IRIA are at the forefront of revised standards when it comes to steel pallet racking. Read about us in Transport and Logisitcs news….
http://www.tandlnews.com.au/2012/06/28/article/new-steel-storage-racking-inspection-guidelines/
NZ was recently exposed to a 6.0-magnitude tremor leading to major damage involving steel pallet racking. On the surface steel pallet racking can look as though it is OK but often serious damage following an earthquake can be hidden. Contact IRIA on 1300 136 649 and we can discuss what to look for to keep your steel pallet racking safe.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/earthquake-rocks-victoria/story-e6frfkvr-1226401631728#ixzz1yIyur9d9
The national harmonisation of the OHS laws, especially for larger national corporates, promised to reduce administrative costs and create economies of scale.
Streamlining the different state OHS compliance requirements and creating nationally consistent safety standards should lead to greater certainty and understanding of OHS laws and ultimately better safety outcomes for all businesses.
The harmonisation deadline set by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in 2008 was 1 January 2012, but that deadline has well and truly passed with us seemingly no closer to the desired end state. With Queensland, NSW, the two territories (ACT and NT) as well as the Commonwealth passing the laws, we have four states yet to enact the changes.
Both South Australia and Tasmania may introduce the legislation in the near future as the bills go back and forth within state parliament. However Victoria and Western Australia have absolutely no urgency. The legislation seems to be a fair way off whilst both governments talk about the significant time needed to further assess its impact on their states.
There are many complexities involved in creating a safe workplace – the technicalities of machine and plant safety, enacting behavioural safety and culture change programs, stimulating workforce ownership and safety leadership, as well as all the OHS compliance requirements.
At such a time, the last thing businesses need is a confusing legislative framework and a national harmonisation program in limbo.
However, there is no doubt harmonisation will occur. It is just a matter of how long and what concessions the Federal Government will provide to ensure the states enact the changes.
Under the new legislation, the requirements and duties relating to the person involved in machine safety have been significantly widened. A person conducting a business or undertaking (PCBU) still has the primary duty, under the Act, to ensure and provide a safe work place as far as reasonably practical.
However, there is now more onus on other persons involved with the total life cycle of the plant to ensure compliance with the legislation.
The designer plays a critical role in designing, redesigning or altering plant and needs to be able to demonstrate that the plant is designed without risks to health and safety for the entire life of the plant.
A large proportion of machine injuries (42 percent of fatalities) are a result of poor design and hence the increased focus from an OHS perspective in ensuring machines and plant are designed properly from a safety view point.
The manufacturer, importer/ supplier and installer all have similar obligations in areas over which they have control. They are obliged to manage the risks associated with health and safety and need to take all measures so far as reasonably practical.
The recent increase in online retailers of second hand plant and equipment has opened an interesting area of debate as a number of the sites sell equipment “as is” or “buyer beware” or simply purport to create an environment where a seller can find a buyer and try to remove themselves of any obligation with regards to ensuring the equipment being sold is safe.
The code is quite clear in that second hand plant suppliers, so far as reasonably practicable, identify all faults and must advise the designer, manufacturer and installer if the plant requires any alteration as a result of hazard identification or testing.
There is also more emphasis on inspection and testing as well maintenance of the safety system of the plant. Regular inspection of the physical plant, formal testing of safety functions, such as stop time measurement as well as ensuring the machine is still operating within the design limits all have stronger emphasis in the new legislation.
As is often the case, a sole business or company may have more than one duty, especially when a lot of these tasks are conducted in house or by the same business or person. What is thought initially to be a simple onsite modification to the safety system means the person changing the system will be required to adhere to the duties of a designer, manufacturer, installer and maintainer.
This is something that cannot be taken lightly and the ramifications of unintended consequences can be severe if it cannot be demonstrated that they changes have been properly designed, risk assessed and validated.
The new act regularly refers to a Competent Person and defines them as a person who has acquired through training, qualification and experience, the knowledge and skills to carry out the respective work.
However in the case of design and inspection of plant, a competent person has a more specific meaning and the person must also have educational or vocational qualifications in an engineering discipline relevant to the plant being designed or inspected.
TUV Certified Machine Safety Expert (CMSE) is one such example of a generally accepted industry qualification with regards to machine safety.
The new legislation does not specifically mandate the required standards which would constitute compliance. However Safe Work Australia have issued an approved code of practice for managing risks of plant in the workplace (and have proposed further codes of safe plant design, manufacture, import and supply) which in most cases would demonstrate compliance with WHS Act and Regulation.
This code then references a number of standards of which the predominant standard is AS4024.1:2006 when it comes to safeguarding of machinery. A number of prior OHS judgements have seen this standard given the same relevance as an expert opinion but a breach of this standard will not necessarily mean a prima facie breach of the obligation under the Act.
There are also a number of international standards and more specifically those related to the European machinery directive (2006/42/EC) and the new ISO13849-1:2006 (Safety of Machinery) standard. A common misconception is that if a machine has been imported and “CE Marked” then it is fit for use in Australia.
This is certainly not the case and the importer/ supplier still has an obligation ensure all risks have been eliminated so far as reasonably practicable on the imported equipment.
There is also a trend towards applying functional safety concepts outlined IEC61508 (functional safety of electrical/electronic/programmable electronic safety-related systems) combined with IEC61511 (process) or IEC 62061 (manufacturing) on more complex machinery safety installations especially where larger programmable safety systems are implemented.
These stem from use in the oil and gas, petrochemical and rail industries but are certainly being applied in mining as well as manufacturing. The line is certainly grey from where it moves from machine safety to functional safety with respects to the different standards.
There are many arguments for and against the various standards and how they are applied and implemented, whether one uses Categories, Performance Levels (PLs) or Safety Integrity Levels (SILs) to quantify the required safety systems performance to adequately address the identified level of risk from a design perspective.
Common to all is the basic framework of risk assessment and hazard identification, risk elimination/ reduction and validation.
Hopefully the remainder of states will not take too long to enact the new legislation. Regardless of the eventual outcome, there are a number of simple measures one can take in the lead up to harmonisation. Firstly, invest in training for your people.
A good starting point is a short one- or two-day course covering an overview of machine safety and the obligations associated with the individual’s role. Understand the meaning of a competent person and how this relates to your business.
If you conduct design or modification activities in-house, ensure your people are appropriately qualified. If machine design or modification is outsourced, ensure your integrator can demonstrate their competency in this area.
Treat the safety system with the respect it deserves and have proper processes around changes and testing. There should also be regular inspection and testing schedules and differentiate this from your machine or process control systems.
Too often safety system changes are an afterthought of machine or process changes and upgrades. In a perfect world one would hope not to have to operate the safety system, but when you do, you need to absolutely sure it is going to operate as designed, 100 per cent of the time. People’s lives depend on it.
A massive scaffolding collapse on a busy Melbourne shopping strip could have claimed the lives of dozens of people, a court has heard.
The multi-level scaffolding came crashing down on Commercial Road, near Grattan Street, in Prahran on February 23, 2009, injuring three construction workers, one seriously, and just missing passers-by.
Dramatic footage captured by a security camera reveals how close a bus, two cyclists and a pedestrian came to being caught up in the collapse.
The accident, that happened during the construction of boutique art hotel The Cullen, damaged parked cars, tore down power lines and closed the busy road.
Asia Pacific Building Corporation, the hotel’s developer and the company in charge of managing the site, today pleaded guilty in Melbourne Magistrates Court to two charges relating to workplace safety breaches.
WorkSafe Victoria prosecutor Ruth Shann said the accident had the potential to cause dozens of deaths and it was lucky that most of the site’s workers were on a break when the scaffolding caved about 10am.
“If it weren’t for smoko there would have been a lot of workers back on that structure,” she said.
Three bricklayers working at the time of the accident were taken to hospital, the most seriously injured
suffered broken ribs, a punctured lung, a fractured shoulder blade, broken neck bones and chipped bones near his spine after falling debris caused him to fall through a window opening and on to a concrete floor.
Another of the injured workers, who had to have plastic surgery on his finger, managed to ride the scaffolding to the ground as it crumpled.
The court heard the collapse had been caused by an overloading of bricks on scaffold bays and alterations made to the scaffold structure’s original design.
Ms Shann said SMS Scaffolding, that was employed by Asia Pacific to construct the scaffolding, had reduced the width of some platforms from five to three boards and made changes that meant it no longer complied with Australian standards.
Scaffolding bays were found loaded with brick stacks weighing up to three times the safe limit.
Read more of this dramatic story at theage.com.au
Many organisations are beginning to assess their performance in occupational health and safety (OHS), mostly through spreadsheet graphics and lead and lag indicators. These “databases” provide comparisons of activity with the hope of showing positive progress on safety. FindTheBest.com has been building comparison websites for some time and has applied their mystical Web2.0 algorithms to workplace safety data from the United States in its FindTheData website. It has several sites that may be of interest to OHS professionals – Work Injuries and Death and Dangerous Jobs.
Dangerous Jobs allows you to select the occupational categories you are interested in and then compare their statistical data. For instance, comparing Farmers and Ranchers to Structural Steel Workers shows an annual fatality rate of 39.7 to 30.3 based on hours, respectively. These comparisons are based on data from the United States Department of Labor statistics. But the question on the comparison is so what? What benefit can be gained by comparing these two sets of data? None, as far as I can see.
The glossary for Dangerous Jobs lists the top couple of popular comparisons as
The first has curiosity value but the second is reminiscent of the adolescent (or drunk) speculation on who would win in a fight between Darth Vader and Gigantor? Pointless speculation that sounds like it could result in some interesting information. Just maybe. Perhaps.
The comparison concept seems a better fit for other areas that FindTheBest.com have explored such as high schools, consumer products, car insurances, and others but Dangerous Jobs? No.
FindTheBest.com may have better luck with their comparison of Work Injuries and Death. This statistical data originates from the Occupational Safety and Health Authority but seems to have only two incident categories – Fatality and Catastrophe. If the comparison is Work Injuries and Death, where are the injuries?
Applying FindTheBest.com’s searchability to OSHA records is interesting but of limited application. Fatality statistics can provide an indication of the most dangerous occupations, States, companies… but this is already reported on by OSHA. Searchability in this context adds little value.
Also, OHS professionals and others look to statistics and prosecution records in order to draw lessons on how to avoid a recurrence through better management or control. Work Injuries and Death provides insufficient information from which to learn. For instance, the only incident data available on a January 2010 fatality at Crete Carriers is
“Worker was crushed between his trailer and another trailer that was backing up.”
The same information is available from the US Department of Labor website. No more, no less. FindTheBest.com adds no value in the situation of occupational health and safety. More detail on the circumstances of the fatalities or, more importantly, serious injuries would allow OHS professionals to use these incidents as learning opportunities for their companies or clients, but the level of detail is just not there.
Some may find it crass and insulting that each fatality listing also asks you to write your own “user review”!! Review of what? The death of a person at work. Asking for a review is like having one of Facebook’s Like buttons on an obituary.
Jonny Kintzele of FindTheBest.com has been politely emailing me to look at the site for the last week or so. It is not his fault that FindTheBest.com has seriously misapplied its comparison applications to the maiming and deaths of American workers, to no obvious benefit to the user.
June 13 2012
A slew of occupational health and safety charges have been laid against mine operator Vale Limited in connection with a double fatality one year ago.
On June 8, 2011 at the company’s Stobie Mine in Sudbury, Ontario, about 350 tons of wet, sandy muck came barrelling down an ore pass. An investigation by Vale found that a crash gate into the area where supervisor Jason Chenier, 35, and Jordan Fram, 26, were working was left open, and the muck, which had been stuck in the ore pass, came loose and flooded the area.
The workers were buried in the material and recovery efforts took almost an hour and a half (COHSN June 20, 2011).
A total of nine charges under the province’s Occupational Health and Safety Act have been laid against Vale, and another six against a supervisor with the company.
“As this is a very serious matter, we need to consider the charges very carefully before we determine how we will proceed. Until that time, and as this is now before the court system, we will not be commenting further on this matter,” said Angie Robson, manager of corporate affairs for Vale’s Ontario operations, in a statement released at the end of May.
The statement noted that more than 30 recommendations for control measures are being implemented as a result of the company’s investigation.
In late February, an investigation report released by Local 6500 of the United Steelworkers union — done separately from the Vale investigation — called for a criminal investigation into the fatalities, charging that negligence on behalf of the company was responsible for the deaths.
The report also listed 165 recommendations to improve work conditions at the mine, such as the calling of a public inquiry into the hearings, as well as improvements to blasting procedures and changes to water drainage practices. The union also called for a review of mine safety in Canada, noting the last significant inquiry was 30 years ago.
In late May, Vale was charged with a variety of counts, including failing to:
— Ensure workplaces within the mine were kept free from accumulation or water flows that could endanger workers;
— Provide instruction and supervision to the deceased workers regarding the accumulation of water that might endanger workers in the area;
— Prevent the movement of material through an ore pass while hazardous conditions existed;
— Ensure that a transfer gate on an ore pass could be operated and monitored from a safe location;
— Maintain the drain holes at the 2400-level of the mine;
— Ensure that water, slimes and other wet material was not dumped into the number seven ore pass at the 2600-level of the mine; and,
— Ensure that its “Wet Control Instruction for Pulling Wet Chute/Ore Pass” procedure was followed at the 3715 ore pass and the number seven ore pass.
Company supervisor faces six oh&s counts
The individual working at the mine was charged with failing to:
— Ensure that the underground workplaces under his supervision were kept free from accumulation or flows of water which endangered workers in the area;
— Prevent the movement of material through an ore pass while hazardous conditions existed;
— Guard against an accumulation of water in the 3715 ore pass;
— Control the flow of water in areas under his supervision;
— Ensure that water, slimes and other wet material was not dumped into the number seven ore pass at the 2600-level;
— Ensure that Vale’s “Wet Control Instruction for Pulling Wet Chute/Ore Pass” procedure was followed at the 3715 ore pass and the number seven ore pass.
The maximum fine for each charge against Vale is $500,000.
Individuals face a maximum of $25,000 for each charge and/or up to 12 months imprisonment.
By: Canadian OH&S News
June 12, 2012
Minor accidents are sometimes not reported while the major ones come to our notice as they mainly occur due to accidents, human error or major machine damage or break down. This is unfortunate and it seems that we still do not consider safety as an important tool of productivity.
Safety is a concern for everybody in all walks of life; home or at workplace. Activities are mostly the same only the quantum of risk varies. Driving, walking on the road, travelling in vehicles, working in the kitchen, lifting heavy loads, working with machines and use of electrical appliances are all routine activities and each activity has its own set of safe practices that need to be followed compulsorily.
Fire and electrical hazards coupled with falling of heavy loads, slippery surfaces and spillage/ leakage are some of the major causes of accidents in manufacturing plants. Apart from the consideration of the plant design and protective devices, major issues which are overlooked
are training of employees and refresher courses.
In pharmaceutical or chemical plants, hazardous situations may also arise due to the operations conducted in the open or without a care for safety of plant personel safety. Volumes have been written and talked about Safety, Health and Environment (SHE), innumerable guidance have been proposed, yet human factor and non compliance with Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) and instructions continues.
Most of the times accidents occur due to ignorance or exhibitionism. It may be human nature to experience and explore but the pharma plant cannot be, or rather should not be, a place for this fancy.
In the plant, safety should be the first concern and the foremost objective is to work with discipline following the SOP’s. The most unfortunate thing is that SOP’s for plant safety, workers health and environment are prepared, but never followed. They are ignored, violated and neglected by most people. Any type of energy if not channelised or used in a systematic manner will have serious implications. In the manufacturing plants, apart from the human resources (personnel), resources such as water and energies like steam, gases, heat, electricity, mechanical power are also used. A serious and systematic handling of these energies or resources will be the first step in the right direction.
Reduction of human error
Of the several factors responsible for the threat to safety, human behaviour is the foremost and still the most challenging factor. In this era of automation and electronic controls, humans are still the main instruments to regulate process.
Human error and the response to the situations contribute to the net results. It needs to be emphasised that reduction of human error at workplace will bring about a phenomenal change. It cannot be ruled out that the greatest risks as well as greatest asset to the success of any enterprise are human beings and the human error can simply make or mar. It is universally true that the misunderstanding of the key aspects of the job roles should not be overlooked or underestimated as it may be harmful in the long run. Research suggests that human errors are not only predictable, but preventable. Most of the workplace errors are caused due to human error.
This makes it even more significant to understand human behaviour, as our response and reactions to situations is very relevant as individuals or as a group. The scientific basis for classification of categories of human error is well established and puts errors in six major categories. MRI techniques have made the study of the living brain even easier and explains what really may be going on at any particular situation. This classification is not exclusive or compartmentalised; it is a combination effect what emerges.
Classification of human errors
This implies that each individual is going to have different levels of understanding and different response of behaviour. In the absence of a common code or accepted way of operations the actions, reactions and responses are going to vary and that is going to lead to varying outcomes including safety standards.
The pharma industry is cited as one of the most important one with the greatest level of employee misunderstanding because of the criticality in the nature of the materials and stakes (patient health) involved besides the regulatory requirements. The biggest impact of the employees misunderstanding (errors) is unplanned downtime, extraordinary delays, loss of opportunity, compromising of safety and eventually a loss of business. The human factor becomes critical to be controlled, managed and regulated because the facilities, utilities, machines and procedures can be the best yet the people who are going to operate and perform will determine the net outcome.
Since the focus is on the safety related to plant operations the effect is more on the deliveries, quality, loss or shutdown. The ultimate goal is how to reduce human errors to the minimal and if possible eliminate completely for better compliance of safety standards and SOP’s and avoiding mishaps and accidents.
Mitigation of the risks and problems arising due to human error cannot be total. Sudden breakdowns or unanticipated abnormal situations will continue to be the cause of losses but the end objective is to have a safe and healthy workforce and accident free work atmosphere. Most important is that the managers must understand the strengths and weaknesses of the employees and the responsibilities need to be allocated accordingly. Regular assessments are necessary to address the potential problems by delivering the right training programmes at right time. This is going to improve the employees confidence and productivity. Many times the employees may be reluctant to undergo the training process but a targeted and specific training approach will always be helpful.
Awareness of the employees’ strengths and weaknesses helps to bridge the knowledge gaps and reduce the risk of human error, in addition to this it also help managers to make more informed decisions about which people can take on additional responsibilities. To sum up, the need for the safe installations and safe working conditions cannot be neglected at any cost but human errors need to be minimised and that is possible by working under discipline, following standard methods and instructions, by assigning right responsibilities to the right people, providing necessary training and updating the same and developing people to accept the jobs of higher responsibility.
Note: The views expressed are personal and based on the observations and experience.
Cutting workers’ rights would not improve workplace health and safety, Labour Party labour spokeswoman Darien Fenton said yesterday.
The announcement by Labour Minister Kate Wilkinson of a new Health and Safety Taskforce was an important step in making workplaces safer.
“But the Government’s determination to weaken workers’ rights could totally undermine its work,” Ms Fenton said.
Allowing a worker to be sacked without reason within their first 90 days of employment meant, along with restrictions on access for unions, that even where there were health and safety concerns, it could be unsafe for workers to raise those issues with their employer.
The Government’s plans to “seriously weaken” collective bargaining rights would have a further detrimental impact, she said.
Unions played an important role in promoting health and safety through collective bargaining agreements and encouraging worker participation.
The introduction of workplace experience ratings in ACC would also discourage accident reporting.
“We need to ensure that workers and employers are able to be open and honest about workplace safety,” Ms Fenton said.
Ms Wilkinson said in a statement that the independent task force would undertake the first wide-ranging strategic review of the workplace health and safety systems in 20 years.
New Zealand’s workplace death and injury rates were not improving and were poor in comparison to countries like Australia and the United Kingdom.
“The Government is taking action to ensure we get better results and see a 25% reduction in workplace deaths and serious injuries by 2020,” she said.
The task force would review whether the overall workplace health and safety system was working effectively to reduce workplace injury and death.
A package of “practical measures” would be recommended to the Government in December.
The Council of Trade Unions welcomed the review but was concerned there was only one person from the union movement – CTU economist Bill Rosenberg – on the task force, compared with two from BusinessNZ.
“It is therefore vitally important the task force gets out and listens to worker perspectives,” CTU secretary Peter Conway said.
Otago-Southland Employers Association chief executive John Scandrett said that at a recent Shell Todd presentation, he was impressed by the Shell corporate culture and positive attitude to having the best workplace health and safety management.
The appointment of Shell general manager Robert Jager to chair the task force was an “excellent step”.
“I’m impressed by the overall composition of the group and, provided the review does ultimately serve to present innovative but not excessively cost-loaded, outcomes I’m sure the business community will widely embrace the need for change.”
Otago Daily Times
By Dene Mackenzie on Thu, 7 Jun 2012
Workplace safety is of the utmost importance. In a world where a lawsuit can be created because a cup of coffee is sold while it’s still hot, it’s important to thwart potential lawsuits before they start. This can be done by providing a safe working environment for all employees.
Hearing protection is necessary in areas where noise exceeds a certain decibel level. When in doubt, companies specializing in noise area can be contracted to study your environment and advise you of any potential problems. In the event that the contracted company does find problems, it will be the your company’s responsibility to provide hearing protection or other devices to protect the hearing of its employees. It is also prudent to hire an outside firm to test the hearing of all employees on a yearly basis to be certain that there are no potential problems. Hearing protection comes in many styles and colors. They also have different decibel ratings and the one chosen by your company should be rated for the noise level that is present in your business.
Basic safety rules for a workplace
Forklift and large equipment usage in production and construction environments can also present safety hazards. Each employee must be trained in the usage and licensed or certified to operate the machinery. Safety training classes should be conducted on a regular basis to ensure that employees are apprised of current safety measures and procedures in place so that all employees can be safe in the usage area. For example, drivers of forklifts should know when it is appropriate to blow the horn before turning a corner.
They should also know how to increase visibility when using double lifts. Each employee should also know how to inspect his or her equipment prior to usage to be sure that the equipment is safe for use. A form should be used at each shift change to document any findings.
Eye protection is also required in these environments. The use of safety goggles must be standardized and must be randomly checked to verify that all employees working around chemicals, machine parts or other unsafe areas are wearing approved safety glasses. Safety glasses come in many styles and colors. They are also equipped with vents for hot areas and tints for areas where employees are forced to work in the sun. The more comfortable the equipment, the more likely employees are to wear them.
Large companies should be contracted with a medical provider for random drug testing and for treatment of workplace incidents. Finding drug usage before an accident happens can save a company millions of dollars in lawsuits in the long run. By treating workplace incidents with a contracted doctor, employers can obtain detailed reports about the severity of workplace injuries rather than relying on employees to provide the information.
When in doubt, err on the side of caution. Risk is part of having a construction or production company but taking basic safety precautions can minimize these risks.
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