IMPLEMENTATION OF SAFETY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ILLUMINATION

Systematic formulation and implementation of Safety Management system goes a long way in identifying and controlling accidents. It is necessary to go into all activities that the Safety Management System would cover. This paper details the basics of Safety Management System and takes Illumination as an example, areas to look for hazards and few control measures.

PREAMBLE

We make all sorts of ostensibly conscious and seemingly rational choices when we are aware of a potential risk. Yet these choices are far from carefully considered and surprisingly often, they contravene reason. What’s more, while our choices about risk invariably feel right when we make them, many of these decisions end up putting us in greater peril. Many of us unless sufficiently exposed put the cart before the horse. We think the controls and then assess risk. Humans subconsciously weigh the risks and benefits of any choice or course of action – and if taking a particular action seems to afford little or no benefit, the risk automatically feels bigger. Risk perception also depends on trust A risk created by a source you don’t trust will feel scarier. But a system that relies so heavily on emotion and instinct sometimes produces risk perceptions that don’t match the evidence, a “risk perception gap” that can be a risk in itself. We do have to fear the dangers of fear itself. Risk perception is not so much a process of pure reason, but rather a subjective combination of the facts and how those facts feel. In this scenario let us look into the implementation of safety management system. When formulation of Safety Management System is outsourced, during interaction of contractor with middle level officials, these officials, for fear of admonitions from top level might sweep things below the carpet and present a rosy picture. The  contractor may be knowledgeable but site specific hazards may not be noticed by him, due to his presence in the mine for a limited period only. In the case when only one individual of the organisation is assigned, his job knowledge may be limited .This results in the purpose of Safety Management System getting defeated as not all hazards would have been identified and/or the controls might shift the hazard from one activity to another.

What is Safety Management?

It is the process through which we look into all activities by subdividing them into as small sub activities as possible, subject each to critical analysis to evaluate the chances of hazard happening and also to evaluate the level of exposure and consequence should it happen . All activities are done by a team, understood and acceptable to all and acted upon without reservation irrespective of the sphere of activity. Deviations from conditions that prevailed prior to commencing of activities are to be considered. To decide the priority the ratings have to be ranked.Based on priority actions are taken. Identify resources that might be needed to control - eliminate or minimise such hazard, establish the controls, monitor, audit and go in for change and fine tuning. Activities with high risk level may call for temporary suspension or closure. Emergency situations that are very likely to happen and would do considerable damage to people and property are targeted for immediate remedy and/or plans should be made for effective response if remedy isn’t possible. Potential situations that are less likely or that would have less severe consequences are identified for attention after the more serious hazards have been addressed. At the planning stage itself we should go through in detail as a post – facto condition results in more of fire fighting strategy. Risk assessment covers all areas and to be done by a team of employees. Solution for addressing any problem would be through a systematic detailed approach of risk assessment that goes into all pros and cons without bias. This does not involve any certificate (or losing it) and so it could be totally transparent.

To make this effective,
 Data collected should be true and not tailored to please anybody.
 Data collected should be available to the team that is constituted to identify hazards and do risk rating.
 Data collected by monitoring is not used merely for creating records for showing compliance but used for initiating corrective measures, where needed.
 The team should identify hazardous locations in the field, and assess the risk levels by assigning values for the variants. The aim should be to identify the short comings and to apply correction or control.
 Corrective measures should be identified for all hazards.
 Data collected should be used to forewarn the health of measures taken.

To know in detail download this file .

Postis integrated from above file.