s enforcement efforts. It is also confidential. No inspections are triggered by using the consultation program, and no citations are issued or penalties proposed. 

FIGURE 7.1.1.1 Degrees of Eye Protection from Simulated Splashes Using Varied Types of Eye Protection. The mannequin faces on the right show how effective each type of eye protection is against a chemical splash. Only the chemical splash goggles provide adequate protection and are the only acceptable form of eye protection in chemistry laboratories. (Courtesy of Linda Stroud, Ph.D., Science Safety Consulting Services.)... 

The competent advice and safety assistance in relation to fire includes the fire safety manager and those who provide assistance to them (fire warden, fire incident controller, alarm verifier - see Chapter 10). The law also allows for this competent person or persons to be appointed from outside an organisation such as the use of consultants. 

Standards can hardly be used as is in practice, therefore there is typically a facilitator in charge of joining together the rigidity of the standard with the realities of the daily praxis. The role of the facilitator is usually played by a safety consultant, either internal or external to the organization. Our goal with a framework with the characteristics stated before is to eliminate or reduce to a minimum the need of the BUs to turn to a human consultant to play the facilitator in their safety-related developments. The framework shall provide the means to achieve same levels of safety and development effectiveness while reducing time and cost. 

The HSE leaflet Choosing and using a safety consultant offers excellent advice and should be followed. Experience shows that choosers often have little idea of what they need, and so it will be well worth spending some time to define the extent of the particular role beforehand. Insurance of a minimum of 1 million cover against professional errors should be held by anyone acting as a consultant, in everyone s interests. 

Chapter 14—Using the Tools Accident Prevention Techniques—The occupational safety and health community has provided many tools to assist us in preventing occupational injuries and illnesses. These tools range from audits to the use of consultants. In this chapter, these tools will be presented along with practical examples of how they can be put to use. Some forms will be provided that can... 

Most consultants are skilled safety professionals who have years of experience and unique expertise. The service that they offer is well worth the price. Using a planned approach will ensure that you get the provider you need for the job. However, be cautious there are some individuals who are less scrupulous. They will deceive you, take your money, waste your time, and leave you with an inferior product or no product. As Linda F. Johnson in Occupational Safety and Health, Choosing a Safety Consultant advises, As in all business decisions do your homework. ... 

The CBC examples described previously illustrate two basic ways of implementing the Define and Observe stages of DO IT. The driving CBC I developed with my daughter illustrates the observation and feedback process recommended by a number of successful behavior-based safety consultants (Krause, 1995 Krause et al., 1996 McSween, 1995). I refer to this approach as one-to-one safety coaching because it involves an observer using a CBC to provide instructive behavioral feedback to another person (Geller, 1995,1998). 

Surveys that measure workplace safety cultures are quite popular these days (Geller, 1992 Geller and Roberts, 1993 Simon and Simon, 1992). Some proponents recommend their use to discriminate between "safe" and "unsafe" employees (Krause, 1992, 1995). To justify these surveys, consultants often teach that individuals have stable personality traits determining both their motivation level for particular tasks and their propensity to have an injury. This perspective seems to be on the rise today, as safety consultants peddle their "quick-fix" measurement devices. 

When processed and used according to manufacturer s recommendations, acetal resins present no extraordinary health risks. Before the use of any plastic material, including acetal, the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) appHcable to the grade in question should be consulted. 

Chemical safety data sheets for individual compounds should be consulted for detailed information. Precautions for the higher aldehydes are essentially those for most other reactive organic compounds, and should include adequate ventilation in areas where high exposures are expected fire and explosion precautions and proper instmction of employees in use of respiratory, eye, and skin protection. 

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