SafetyIMPACT Forums / SafetyIMPACT Forums / Safety Inspections

Ending the Checklist Approach to Safety Inspections

Phil La Duke — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:22:27 GMT

Many times during training, I've noticed that people conducting safety inspections miss key hazards because they are looking for something on a mental checklist. Instead of viewing the work place holistically they tend to focus on one hazard category and subconsciously ignore others.

To prevent this dynamic, I've taken to teaching hazard identification by asking a couple of key questions:

What happens here?
People tend to tell me what work goes on in the area ("this is a deburring station") so I clarify the question. I ask the inspector to describe in detail the work—lifting, walking, material flow, handling parts, attaching fasteners. By getting the inspector to describe in detail the basic elements of the process it forces him/her to move away from the checklist and really think about the forces and inputs that go on in the are.

What could go wrong? What injuries have you had in this area in the past?
Typically the person who is inspecting a work area is keenly intimate with every possible problem one is likely to encounter in his/her work area and will be quick to tick off a list of process failure modes complete with a list of triggers. From there it's easy for the inspector to scan the area for these triggers.

What doesn't belong here/what is out of place or out of process?
By zeroing in on the sources of process variation we teach the inspector to focus on the critical few hazards most likely to seriously injure workers. This technique is also useful for eliminating the tendency to "pick the low-hanging fruit" and ignore those issues that tend to be more difficult to anticipate or readily observe.

What has changed since the last time you toured this area?
Once the root causes of the process hazards have been identified and corrected the inspector effectively only has to pay attention to the things that have changed. On a side note, I start every incident investigation with the question, "what was different in this case than in the way this operations is usually done?" I typically get a resolute "nothing" to which I respond, "were that true either the worker would never get hurt or would get hurt every time. And since neither condition is true, there must have been SOMETHING different in this case." Differences represent process variation and where there is process variation there is heightened risk.

What's the difference between "rounding", "safety inspections", and "audits"

Phil La Duke — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:47:10 GMT

I'm often asked by people both inside and outside the safety discipline the difference between an audit and a safety inspection. An audit is typically annual (or semi-annual) activity conducted by safety professionals to ensure compliance with safety regulations and internal policies. An auditor typically has a check list of items that need to be verified or assessed, and audits are usually done by either an internal safety professional or an external governmental agency. Audits are reactive.

Safety inspections are regular, proactive activities that are designed to identify workplace hazards and contain/correct them before an individual gets hurt. Safety inspections are conducted by first line supervisors and/or representation (in Union environments) and use a problem-solving, failure-mode (anticipating what could go wrong) approach. Inspections are proactive.

Safety Rounds are safety inspections that are adapted for use in matrix organizations. Safety Rounds were developed by O/E when it implemented SafetyIMPACT! at Henry Ford Health System's Wyandotte Hospital. Like Safety Inspections, Safety Rounds are regular, proactive walk-thrus, but instead of first-line supervision conducting the rounds, volunteers take on the responsibility in addition to their normal jobs. The goal of a Safety Round is the same as that of a Safety Inspection, but Safety Rounds focus parallel the "Environment of Care" requirements of the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) audits.

Safety Rounds tend to be more holistic than Safety Inspections and often those conducting Safety Rounds will ask hospital staff questions to determine the effectiveness of required safety training.

Maintenance Communication

Bill Sagy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:58:33 GMT

As a coach for Safety Impact implementing the process in heavy truck manufacturing plants I have learned that it is crucial to have maintenace involved in the upfront Pilot and the decisions for the customized internal interactions that result from Safety Inspections. By doing so you get buy in on the means to have work orders related to correcting hazards efficiently handled by the clerks in maintenance and thus recording the actions taken into the database. The automatic e-mail notification system is triggered when maintenance changes the status of a hazard to "corrected". The e-mail sends a link notifying the original inspectors that the issue has been corrected and that they need to verify and then formally close out the documented hazard.

Challenge to Safety Inspections

Phil La Duke — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:01:17 GMT

I'd like to see what issues people are having in conducting safety inspections

To Coach or Not To Coach

Phil La Duke — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:54:53 GMT

One of the greatest challenges to sustaining a culture change is knowing when and how to coach. This posting is the first of several I have planned for identify the how’s and when’s of coaching.

Indicator	What does it indicate	Where do I get the information?	How do I coach?	How do I know if I’ve been successful
Inspections are not being done	Less priority is being placed on safety by the supervisor HIT is not effectively ensuring that the inspections are being conducted	Safety Inspection Report from the SafetyIMPACT! Hazard Tracking Database	Raise the issue at the HIT meeting and coach the meeting owner prior to the meeting to have the supervisor report to the HIT the reason that his or her inspection has not been done	A review of the Safety Inspection Report should indicate that the inspections are being done
Inspections do not find enough hazards	No hazards are found on an inspection, or a small number of inspections are found in an area with a number of injuries The HIT is not effectively ensuring that the inspections are being conducted properly	Safety Inspection Report from the SafetyIMPACT! Hazard Tracking Database	Raise the issue at the HIT meeting and coach the meeting owner prior to the meeting to have the supervisor report to the HIT the reason that his or her inspection has not been done	A review of the Safety Inspection Report should indicate that the inspections are being done
The risk of a hazard is inappropriately assessed	The inspector lacks the skills to properly assess risk ~or~ The inspector has an ulterior motive for increasing or decreasing the risk level	Randomly reviewing hazards	Speak to the inspector and find out why he or she is inappropriately assessing the risk of a hazard, if the inspector doesn’t know that he or she has assessed the risk inappropriately then review the process for assessing hazards. If the inspector has an ulterior motive for this behavior, advise him or her to refrain from the behavior in the future. If the problem persists raise it at the HIT meeting.	A review of hazards entered by the inspector should show improvement.
The containment action is inappropriate	The inspector lacks the skills to specify an appropriate containment action	Randomly reviewing hazards	Speak to the inspector and provide feedback as to why the containment action is inappropriate and suggest ways on which the action could be improved	A review of the hazards entered by the inspector should show improvement.
The hazard entered is not a safety issue	The inspector lacks sufficient skills in hazard identification or is hoping entering an issue as a safety issue will get faster action	An email from the database disputing the hazard	Talk to the inspector and explain why the issue is not a safety issue. Retrain the inspector in hazard investigation if necessary	No further emails that dispute hazards
A hazard IS a safety issue but the IRP disputes it	The IRP lacks sufficient skills in hazard identification or is hoping to avoid fixing an issue	An email from the database disputing the hazard	Talk to the IRP and explain why the issue is not a safety issue. Retrain the IRP in hazard investigation if necessary	No further emails that dispute hazards

Assessing the Risk of a Hazard

Phil La Duke — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:15:58 GMT

I've been sensing some confusion on the appropriate way to assess the risk of a hazard. In simple terms, as long as you are consistent and clearly delineate between the risk levels, there's no wrong way to assess the risk level of a hazard, unless of course your boss TELLs you that your wrong, and then you better play along either way. At any rate, here is an explanation I gave in response to a request for a simpler way to assess hazards.

The reason we assess the risk of a hazard is to determine which hazards should be corrected first. There are two elements one needs to consider when assessing the risk of a hazard: likelihood and severity. Likelihood is the both probability that someone will interact with a hazard and the probability of those who do interact with the hazard will be hurt by it; the more probable that either of those conditions are to occur the higher the “likelihood” of an injury. The second element, severity, is a lot more straightforward. The term “severity” refers to the degree or seriousness of the injury—the more serious the injury, the higher the severity of the injury.

There are several things one should remember when assessing likelihood and severity. Firstly, both “likelihood” and “severity” are relative terms, that is, we are ranking these hazards against all other hazards that are likely to be found in our plant, so if we rate every hazard as a high-risk hazard than we really don’t have any way to prioritize the correction of those hazards. Secondly, we are ranking the MOST LIKELY outcome not a THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE outcome. Let’s say for example that there’s a hose on the floor of a infrequently used walk way. It’s possible that someone could fall, strike his or her head and be killed, but it’s a) unlikely that a person is going to be in the area, b) unlikely that even if a person is in the area that he or she will trip on the hose, and c) the most likely injury is probably not going to be life-threatening.

The key to accurate and consistent risk assessment is in standard definitions of High Risk, Medium Risk, and Low Risk.

High Risk A condition or behavior that is likely to result in an injury that is life threatening.

Medium Risk A condition or behavior that is likely to result in a recordable injury or where a less serious injury will probably occur.

Low Risk A condition or behavior that may result in an injury

Obviously these definitions are weighted toward the middle (most injuries will likely fall into the “medium risk” category but realistically that’s where we want our supervisors focusing their attentions. (If we are seeing a lot of high-risk conditions than the supervisors are not doing the job we need them to, and the low risk items—while they should not be ignored—aren’t really the things that are hurting workers.

Using this forum

Phil La Duke — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:02:55 GMT

This thread should be used to ask questions and offer advice related to Safety Inspections