The Design of Health and Safety Control Systems - Assignment Example

? The Design of Health and Safety Control Systems Words: 2025 Operation Recommendations (625 words) The first thing that has to be decided is whether it is feasible to send a human being (or human beings) down into the tunnel at all. Given the fact that the tunnel is 2.5 metres long, 2 metres wide, and 4 metres deep, it has to be assessed whether this is the proper step to be taking at all. Could the spraying be done by a robot, perhaps? These kinds of options must be considered in the first place before putting any human lives in jeopardy. It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that all the safety guidelines are met before anything being done underground. “It is an employer's duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees, and other people who might be affected by their business. Your employer must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this” (“Your Employer’s Responsibilities, 2011, pgh. 2). This includes the fact that the gas emitted from the spray makes people drowsy. If that is the case, and people are going to have to go down in the tunnel, it should be a team of people who are working on this project. There should be support in terms of physical support, and the gentlemen working on the project should have walkie-talkies. Not only that, but they should make sure to wear all appropriate and proper protective gear for this project. This would include whatever kind of suit is needed to go down into the tunnel and spray this highly toxic (and potentially flammable) sealant. Since the subterranean chamber is located in the middle of a field, the area surrounding the work area should be completely examined by the company that is going to be doing the work in order to ensure that there are no problems with the ground surrounding the area in which the work is to be completed. Additionally, the area should be assured that it is secure to work within before any work is ever started. “A check should also be carried out to ensure that there are no cellars, underground watercourses, ground conditions or made up or soft ground, etc., which could create hazards during the operation” (Construction Confederation, 2008, pp. 8F-3). This is to ensure that there will be no cave-ins during the project, which could herald an early death for the person going into the subterranean chamber. The person must definitely have radio contact of some sort with the outside world, and in addition to proper gear—obviously the ground around the work area must be checked for its stability. If the stability of the subterranean chamber or its immediate environs is in any way compromised, that chamber should be considered dangerous and unsuitable for being checked by humans. In that case, what might happen is that, if it is unsuitable for a person to complete, perhaps a machine might be able to be deployed in order to do the job. If the job is too difficult for a machine to do as well, what might be considered the best option is for the subterranean chamber to be sealed up with concrete due to the cracks being too severe to be fixed by human design. If that is the case, it is not worth putting human lives in danger in order to solve a problem that is that difficult. Not only this, but, perhaps—rather obviously—the farmer must give his permission for the work to be done since it is on his property (if there is work to be done), unless the tunnel is not part of what he owns and is part of the public domain. Either way, he will have to be notified that construction is going to have to take place outside of his property. Operation #2 Recommendations (475 words) The employee who is made to tidy up the designated are near the junior school in the suburbs of a small town should first consult a landscape architect as to how the landscaping would be carried out. “All municipalities operating a form-based code must have professional design expertise on staff in the person of an urban designer, architect or landscape architect, or else a design consultant retained to work with elected officials…” (Walters, 2007, pp. 109). Thus, the employee from the Parks and Recreation facility cannot simply start doing this work by himself. He must consult a professional in order with the guidelines cogent to the municipal’s rules. Most likely, the landscape architect will find numerous amounts of problems with the proposal on the table. The first issue is that the council depot may have to see whether it is within its rights to have an area which is two miles away to be fixed. Secondly, the grass cutter is a ride-on mower which must be towed to the site on a public highway which is used for regular public commuting. This could put people in the highway in jeopardy and their safety and health would be at risk, should the mower come off of the trailer carrying it. This, however, is not a terribly big problem, but it must be addressed. Third, with a mobile elevated work platform (MEWP), there is a danger that the heighth of the platform could pose a danger to the tree branch cutter—not to mention the fact that the highway adjacent to the site is a main commuter site. This also poses a considerable problem, or risk, if you will, to the person cutting the grass verge—because there is no kerb that separates the verge from the highway. The hedgerows being trimmed would probably be a safety hazard to trim them with a chainsaw. If the chainsaw were to fall onto the highway, that could be another potential problem. The mower may be equipped with a detachable trailer, but that doesn’t help much. For this operation to occur at monthly intervals throughout the year, would possibly simply be entirely almost too much trouble. It is recommended that this project might be scrapped, seeing as how, with potential drug dealers in the area—that human lives are at stake—and that human lives are worth too much risk to be putting them at risk doing landscaping. It really is up to the judgment of the landscape architect if any of this is really feasible. If done so, however, a minimum of work should be put into this project in order to help make the land look presentable, but no more than the minimal amount of effort needed without any special equipment that could be damaged by trees and so forth. The landscape architect should make the final decision. Operation #3 Recommendations (925 words) The fact that this cleaning agency is probably deploying multiple cleaners who are competent does not mean that business will ahve success in the future, even if it is an accredited business, within all the required guidelines. “Although membership of [a business organization’s better business Bureau] and adhering to a code of practice are helpful, they’re not a guarantee of success for your [business]” (Barrow, 2011, pp. 99). However, adhering to a standard code of practice may very well be the difference between what makes or breaks this cleaning business. First of all, since the people doing the cleaning are women, it should be ensured that they would be making the same wages that men would be making. Secondly, if anything could put their reproductive or otherwise health in jeopardy—since women are different physiologically than men—that would have to be thought about in advance before the women took on this project of bagging garbage and so forth. If the garbage is waste that is hazardous—such as from chemistry, biology, or physics labs, then the waste should be cleaned up by the appropriate hazmat (hazardous materials) company, and not by mere human women who might not have the appropriate protection that a hazmat official would have. In addition, if the area in question is in a place of social deprivation—which it is—the area should have some sort of security team in place. Enough security officers that are needed should be sufficient in order if something were to go wrong on the premises, that the women would be safe while doing their jobs if they were to be the people in charge of cleaning up the schools. If the schools do not want to get the appropriate hazmat officials to clean up the dangerous wastes, then they should tell the cleaning women to avoid cleaning those specific classrooms or areas, as the schools do not need or want a lawsuit on their hands. Also, it seems like if the bagged waste must be put into bins outside of the school, this is unreasonable to assume that women are going to take multi-stories’ worth of waste in several buildings and take it out there. That could not only be very time-consuming, but it would be very expensive assuming that the women were given an increased rate of pay per pound of garbage removed. Thusly, some jobs are not necessarily paid at the same rate for the work done. Since this cannot be ascertained, it is important to note that, if these women are indeed hired for the job, that they should be compensated handsomely for their troubles. Term time may not be appropriate in terms of how these maids or cleaning ladies will be paid. For example, if one maid works harder than another maid while doing an hourly job, but still receives the same wages, that is not fair. Therefore, the work that is done should be based on not hourly but perhaps a salaried position. Salaried positions entail more because then it is known what is expected of the workers to have been done with a salaried wage. Workers who are hourly may not feel as though they are worth as much. Salaried workers are more likely to feel like they have the confidence of a job that they are not going to lose. Therefore, salaried workers are more productive and more work can be gotten out of them at a fixed rate, knowing they are only going to accomplish so much in such a time period. For example, salaried workers know that they will have to work 40 hours per week and get the same pay regardless of how much work they complete. However, on the other side of that coin, workers can do more work and still get paid the same. Thus, while hourly work is basically paying workers to do the same job, salaried positions can have the pay scales adjusted in order to award the workers with a specific dollar amount for the work to be done which must be entailed. Salaries might also ensure that the workers have loyalty to the company. If they have loyalty to the company, then that might make workers stick around longer than just for the length of a specific project. If salaries were given to workers, it might make more economic sense because one worker might be valued over another worker. Another reason to do this is because giving hourly wages assumes someone is not a professional at what they do. Cleaning women have every right to receive the same health benefits as other employees—and just because they have been hourly hires in the past does not make their contributions to their work careers any less significant. However, society generally teaches that just because someone is on an hourly wage, that they are not as valued as a salaried worker. This is completely not true. Not only is that not true, but salaried workers are given a sense of dignity—whereas hourly workers feel as though they may only be temporary. Hourly workers are not highly valued, and it seems that this company that is hiring the workers feels that they can get away with a cheap and easy fast-fix solution to their obvious hazardous materials problem as well as have someone do the work that they know no one else will do for little or less pay. Therefore, the hiring company should take appropriate measures so it doesn’t come under fire from the government’s health and safety board. BIBLIOGRAPHY Barrow, C. (2011). Starting a business for dummies, UK edition. UK: John Wiley & Sons. Construction Confederation. (2008). House builders health & safety manual 2008. UK: Construction Industry Publishers. Walters, D.R. (2007). Designing community: charrettes, master plans and form-based codes. UK: Elsevier. Your employer’s responsibilities. (2011). [Online article]. Available: . Read More