Occupational Safety and Health

Question 1

What are the Fundamentals Of Safety Management?

Answer 1

Management styles and approaches as well as organizational culture have major influence on safety and health practices in organizations.

Safety must be part of every organization culture, each level of operation and management.

Safety must be an integral part of the management process and component of leadership in order to achieve and sustain safety requirements.

Management of risks must also be an integral part of organizational management. Risk may be defined as the product of frequency and severity of potential losses.

Question 2

What is OSH?

Answer 2

Occupational Safety and Health

Definition
Occupational safety and health is the discipline concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of employees, organizations, and others affected by the work they undertake (such as customers, suppliers, and members of the public).

Question 3

Why is safety important?

Answer 3

Humanitarianism - moral basis for safety, the need to protect human life and welfare
Law - body of standardized standards to protect the moral basis of safety.
Costs - life, property and assets have worth and losses will involve costs.

Question 4

What are accidents?

Answer 4

An accident is an unintended, unplanned single or multiple event sequence that is caused by unsafe acts, unsafe conditions or both and may result in immediate or delayed undesirables effects.

Accidents are usually seen as:
Chance happenings (but are usually caused by either unsafe acts or unsafe conditions, or both. Thus, safety specialists prefer the term ‘incident’ instead of ‘accident’.
Includes adverse consequences even though most accidents do not include injury or significant loss
Happening immediately after an event i.e. immediacy of accident consequence. But in Safety and Health, accidents may be a long term issue.
Last for a short duration.

Question 5

What are injuries and losses?

Answer 5

Besides injuries, illness, disease and death, accidents also cause damage to properties, equipments, materials and the environment. Loss is due to costs of repairs or replacement, clean up, litigations, medical costs, etc.
Losses may also be in terms of time, production, sales, opportunities, etc, which can all be translated to costs.
Accidents will result in direct and indirect losses.

Question 6

What are the Four E’s of Safety?

Answer 6

Engineering - actions to substitute for less hazardous materials modify processes, designing out hazards, incorporating fail-safe devices, using warning devices, prescribing protective equipment etc.
Education - training, teaching safety practices, occupational safety and health issues, recognizing hazards etc.
Enforcement - compliance with laws, rules and regulations for safety and health.
Enthusiasm - motivating people to adhere to and practice safety programs, follow safety rules etc.

Question 7

What is Hazard?

Answer 7

The potential for an activity, condition, circumstances or changing conditions or circumstances to produce harmful effects. A hazard is an unsafe condition.

Question 8

What is Risk?

Answer 8

Measure of both the likelihood and consequence of all hazards of an activity or condition. It is a subjective evaluation of relative failure potential.

The management of risks involves the following components:
Risk identifications
Risk analysis
Risk elimination/reduction
Risk control

Question 9

What are the sources of hazard?

Answer 9

Planning and Design
wrong formulae used, wrong conversion of units, no safety factor in design
failure to envision the environment
inadequate assumptions
inappropriate materials used
failure to consider life span of a product

Production and Distribution
Easy to show and specify safety procedure on paper, but may not be practical on site.

Maintenance and Repair
Lack of timely preventive planned maintenance

Communication
Changes have not been communicated clearly
4 components of communication; sender, message and medium, receiver.

Question 10

How to control and prevent hazard/risk?

Answer 10

Prioritize the hazard control approach:
Eliminate the hazard wherever possible
Control the hazard/risk at source, through the use of engineering controls or organizational measures;
Minimize the hazard/risk by the design of safe work systems (E.g. Safety Plan, Safety Operation Manual);
 Where residual hazards/risks cannot be controlled by collective measures, the employer should provide appropriate personal protective equipment PPE at no cost and ensure it is used and maintained.
Provide warning (e.g. sign board or alarm system)
Provide safety procedures (Fire protection system, evacuation route and policies for confined work space/ building)

Question 11

What is the significance of OHS to engineers?

Answer 11

All engineering discipline/jobs have significant responsibilities for safety and health
Engineers have important role in reducing risks arising out of modern technology on society, from products and waste.
Engineers should know how to manage risks while making trade offs with costs, convenience and other factors. Creating a functional or economical product or system is not enough, it must be safe.
Engineers need to know what role other professionals have in safety and health and need to work with them. Inter disciplinary effort is required to identify hazards to develop effective solutions to safety problems and to achieve safe products, buildings, operations and systems.

Question 12

What is the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994?

Answer 12

Definition
An act to make further provisions for securing the safety, health and welfare of persons at work, for protecting others against risks to safety or health in connection with activities of person at work.

Application
In all economic activities including public sectors & statutory authorities (First schedule; Section 1(2))

Exemption
Onboard ships &
Armed forces

Question 13

What are the objectives of the act?

Answer 13

i) To secure the safety, health and welfare of persons at work against risks out of activities at work;
ii) To protect persons at a place of work other than persons at work against risks out of the activities at work;
iii) To promote an occupational environment for persons at work which is adapted to their physiological and psychological needs;
iv) To provide the means toward a legislative system that is based on regulations and industry codes of practice in combination with the provisions of the act.

Question 14

What are General Duties of Employer to Employees?

Answer 14

The provision and maintenance of plant and system that are safe and without risk to health
The making of arrangement for ensuring safety and absence risk to health in connection with the use or operation, handling, storage and transport of plant and substances.
The provision of information, instruction, training and supervision to ensure safety and health at work of his employees
Maintenance of work place to ensure it is safe to access to and egress from the work place.
The provision and maintenance of a safe and healthy working environment and adequate facilities for their welfare at work

Question 15

What are the General Duties of Employees?

Answer 15

To take reasonable care for the safety and health of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work.
To cooperate with his employer in the discharge of any duty or requirement imposed on the employer by this act.
To wear or use at all time any protective equipment or clothing provided by the employer for the purpose of preventing risk to his safety and health
To comply with any instruction or measure on occupational safety and health instituted by his employer by or under this act.