Importance of Industrial safety

You can watch my Speech about Safety on Youtube by following the link given below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw1PrRl9J6o

 Importance of Industrial safety      

      Safety is defined as freedom from danger, risk of injury or loss to personnel and/or property, whether caused deliberately or by accident. The word safety has been used so often by many people as a "Preaching Word" that forces them to alter their ways of doing things, but the important point to understand is that Safety is much more than a preaching word. So, we must consider safety as the right attitude to keep us away from harm so that our life is really safe and healthy. Safety in real sense is the true direction of living safe life as a learned and mature individual. The concept of safety can be applied to anything and everything we do in our daily lives. For example:  If a person works with a power tool that requires eye protection and he wears safety glasses as necessary and also operates the tool as per the instructions of the established safety manual then this is valuing safety. Thus, establishment of safety rules is not any kind of enforcement upon anyone. Infact, keeping ourselves safe is the first duty towards God for the gift of “Life” that has been given to us.

          Some of the common terms which are events we often come across while discussing safety at workplace are: Incident, Accident and Near Miss. These terms need to be logically defined in order to better understand them and analyze them at the time their occurrence. “Incident” is defined as an unplanned, undesired event that adversely affects completion of a task. An “Accident” is an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in major damage or injury. “Near miss” describes an incident where no property was damaged and no personal injury happened, but where, given a slight shift in time or position, a damage and/or injury could have occurred.

          A person working in the Oil and Gas  industry is actually surrounded by much more risks of accidents because of the nature of raw materials,equipments, operations and facilities which bring in much more hazards than what can occur in any kind of normal office set up similar to service sector such as in Banking or  IT sector. In service sector, the risk of accidents are different because hazards are different. To understand this we need to first understand with clarity about the term “Hazard”. A “Hazard” is anything in the workplace that has the potential to harm people. Hazards can include objects in the workplace, such as machinery or dangerous chemicals. Other hazards relate to the way work is done. For instance, hazards on a production line could include manual handling, excessive noise and fatigue caused by the pace of work. When the likelihood of an event in which a hazard will cause harm rises then the risk also rises. The level of risk also depends on factors such as how often the job is done, the number of workers involved and how serious could be the injuries. Important point to understand is that most of the forms of oil or gas are highly inflammable and there is a lot of human labour involved. Equipments used in this business are huge, complex and weigh in many tonnes and which in an unfortunate event may kill someone. Various hazards during operations are in the form of high pressure, high temperature, inflammable fluids, toxic chemicals, falls, falling objects, heavy lifting by cranes and electrocution.

           Falls (including slips) and falling objects account for more than 50%  of all industrial accidents in a year. There are 2 types of fall. First one is the “Fall on the same level” which is often caused on a wet or greasy surface or by tripping over an obstacle on the ground or floor. Second type of fall is “Fall from one level to another“ which can be caused by the same factors but here the injuries could be much more severe depending on the distance between levels. Falling object can be anything from a small nut or bolt to a heavy load suspended by a crane. The important point to understand here is that even the smallest or lightest object falling from low height can cause unpleasant injuries if it has sharp corners or edges. Now from this we can well imagine if falls and falling objects can cause this much damage then how dangerous high temperatures, high pressures, chemicals and electrocution could be for human life. There are huge costs of accidents and incidents for the company. These costs include lost production costs, worker’s compensation claims, insurance costs, legal fees and lost orders for future. These costs are so huge that it can severely impact the earnings of the company and which later impacts the incentives and pay increments of all the employees. These costs can be minimized by establishing a safe work environment.

            A safe work environment boosts employee morale which, in turn, increases productivity, efficiency and profit margins. When people feel that they have a good, safe work environment, they feel like they can make a difference and there are fewer staff absences, less staff turnover and improved quality of work. Thus, the most important point is that “Even if the job profiles of employees are different and there is also a dedicated Safety Executive in the company, but Safety is everybody’s business”. An organization can achieve sustainable growth only when safety objectives are aligned with the strategic business goals of the company .To achieve such a growth, the management and all the employees have to collaborate and work together to take the company to greater heights.

I welcome your comments on this post.


Devesh Sharma
devesh0102@gmail.com