SafetyIMPACT Forums / SafetyIMPACT Forums / Hazard Investigation Team

Open High Risk Hazard Review

Phil La Duke — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:58:21 GMT

I'm continually looking for ways to shorten the HIT meetings while making the process itself more effective. One of thing that will accomplish both is doing some up front work on the Open High Risk Hazard report. I recently opened one such report only to find that of the 14 hazards listed only 2 were what I would truly consider to be high risk. This begs the question, "why are so many of these hazards being incorrectly reported?' The reasons are varied and all point to the need to coach the inspectors on how to do a better job rating the priority of a hazard, but also identifies coaching opportunities for both the IRPs and the HIT membership.

Coaching the Inspectors
the Inspectors need to understand high risk
* should refer to hazards where injury is almost certain and the MOST likely injury will be serious or life threatening
* should be the proximate (not necessarily root) cause of the catastrophic injury.
* the hazard is likely to cause an acute injury
or
* no long-term containment is practical or available

I've seen poor ergonomic conditions that would likely cause a carpal tunnel injury. While the first two of the above might apply the injury is not likely to be acute (it will build over time). In other cases I've seen PPE hazards as rated high. The lack of PPE is never a proximate cause of injuries (and I can't think of a circumstance where it would ever be root cause.) The best a lack of PPE will do is exacerbate another hazard.

to be continued

Phil La Duke
www.safety-impact.com

HIT members involved in monthly inspections

Bill Sagy — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:03:38 GMT

We have found that having area inspectors doing walk through inspections in other departments has helped identify hazards that sometime get overlooked by the regular inspectors in their own areas. Additionally, HIT members who do not necessarily do weekly walk through inspections spend one day per month where they take one hour and walk through different areas taking in a broad view of the five m's of manufacturing. By doing so they have identified hazards of various priorities and some that were corrected immediately.

It is a good practice to use once the area inspectors and team members understand their roles and what they are looking for in the weekly walks.

Operations Ownership

Phil La Duke — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:09:38 GMT

I've been getting creamed lately...More and more safety professionals complain that Operations refuses to own the HIT meetings. The safety professionals support their accusations by pointing to the fact that they are expected to run the HIT meeting, prepare the agenda, or record the minutes as proof, or at least indicative, of a lack of commitment on the part of Operations. I'd just like to take this opportunity to clear up this misperception.

Operations ownership refers to the ownership of SAFETY, not necessarily the safety process itself. Okay, so what does that mean? Operations ownership of safety means that everyone in operations believes that the safety of the workplace is his or her responsibility and that identifying hazards, correcting hazards where they are able, and following and enforcing---more in the form of a gentle reminder than in an authoritarian role---is part of the job he or she is paid to do.

This ownership doesn't happen overnight, nor does it happen without intervention and reinforcement from the safety professional. For this to happen the safety professional needs to let go of some of the traditional duties and focus more on coaching opportunities.

I guess I should define a couple of terms here. "Running the meeting": There's a difference between "owning" a meeting and "facilitating" a meeting. Just because an Ops leader asks the safety professional to prepare the agenda and "FACILITATING" a meeting isn't the same as running a meeting. I just don't think it's reasonable to expect an Operations leader to prepare the agenda. I think it's reasonable for the Operations leader to expect that the safety professional will prepare the agenda for his or her approval. When I am assessing Operation's ownership of a meeting I look for a couple of indicators:

1) ATTENDANCE: Do the Operations folks show up? Is it okay if they don't show up? Is there any negative consequence for showing up late? If it's okay to be late or miss a meeting than people will. In these cases, the safety professional needs to coach the

2) PARTICIPATION: How does Operations leadership react if the members aren't prepared? What happens if someone takes a phone call or fires up a laptop to work on other stuff in the meeting? Is the Ops leader interested and engaged in the topics?

3) MEETING SKILLS: Does the meeting stay on target? Does it start and finish on time?

4) AGENDA: The agenda should be sent out from the Ops leader as an attachment to the meeting notice (typically sent out by the Operations leader's admin.)

Remember, in general you get what you put up with. I think it's also worth noting that the safety professional should arrange a pre-meeting to explain the issues on the agenda and get on the same page as the Ops leader before the meeting.