King Abdulaziz International Airport: Industrial Hygiene Program - Coursework Example

King Abdulaziz International Airport: Industrial Hygiene Program King Abdulaziz International Airport is oneof the crowded airports in the world. It is always busy of visitors from all over the world. It has been a serious problem for the workers especially those who experienced to work there for long time to have a hearing problems. Workers start to complain to the head management of the airport to find a solution of this problem. Another problem that the airport located in the middle of the city, so it also bother the neighborhoods around it by the noise it produces. Introduction Maintenance of environment enables employees to achieve increased level of job safety that translates to better performance in assigned roles as well as reducing the chances of illnesses and injuries related to job. Employees in an airline industry are faced with many hazards ranging from hazardous material usage to dangerous noise and vibration. The everyday conditions require designing of a plan that will inform persons of the measures they are required to take in order to reduce exposure to dangerous noise and vibrations and other dangers associated with the aviation industry. To set up an effective industrial hygiene plan, certain objectives must be met. These range from responsibilities of employer and compliance with regulations to identifications of potential hazards in an airline industry to employee responsibilities. Purpose of the plan The object of this plan is to assist in maintenance of health and safety of workers in the airline industry by proposing measures that various stake -holders need to observe as part of their responsibility in reducing, and eventual elimination of hearing and vibration related problems. This program focuses on prevention and conservation. However, emphasis is on prevention since no one deserves to suffer hearing impairment. Consequently, it is necessary to employ techniques, appropriate behavior, and use of protective equipment to prevent hearing injury or vibration-related problems. The plan is designed to be inconsistency with various institutes for occupational safety and health recommendations. Scope This program applies to all activities in the airline industry and its peripherals where noise or vibration is inherent. From contraction sites, aircraft engine testing activities, mechanic and maintenance department, landing and takeoff cycles, ground operations equipment such as aircraft taxiing, ground support vehicles, aircraft supplementary power units to other indirect sources of noise and vibration such as vehicle traffic from airport access roads. Industrial Hygiene Program Budget Expenditure 2014 2015 New program development $300,000 Training $200,000 $100,000 Consulting $50,000 $40,000 Record keeping and data analysis $40,000 $40,000 Plan evaluation $30,000 $30,000 Protective equipment $400,000 $100,000 Total $1,020,000 $310,000 Workers Training Education and training are valuable for both the management and employees so that they can understand that a successful hygiene program requires a commitment, cooperation, and communication. There should be regular scheduled training sessions where employees should be directed on necessary aspects of the new program by highly qualified, articulate, and enthusiastic trainers. The trainers will be required to make the training sessions as brief, simple and highly relevant as possible. The employees should be encouraged to participate actively in the sessions by way of asking questions and open communication. Employees should also take part in their education by raising concerns and giving ideas on implementation of safety procedures and giving alternatives when possible. The instructors must ensure that all problems raised receive acceptable attention. If hygiene implementation personnel fail to provide sufficient assistance or consideration, employees should communicate their concerns to the top management. Procedures incorporated for ensuring the safety of employees cover a broad area. Written job responsibilities for key areas include maintenance of safe work environment and necessary use of safety equipment when performing assigned tasks. The noise and vibration control procedures targeted at conservation of hearing and prevention of hearing impairment and corresponding responsibilities of management, hygiene program implementers and employees are outlined below. Noise exposure monitoring All available methods should be employed to identify employees affected by noise and vibration. Management should ensure that operating procedures and resources are available for collection and evaluation of measurements of noise and vibration exposures. The results of the noise and vibration should be reported to hygiene program implementers and to the employees in a comprehensive format. The program implementer shall coordinate with employees from the affected areas in order to discover that the noise and vibration are sufficiently sampled. In addition, they shall ensure that measurements follow the procedures and policies set by the management and that the report explains the results clearly and employees are informed of the results. It is employee’s responsibility to share knowledge about environment of their area of operation. Management should strive to eliminate the sources of hazardous noise and vibration. In the case it is not possible to remove the sources of noise, substituting the loud equipment for less noisy equipment should be done in order to protect the employees from the dangerous noise. Management should also consider other possible administrative controls to reduce exposure to noise and vibration causes such as changing an employee’s schedule of work. Management should also consider providing quiet places for breaks and lunch. If administrative controls cannot control the noise and vibration, engineering controls should be installed in order to remove noise and vibration at the source or to reduce them to safer levels. Engineering control needs physical changes to the place of work, for instance, redesigning some equipment in order to eliminate noise, vibration, and construction of barriers to prevent noise and vibration from reaching the worker. It is the responsibility of the employees to communicate their complaints to management and program implementers. They must also learn to keep safe in their working environment by making full use of the available controls. Audiometric Evaluation Management must set aside enough resources and time for audiometric program to allow for accurate testing. Audiometric technicians and professional consultants should be hired to conduct the audiometric program. Communication and coordination among company’s workers and health workers are very essential. Employees need to give information about hearing problems and previous exposure to noise or problems experienced during the performance of audiometric test. The employees also need to follow up on treatment recommendations or further audio logical evaluation. If administrative and engineering controls are not easy to do, personal hearing protection devices should be used. Example of such devices is earplugs. However, this method should be the last resort since it has little effectiveness. Different employees will react differently to the use of the protection devices. Therefore, concentration should be directed to individual needs. The management has the primary responsibilities of facilitating purchase of the right protection devices, demonstrating commitment to implementation of the program, providing staffs and facilities to train workers on the appropriate and best use of hearing protection devices and enforcing the use of these devices. Program protectors should have detailed knowledge of hearing protection assessment, selection and use. They must be able to use this knowledge to enhance employees daily use skills. Implementers should encourage employees to ask questions and assist them to solve any problem that may arise. They should also carry out periodic on-site checks of condition and function of hearing protectors. They should ensure the availability of replacement devices and the parts that deteriorate with use for example earmuff cushions. Employees have a responsibility to ensure they have full information about usage of hearing protection devices. They should also make use of the devices correctly at all times and encourage coworkers to make use of these devices. They should communicate any problems to the supervisors and seek replacement whenever necessary. Management should strive to select and purchase low noise tools and machinery. Record keeping There should be an effective record keeping. An effective record keeping requires commitment and consistency of approach. All elements of noise and vibration prevention plan generate their record for example noise survey forms and medical histories. Record keeping is important because hearing and vibration related injuries because of overexposures might not apparent as other occupational events that are, noise, and vibration effects show slowly over time. Therefore, full documentation is very essential when there is a need for evaluators to combine records pertaining to an employee’s long-term exposures to vibration and noise and effectiveness of questions about prevention and measures of control. It is the responsibility of management to gain enough resources for efficient processing of records, evaluation, and storage and training implementers of the hygiene program. They should also organize for procurement of external services when necessary. Management should ensure maintenance of confidentiality of personal data, availability of hearing and vibration related problems prevention records for use by government inspectors and should ensure that each worker has access to own files. Hygiene program implementers should ensure that accurate information is recorded. Employees should make use of record keeping system by questioning about their hearing status. All components of noise and vibration prevention program should be evaluated for performance or any problem from time to time. Evaluation should be done using one of two basic approaches: first an assessment of completeness and quality of the program’s constituent and second an evaluation of noise and vibration data. Management should provide resources for evaluation of the program and be willing to solve any problems. Employees’ responsibility is to give feedback on the program’s successes and shortcomings to implementers and the management and to participate in carrying out the improvements. Control options Reduction of traffic It is important to reduce the traffic of taxis and vehicles to and from the airport. This will effectively reduce the noise levels and vibrations that are caused by the large number of vehicles to the airport. While recognizing this is the sole mans through which the individuals willing to use the airport can access it, it is important to put measures in place to find alternatives. A suggested alternative that can be used in this case is pooling of transportation to and from the airport. This will eliminate the excessive traffic that is caused by the large number of taxis and private transport means. Within this option the use of electric transportation rout can be considered as a major access means. This has the effect of transporting a large number of people with little cost to the population and the environment (Nijkamp et al 2010). As noted in the use of electricity as an energy source, the impact of this means will reduce emissions to the neighborhood to zero and provide high efficiency to travelers at an economic cost. The number of necessary staff at the airport will also significantly reduce as the drivers of public taxis will have to seek for alternative locations to pick up clients within the city. However, the cost of implementation of this means is very high and the infrastructure takes time to develop. In the face of this challenge of stringent timelines and budget, the only viable option to reduce the traffic of car is to use public means of access. This can be achieved through the use of new traffic rules that bar any private transport to and from the airport except for the dignitaries. Air traffic can also be reduced depending on the priorities of the flight to the economy of the city and the necessity to use the airport. The main disadvantage of reduction of air traffic is that it could cost a number of jobs at the airport. In this case, the adoption of this methodology does not become an effective method. Alternative energy sources The airport cannot run without power. In the event of power outage, the airport switches to generators that generate a considerable amount of vibration. To reduce the vibrations caused by these means, there are three options that are possible. First the generators can be relocated to other parts of the city and connected to the airport via cabling. This alternative has a substantial cost and would take too long to achieve. Secondly, the airport can seek alternative means of power for back up like solar power system to sustain its operations. In as much as this change over will take longer time to develop, the benefits are numerous. It eliminates all the vibration at the airport and reduces the rate of emission of carbon dioxide and fumes to a greater margin. A third option to this would be to fix silencing units to the backup power generators. This only reduces the level of vibrations to sustainable levels for the population around the airport. But for people working within the airport, the accumulative effect is still a major problem. The installation of the silencing units also comes at a considerable cost which might not fit within the budget of the exercise. It will only be adopted if the generators vibrations are a major concern all the time. However, this is not the case since the generators are occasionally used. Protective gears For the employees working in the airport, it is a basic necessity to be given a protective material that will reduce or prevent totally the effect of the noise registered from the airport. This will mitigate the problem of constant complaints that the employees have regarding hearing related issues from the airport. To make this issuance of protective materials effective, the safety officer of the airport should consider inspecting the safety material issued after a shorter duration of time to avoid complaints of faulty equipment. The office of the safety officer should also be user friendly and accessible to every employee at all times. Outsourcing maintenance Since the airport is located at the centre of the town it is important to relocate the heavy industrial operations to areas where industries are located. This will substantially reduce the impact of vibrations that are emitted from the works that for maintaining the aircrafts. The aiport can just remain with light maintenance works to manage the aircraft. When this is done, the possible effect is that the level of noise that is got from the heavy industrial works. Due to this the likelihood of the impact of noise to the neighborhood will be reduced and the strain on the employees of the airport will reduce. However, the potential damage that this is likely to cost a number of jobs in the airport. Of the methodologies selected above, the most viable method is to provide the employees with protective gear for their physical protection from the level of noise and vibrations since the employees have to be on site at the airport. To reduce the effect of excessive noise and pollution resulting from a high traffic to and from the airport, the directive to pool transport could work to reduce the noise and vibrations significantly. Evaluation and audit of the program The program can be an effective means to reduce the impact of vibrations and noise to the neighborhood. The modalities that are applied in this have been proved elsewhere to provide a sustainable way of managing environmental challenges. The challenge of green energy is an environmental challenge that has been experienced in many parts of the world. The program would be highly effective if it adopts the harnessing and use of green energy. These include the several benefits of efficiency and sustainability. However with strict time deadlines and lean budgetary stipulations the program would not achieve this sustainability goal. On the advancement of employee health evaluation and confidentiality, the program is likely to be successful. This is because the aim of this evaluation is to determine the position of the airport in managing the safety of employees working in it. It is important to note that the several risks that the employees engage in can have catastrophic repercussions if not well handled. The review of this safety measures will definitely make the program advance at some aspects which are accurately identified. Recommendations To accommodate the aspect of reduction of traffic into and from the airport which has had a significant strain on the population leaving around, the relevant government authority should draft regulations enforcing the directive to use the pooled transportation to and from the airport. The program should also consider long term solutions to the emissions and vibrations. The introduction of train transportation could be an alternative method to reduce this strain. The implementation of green energy system is another option of sustainability. To do this a comprehensive budget need to be drawn to cater for this long term development plans. It should be noted that some on the methodologies of control still lead to a considerable degradation of the environment in the long run. In the long run the methods are still not very viable as indicated in the preference. Follow up To assess the level of success of the program it is important to review the milestones that have been achieved up to some period of time after implementation. The most suitable time to investigate the impact of the program would be after six months of implementation. It is important to identify the appropriate data and variables that will be investigated. Conclusion The safety of employees at a work place is a basic requirement for any employer. When employees work in high risk locations like in this airport, it is important to device mechanisms that will ensure their protection and safety. This program provides for hygienic method to deal with the wastes of noise and vibrations that are caused by emissions from an airport. However the long term effective methodologies still have to be considered for sustainability. Reference Nijkamp, P., Vega, H. and Button K. (2010). A dictionary of transport analysis. Cheltenham : Edward Elgar publishers. Pp 297. Print. Read More