Health, Safety, and Risk Assessment in an Engineering Workshop - Essay Example

Health, Safety, and Risk Assessment in an Engineering Workshop The UK Government has various regulations and legislations as well as important codes of practice that apply in the engineering workshop. The legislations, codes of practice, and regulations enhance the safety of people working in the workshop. They all appear under the OHSAS 18001, Occupational Health and Safety Zone. 1. Health and Safety Management The law clearly assigns the biggest responsibility to the contractor. The conditions of the contract should stipulate that the contractor has the duty to manage the safety of all operations at the site. The contractor does not have legal authority not to comply with provision in the health and safety management schedule. This regulation ties the contractor to abide by all approved codes and carry out his duties as described in the health and safety legislation. Guidelines provided by codes of practice as well as industry standards (containing minimum safety requirements) act in the absence of specific legislation (Camp and Sexton 69). The contractor is obliged to follow the provisions to the later. The legislation also gives the contractor full responsibility of ensuring that the personnel in the workshop comply with provisions in the document while working on the project. It includes among other personnel subcontractors appointed by the contractor and temporary visitors as well. The legislation requires that the contractor working in the workshop submit the following documents: the safety policy document for the company, risk evaluation and method statements, and several of copies of employers’ liability insurance. 2. Risk assessment The regulation requires that before any work commences in the workshop, the contractor appoint one person with enough competence with the responsibility of coordinating evaluations. The other responsibility of the appointee is to oversee risk evaluation of all activities in the workshop involving predictable risks as well as enhancing the right control measures developed and integrated into safe systems in the workshop. The safe systems constitute the foundations for workshop health and safety regulations. The management at the workshop shall develop statements and policies of health and safety within reasonable time and communicate to every employee in time. Labels should be all over for visitors to read and understand co-ordination of hazardous activities. Risk assessment outlines all projects related to hazardous activities and creation of methods applied in handling hazards. The regulation includes among others; main Construction components universal public and third-party safety scene of site egress/access motor vehicle activities on and off site Machinery, Vehicle, and apparatus hazards at the site Pedestrian / Vehicle isolation provisional distribution of services Citing of static machines and equipment Scaffolding Ground/ Trench works risky Chemicals Clearance Services Materials for Construction Storage, application, and discarding of hazardous substances to health Noise operating at heights mining and alternative services physical Handling Use of convenient hand tools Emergency schedules among others evacuation routes Fire storage of Materials Site hoarding stained ground Lifting new components of structure The legislation also specifies that all risk assessments be reviewed and revised regularly to reflect new developments. The developments include changes in machines, methods of carrying out activities, site development, material, and equipment. The management team at the workshop should always be ready to discuss with relevant departments on matters arising in the health and safety department. 3. Protection against noise An engineering workshop is a definite source of noise. Noise has the potential to cause various health problems to people working in the workshop. The management must eliminate or minimize sources of noise in the workshop where possible. Otherwise, the management should supply earplugs to the personnel in the workshop to prevent the damaging of eardrums. It is the responsibility of contractors to offer and oversee the use of the right gadgets of hearing to their employees, visitors, and subcontractors. 4. Protection against fire The legislation requires that all contractors using the workshop must obey the rules to the requirements of Fire Safety Standards. An engineering workshop is a place likely to have fire eruptions any time. The project manager ought to discuss risk assessment as well as emergency procedures with the health and safety manager and other personnel at the workshop. The manager and other people must agree on fire precautions before any work starts in the workshop. The contractor shoulders the responsibility of ensuring that anybody in the workshop is familiar with the risk evaluation and emergency schedules. The hot work permit entails ways of extinguishing fires in the workshop and the contractor must submit this document to the Safety Manager for approval. The contractor briefs all operatives in the workshop about fire safety. 5. Hazardous Materials and Substances The contractor appoints a competent individual to undertake risk evaluation for all products used in the workshop. They must have written procedures, storage methods, guidelines for handling, as well as disposal of hazardous substances. The function of the Health and Safety Inspectorate management of Health and Safety and the procedure The health and safety inspectorate has the primary role of conducting risk assessment of health and safety in the workshop. He then must advise the managers and directors on all health, safety, and welfare issues that fosters company compliance with statutory requirements. Safety inspection is a responsibility designated to the safety manager or the person with the role of overseeing safety and healthy to manage and update safety rules, health procedures, and safety manual that ensures all departments in the workshop run along the procedures and outlined guidelines. The inspectorate must comprehend the use of safety and health at the workshop. The understanding includes comprehension of Act 1994 as well as other important legislation to the engineering workshop business. The health and safety inspector must remain updated with developments in the present legislation besides informing responsible personnel such as the Director or Manager for safety and health about the new developments. The health inspectorate must attend seminars and courses organized and facilitated by external sources to necessitate precise interpretation of legislation (Aiken 37). It facilitates execution of many factors within the workshop. The health and safety inspectorate conducts necessary assessments and reviews relevant breakups and manage related records. The inspector also proposes appropriate control measures and on benchmark of P.P.E distributed to employees in the workshop. Most importantly, the health inspectorate carries out safety and health in addition to preparing reports of all operations within the workshop. The inspectorate makes immediate contacts with the director and the manager in charge of health and safety when an emergency occurs. The inspectorate carries the sole mandate to define situations that call for immediate rectification. Furthermore, the health and safety inspectorate conducts investigations into accidents that occur in the workshop together with near-miss situations and list down findings in relevant forms. He also advises the management of the workshop on matters regarding all incidents worth reporting besides arranging for health surveillance. The health inspector makes suggestions on new methods applied in improving health, welfare, and safety to the management of the workshop. Carry out internal training and certification necessary to meet standards approved by Approved Codes of Practice, Legislation, and H.S.E guidance. Safety Audit An audit is a logical review of activities and practices in the workshop that ensures the meeting the necessary requirements. Audit is an internal revenue service procedure because originally, people associated it with accounting (Basant 193). The safety also borrows a lot of information from the accounting field to alleviate safety and health risks in the engineering workshop. The practice in a sound business institution calls for a must check in safety practices as it does in the accounting data. Safety audits are evaluations on the success of the workshop of environmental activities, the health and safety programs, and processes of safety management. They have a structured format similar to that of IRS audits and financial audits. The content covers evaluation, methodological analysis, and structure of how activities in the workshop influence health and safety. An audit includes the following aspects Administrative concepts Broadly, safety and health auditing covers administrative ideas mentioned below. While covering this section, scholars include assigned responsibility Is it a procedure or a policy at the workshop to assign staffs safety responsibilities? Does the workshop guideline provide a precise point of departure in terms of responsibility? Whom does the framework assign duties of coordination in the program that features compliance? Preparedness for Emergency Does the engineering the workshop have an emergency strategy, If yes, are the strategies tested? Do the staffs receive adequate training on procedures of handling emergency cases? Employee Acceptance of Roles, Awareness, and Participation Does the workshop run an active participation in the health and safety committee? What administrative and engineering measures exist in the workshop? Do employees have protective equipment? (Chesbrough 39) The Role that Leadership has within the Workshop Manufacturing Industry Peter Stephenson, Leadership in the workshop just like in other organizations centres on the Health and Safety manager Officer who runs the day-to-day operations. This is because all other leaders engaged in the daily activities of the company ultimately report to the Chief Executive. The back of decisions making in a workshop-manufacturing company stops with Chief Executive. Success in transformation in the workshop depends on the ability of leadership to communicate the importance of transformation, re-shaping desired changes, developing a hitherto team spirit among junior employees, as well as engaging in participatory leadership. The modern business environment does not allow application of piecemeal improvements. Companies do not have any route to success apart from undergoing performance transformations to attain and maintain a top status (Chesbrough 74). Most literature covers ways of implementing transformations without considering the role of leadership in the same. No single model explains the role of leadership in the workshop manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the precise nature of the role of the Health and Safety manager sitting at the helm of leadership depends on various things among them urgency, magnitude, and the form of transformation under implementation. Other features affecting the nature of the function of the Safety and Health manager in the workshop manufacturing industry are failures and potential of the business organization within the workshop, as well as the personality of the leader. In spite of the variations identified, researchers concur that four common important functions cut across the board and defy the differences necessary for any leadership to remain successful in the workshop. Every employee has a role to play in transformational performance. However, the role of the person sitting at the helm of leadership appears unique in many aspects as much as it shares other features with others within the leadership hierarchy. This is because the Health and Safety manager occupies the topmost part of the pyramid while other members take the cue from him downwards. If top leadership in the company gives lip service, the same will apply to the rest of leaders in the hierarchy. Leadership that fails to structure necessary culture and those fail to institute important initiatives is in the danger of losing focus. The right leadership makes sure that the right personnel take the necessary amount of time handling the most appropriate issues. Task 3 Health and Safety manager have a significant role to making sure that a balance between health initiatives in the organization and initiatives that lead to generation of profits. This targets delivering performance in present circumstances while the former develops the potential of the organization to perform well in future and remain competitive in the market. Leadership that fails to structure necessary culture and those fail to institute important initiatives is in the danger of losing focus (Brockhoff 456). The right leadership makes sure that the right personnel take the necessary amount of time handling the most appropriate issues. Leadership plays the biggest role of giving meaning to everything taking place in the workshop manufacturing company Bibliography Aiken, W., 2010, Transformational Leadership. Chicago: McGraw-Hill Publishers. Basant, R. (1996), "The effects of R&D, foreign technology purchase, and domestic and international spillovers on productivity in Indian firms", Review of Economics & Statistics, 78(2), 187-199. Brockhoff, K., 1992, "Instruments for patent data", Technovation, 12(1), 451-458. Camp, S. M. and Sexton, D. L. (1992) "Technology Transfer and Value creation: Extending the theory beyond information exchange", Technology Transfer, spring-summer.  Chesbrough, Henry (2003), "The Era of Open Innovation", Sloan Management Review Summer, 35-41. Chesbrough, Henry (2003), Open Innovation, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Read More