Safety is a hot item in industry. Everyone will have heard of the slogan: ‘We work safely or we don't work at all’. It sounds fantastic, but what does it actually mean? Is it possible to describe a situation in black-and-white terms? What exactly is working safely, what is the right thing to do and where are the boundaries? In reality, every company sets its own boundaries, because working safely is always defined in a specific context.

In a workshop with one of our clients, the question arose whether the company had ever sent a contractor home because of continuous failure to work safely. As far as those present knew, this had never happened in recent years. But everybody also knew of a particular contractor to whom it should definitely have happened. A shift foreman then turned to the plant manager and asked: “If you are not willing to stand up and take action, what do you expect me to do?” The plant manager replied that he had no silver bullet that would change everything. In this kind of situation, it almost seems as if both people are stuck in a loop, waiting for the other to take action.

Taking action
Is it possible for a company to suddenly take action and move over to a higher level of safety? Yes and no.

No, because there is no silver bullet, but rather a process of change that involves a large group of people. It calls for a change of perspective on things previously considered unimportant.

Yes, because everyone has a natural feel for what working safely does and does not involve. Listening to this feeling can quickly lead to results. Yes, because there is an increasing understanding of the need for processes of growth, such as the Deming cycle and operational excellence. Increasing safety is not the opposite of making money. And yes, because if you can manage safety, you can manage anything.

When is the job done?
I said earlier, that every company has its own boundaries (with legal obligations as the minimum limit, of course). It is obvious to everyone that stricter rules will apply in a chlorine plant than in a biscuit factory. This means it must be possible to sort out all the safety issues in a biscuit factory within one day, doesn't it? There are two ‘laws of nature’ that prevent this. The first of these is that stagnation means decline. If people have no targets to work for, their work becomes automatic and awareness of safety declines. In addition, the general principle that ‘life is about growing’ also applies. Growing in terms of safety involves aiming to reduce the number of incidents and then to reduce the chance of incidents happening in the first place. It is a continuous process of intensification and development.

PBS
In India, there is now press coverage if a worker has an accident because of toxic vapors emitted from the drains. In the east, it is becoming increasingly unacceptable for body bags to be a normal item in the warehouse. In the world of construction, unsafe behavior is no longer seen as something macho. The major safety issues in industry have already been solved. The time has come to make progress on the details.

In the chemical industry, there is an increasing focus on the integrity of installations, for example in the plant breakdown structure: the division of the installation into units, systems and tags/equipment. The plant breakdown structure (PBS) and its integrity is a technically administrative process, and as safety is improved and intensified, we receive increasing numbers of questions about it. So far, I have never succeeded in having a proper discussion with a site or plant manager about the importance of effective organization, maintenance and use in all systems and parts of the PBS. Yet we are still often asked to provide support for this in our HSE systems or to make adaptations possible. The only explanation I have for this is that many more people are now concerned about safety and efficiency.

Examples of why the integrity of the PBS is necessary:

• in order to record exactly where in the installation the incidents occur and to use this information to identify patterns and to learn from it;
• in order to remove the element of danger when working (with a work permit/TRA) or using part of the installation (based on instructions or as part of the MoC process);
• in the event of alarms;
• in order to record which components are critical for safety;
• in order to ensure that everyone knows where they stand at the shift handover.

Do you and your teams already have what is needed to continue working on safety? Or would you find additional support useful?

More about the Permit to Work process

More about the MoC process

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