UNIT VIII Course Project Instructions Conduct an audit of the following safety management system elements at your organization or an organization with which you are familiar and have access to the req

Incidence rates are certainly useful for OSHA, and the presence of high incidence rates can be an indicator of serious problems, but lower incidence rates do not necessarily mean everything is okay for a given employer. As we have noted throughout the course, risk of an incident is based on hazard severity and probability of occurrence and cannot be brought to zero or accurately predicted. Indeed, some employers who do not focus many resources on safety can sometimes go for years without a serious injury or illness just due to chance alone. Although incidents and incidence rates can be useful, there are also drawbacks with using them as the sole indicator of success. Another concern that is common within industries with respect to incidence rates is goal setting that focuses only on staying below industry incidence rates averages. Again, OSHA utilizes industry averages to identify comp anies with higher rates to target for programed inspections. OSHA also requires facilities to be below industry averages to participate in OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program, so OSHA actually provides incentives to focus on setting the bar at ave rage rather than continuous improvement. Thus, not only are incident rates not always the most dependable indicators, they also have an unintended effect of establishing mediocre goals for safety performance as coming in just below average is considered a success in many organizations. If we do not want to rely solely on incidents to check our safety performance, then what do we use? Blair and O’Toole (2010) sugge st that organizations consider measuring activities such as safety walkthroughs, safety meetings, and hazards corrected. Measuring such activities can help identify and mitigate factors that lead to incidents. Indicators such as these can be useful for pre venting injuries and illnesses from happening in the first place. Because these types of activities tend to be done before an incident occurs, they are called leading indicators. In other words, an indicator such as a safety meeting that emphasizes the nee d to pre -inspect forklifts to make sure they are mechanically sound can help prevent a future accident such as toppling over palletized product on the production floor due to faulty brakes. The discussion of leading indicators does not mean that lagging indicators such as incident rates do not have value, of course. Indeed, the actual instances themselves can yield valuable information and should not be ignored simply because they are not per fect. For instance, incident trending can point to problem areas that need immediate attention, and many large organizations with sophisticated safety and health management systems spend a great deal of effort trending incidents in the workplace. If there are multiple laceration - related injuries suddenly occurring in the shipping and receiving department, for instance, the multiple injuries themselves can trigger a more thorough investigation of the trend in hope of preventing future occurrences.

This inves tigation may discover a common cause to the sudden spike in lacerations such as the inadvertent purchase of the wrong type of box cutters by the purchasing department that do not have safety features required by the company. Manuele (2014) also notes tha t incident investigation can be a significant source of information. He indicates that incident investigation should be given a much higher priority than is typically found in most organizational safety programs. Unfortunately, many incident investigations are little more than paper exercises driven by OSHA or W orkers’ Compensation record -keeping specifications that fail to go beyond obvious employee errors or workplace hazards in identifying causes. Current accident investigation theories recognize that th ere are many layers of causal factors involved, even for adverse events where causes may seem obvious (Oakley, 2012). The findings from a quality incident investigation that identifies system failures can be a significant source of feedback, which can then be considered in the Plan phase of the PDCA process. Throughout the course, we have focused on the management system outlined in ANSI/AIHA Z10, but that does not mean other standards should not be used. The standards and best practices that are selected for use in an organization are dependent on the maturity of the organization’s safety efforts and how the organization manages other parts of its critical operations. If ISO management standards are used in other parts of the organization, perhaps ISO 180 00 is a better fit. Each organization is unique. ANSI/AIHA Z10 was based on many of the best features from existing standards. Studying it in depth, as we have done in this course, provides the safety practitioner insight into many of the other safety mana gement system standards. BOS 3651, Total Environmental Health and Safety Management 3 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title In looking at various occupational safety and health standards, however, it should be rather obvious that they tend to be quite similar. One similarity that should stand out to the seasoned practitioner is the underlying PDCA, co ntinuous improvement cycle approach. Thus far in this unit lesson, we have focused on the Check phase of the cycle in discussing the types of indicators we utilize to evaluate the success of our safety endeavors. The next step is the Act phase in which we utilize the information and do something about the information gathered, such as implementing corrective actions. Once we do so, we move forward in the cycle once again to the Plan phase to take the next step toward improving the safety program further. It should be noted that the PDCA process and where a given process is in the cycle is not always simple, clear cut, and easy to identify. Let’s consider a macro level application of the PDCA approach to illustrate.

Consider a large -scale management plan to retool a manufacturing operation with ergonomically designed work stations based on an earlier ergonomics assessment. Once the plan has been laid, the Do phase may involve a pilot study of a couple of work stations. The Check phase may involve a follow -up ergonomics assessment of the workers using the new stations compared to old stations. The Act phase may include tweaking and moving forward with the remainder of the installations. This moves us back to the Plan phase, which may involve planning a similar project for another part of the plant where there are similar ergonomic issues to further improve the facil ity' s safety performance or the new installations. Within this overall project, however, there may be micro -level continuous improvement efforts taking place. For instance, there is the ergonomics assessment which itself must be planned by the safety and health management team. Once the plan of the erg onomics assessment is complete, the actual assessment is initiated , which arguably places it in the Do phase. No assessment works perfectly, and evaluating how the assessment is going , Check, will result in adjustments and corrections to the investigation process to assure the workstation analysis process yields the most useful information to assure success, Act. This is obviously a learning process, and what is learned will be considered during the planning phase of the next ergonomics investigation or in moving forward with the current one. Likewise, the crew that is installing the new workstations wil l have their own PDCA cycles that results in organizational learning and continuous improvement. The planning phase will require planning the actual installation . What tools will be needed? What trades will be involved ? The Do phase might involve installin g the first workstation. The Check phase might include evaluating the first work station , and the Act phase may involve making the necessary corrections to increase efficiency and quality of the installations and moving on to planning the installation of t he remainder of the work stations. What we see here is not just one overall, PDCA process , but multiple PDCA cycles taking place simultaneously at different levels. The point of this all, of course, is that this process fosters organizational learning wh ich, in turn, results in continuous improvement at all levels of the organization. This continuous improvement activity becomes incorporated into the actual culture of the organization and helps to drive improvement and success throughout the organization. References Blair, E., & O'Toole, M. (2010). Leading measures. Professional Safety, 55 (8), 29 –34. Retrieved from https://libraryresources.columbiasou thern.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc t=true&db=bth&AN=53160422&site=ehost -live&scope=site Manuele, F. A. (2014). Advanced safety management: Focusing on Z10 and serious injury prevention (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Oakley, J. S. (2012). Accident investigation techniques: Basic theories, analytical methods, and applications (2nd ed.). Des Plaines, IL: American Society of Safety Engineers. BOS 3651, Total Environmental Health and Safety Management 4 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Suggested Reading In order to access the following resources, click the links below. The additional chapter from the textbook and the additional resources below are suggested readings or resources that can provide further reading and safety measures: Chapter 25: Comparison: Z10, Other Safety Guidelines and Standards, and VPP Certification Blair, E., & O'Toole, M. (2010). Leading measures. Professional Safety , 55 (8), 29 –34. Retrieved from https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=http://searc h.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direc t=true&db=bth&AN=53160422&site=ehost -live&scope=site Health & Safety Executive. (2001) A guide to measuring health & safety performance . Retrieved from http://www.h se.gov.uk/opsunit/perfmeas.pdf