Why Focus on Safety

The definition of the word incident covers not just safety and environmental harm but also economic loss. Most of the literature to do with incident investigation and analysis focuses on safety-related events. But there is no reason why the techniques developed to investigate and understand such events could not also be used to address lost production, reduced efficiency, and unexpected equipment failure. 

When the activity is carried out in a lesson the risks involved can be discussed with the pupils and their responses used to help them understand why, for safety reasons, it is important to follow a particular procedure and the measures that can be taken to control risk. Such discussions, ways to keep safe, as part of a lesson will also help to develop pupils life skills and understanding of risks in general. Pupils ideas can also be used each time a lesson focusing on safety awareness is taught. Discussions could focus on ... 

Like safety, green chemistry makes good business sense. The reader may wonder why all the fuss about green chemistry if it is something that might be done anyway. The answer is one of focus. Just as an increased focus on safety can lead to a decrease in accidents, the increased focus on green chemistry can lead to improvements both from an environmental perspective and from a business perspective. 

I asked Pete several times why he believed he was involved in so many accidents. Pete s response was that This is a dangerous place. Look at these conditions. I then pointed out to Pete that the working conditions were the same for everyone. I wondered why he, and not others, was involved in so many accidents. Pete s explanation was that he was trying harder than the others to perform his job and that he was focused more than most others in his bid to be successful. I did not have much to say about his bid to be successful, but I did take issue with his focus on safety-related issues and accident occurrences. Pete could come up with no logical reason for his safety performance. Pete believed he was simply accident prone, and he was (along with everybody else) becoming more concerned as time went on. 

In Chapter 1, Why focus on the job hazard analysis, developing a JHA process was discussed as having benefits that go beyond just regulatory compliance. The JHA process can bridge the gap between basic regulatory compliance and a safety system that provides a comprehensive risk-based structure. 

In Chapter 1, Why focus on the Job Hazard Analysis, we noted hearing that a safety system was not rocket science . Usually this comment come from individuals with limited knowledge of what it take to develop and implement any process, much less a safety process. If their statement was tme, then all organizations would be able to estabhsh multiple processes that operate with minimal effort or administration. For better or worse, a safety process is a complex specialized system that must operate within an even more complex organizational structure. 

From a reliability engineering perspective, error can be defined by analogy with hardware reliability as "The likelihood that the human fails to provide a required system function when called upon to provide that fimction, within a required time period" (Meister, 1966). This definition does not contain any references to why the error occurred, but instead focuses on the consequences of the error for the system (loss or unavailability of a required function). The disadvantage of such a definition is that it fails to consider the wide range of other actions that the human might make, which may have other safety implications for the system, as well as not achieving the required function. 

Beyond the above framework (focusing on training, follow-up, attention to detail, and vigilance in the pursuit of safety), companies endeavor to continuously improve their safety performance. One popular approach has developed from a critical evaluation of behavior and an in-depth examination of the why s and wherefore s of the... 

In 1998, Congress established the NCCAM at the NIH to stimulate, develop, and support research on CAM for the benefit of the public. Prior to 1998, the NCCAM was the Office of Alternative Medicine. The NCCAM is an advocate for quality science, rigorous and relevant research, and open and objective inquiry into which CAM practices work, which do not, and why. Its overriding mission is to give the American public reliable information about the safety and effectiveness of CAM practices. The NCCAM focuses on the following efforts ... 

Active metabolites have many potential advantages. They may be more likely to have good safety profiles via predictable Phase II (conjugation) reactions, will probably be more soluble than the parent compound, and might even be patentable in their own right. That being the case, one might wonder why more discovery work doesn t focus on them. Instead, they re seen fairly infrequently and when they are, it s usually late in the development process. 

We will be more successful in enhancing safety by focusing on why accidents occur rather than on blame. 

To summarize, STAMP focuses particular attention on the role of constraints in safety management. Accidents are seen as resulting from inadequate control or enforcement of constraints on safety-related behavior at each level of the system development and system operations control structures. Accidents can be understood in terms of why the controls that were in place did not prevent or detect maladaptive changes. 

This chapter will reinforce the fact that lean is not a program, but rather a mindset or a way of thinking. Examples clarify why a successful lean implementation requires changing the culture of the business via employee engagement and involvement so that it is populated with lean thinkers that focus on customer and process cycle time reduction This understanding combined with the adoption and use of lean tools can build a world-class safety culture. Another key point is that a lean leadership style and some common lean tools will allow you to improve both safety and lean at the same time. 

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