Health and Safety at Njoro Canning Factory - Case Study Example

Health and Safety at Njoro Canning Factory Supervisor Study Program Contents Introduction. 3 Planning 4 Performance 5 Performance assessment 6 Performance improvement 6 Conclusion and recommendation. 7 Bibliography: 9 Appendix A: health and safety committee members 9 Appendix B 11 Health and Safety at Njoro Canning Factory Introduction. A health and safety program is based on prevention and minimization of accidents. A country’s laws must incorporate an element of health and safety incorporated into every human work surrounding. For the program to work efficiently, it requires the corporation of key officials including the managers, supervisors and all through to the lowest caliber employees in the firm. Its presence in an organization is indicated by presence of departments and committees including health and safety department and employees orientation and training programs (Chiou, Pan, & Fosbroke, 1997. p 145-193). It requires that no personnel to be exposed to hazardous working conditions without the provision of proper clothing and assurances. An organization with proper health and safety regulations enjoys low levels of risk and a lot of money is not wasted on employee compensations. Employee cooperation and participation is necessary for the fruits of the program to be realized. The employees need to be well informed on matters pertaining to safety in workplace and the statutory requirements that applies to their job areas (Chiou, Pan, & Fosbroke, 1997. p 145-193). This paper evaluates Health and Safety criteria at Njoro Canning Factory. The Factory seats on a six hundred squire meters of land. Its head office is at Nakuru next to Egerton University in Kenya. Figure 1 shows its position on the map with reference to Nakuru Town and Mau Narok Town. It is a source of employment to four hundred people. The working condition present many risks to the workers due to the large amounts of chemical and machinery applied. The factory adheres to all laws relating to health and safety and have a working health and safety program based on coordinated efforts between the involved parties, each employee have a duty to ensure that their working environment is safe, they act and report on any issue that possess a threat to their working conditions. The health safety committee at Njoro comprise twelve members; their details can be found in Appendix A Planning The Factory have a comprehensive Health and safety system, their safety code appreciates the need to carry out risk assessment to identify and develop a safe system of work when undertaking any manual handling of the processes. Using handling aids or devices where appropriate is essential in reducing the risk of skin injuries or ill health. Planning work activities is considered important since it ensure the correct tools and/or equipment are available when and where required in order reduce the risk of workers improvising or taking short cuts which may result in hazardous manual handling of items. If any handling aids or devices are introduced the safety code demands that they be tried to determine if they have the potential to cause musculoskeletal injury or ill health from manual handling or if they introduce new health and safety risks. It also determines if the equipment is practical and under what circumstances it should be used. A risk assessment should be undertaken before any new tools or devices are used. Trials will determine if the equipment is practical and under what circumstances it should be used. Njoro Factory encourages effective communication and sharing of information within the industry and with product suppliers and specifies since these helps in minimizing the chances of the devices to cause damage. If alternative implements are available that will reduce the risk from manual handling that individuals are exposed to, then these need to be seriously considered. In order for designers, engineers, to develop an increased understanding of the health and safety risks, particularly process handling, it is recommended that time is spent on site with health and safety personnel. This may help to improve their understanding of the manual handling risks and to keep up-to-date with current work methods and any issues surrounding the procedure. A complete health and safety plan for Njoro Factory can be found in Appendix B. Performance The Department of Health and Safety do analyze monthly reports from each sector of the Factory, delivers a quality report to shareholders, employees and the community about workplace Health and Safety. The Department uses this analysis to promote better practice in the monitoring, reporting and ultimately the management of aspects of operations through the Workplace Health and Safety Strategy. This year the Department undertook an overall Factory survey to identify the state of health and safety reporting. Many employers had developed their own monitoring and reporting systems for environmental, social and economic outcomes. However, the methods of measurement and quality of information varied widely. Since then, they do ran regular checks, which incorporates other workplace indicators to measure the quality of results against the Factory’s objectives. In recent years, departmental heads have begun disclosing workplace-related indicators in their annual reports and other corporate publications. This trend has been underpinned by an increasing number of Departments reporting on safety standards as a way of demonstrating their commitment to the Factory’s safety code. This promotes best practice and enable benchmarking. Such a performance check benefits both employers and employees, as well as regulators and other stakeholders. Performance assessment The Factory measures its performance in ensuring that work conditions are safe for the workers. To do this, they bases their measurements on certain indicators, which includes: 1. Previous/last time measurement 2. Injury rate or number 3. Sick leave 4. Fatalities 5. Health and safety convictions 6. Health and safety enforcing notices or signs The check is done for every section of the Factory. Figure 1 shows the degree to which performance indicators are used in evaluating the current health and safety condition of the firm. The three most common reasons for managing health and safety are concern for the health, safety and welfare of employees, concern to provide a safe place to work, and recognition of the legal requirement to address occupational health and safety. Every fiscal year, the money allocated to the department is split into parts to facilitate health and safety initiatives. Figure 2 summarizes the initiatives and how the funds are split to ensure that the plan is achieved. Performance improvement Njoro Factory have a number of initiatives to ensure that all the safety goals are achieved. They have placed double check methods that makes reporting and response on any risk foreseen is done with maximum efficiency. Each department have been assigned a health and risk officer who does all the reporting on matters related to health and safety of the employees. Should there be any risk, the responsible personnel is required to notify the administration and is supposed to be present at all times since accidents do happen at the most unexpected time. Since the establishment of health and safety department, there number of serious risk have reduced to near zero, employees are aware of their rights when it comes to the working environment. Training have been conducted to sensitize every personnel to be responsible for his or her working environment. With assistance from the senior management, funds for the safety and risk department have been made available in time. Despite all the improvements, response to emergency is quite low among the employees with some showing no defensive response at all. Some risks still pass unreported leading to repetitions of the same. Conclusion and recommendation. In conclusion, Njoro Factory has been successful in identifying possible risk and applying reduction measures in all its operations. It is important to remember that any intervention or changes in work systems introduced into the workplace should involve the individuals performing the tasks from the outset. It should also be tried at initial stages to identify any new risk factors that may have been introduced into the work environment prior to widespread implementation (Elders & Burdorf, 2001. p 587-603). . The factory have been successful in achieving most of the health and safety objectives and is an example that stakeholders in the industry that they should work together to develop risk reduction measures. Any risk reduction program comes with many challenges, but requires stakeholders to work together in adopting a joined-up, holistic approach when setting the aims. The focus should be to fully consider health and safety issues during every aspect of the manufacturing process. Encouraging a greater awareness and understanding of health and safety issues on all levels, by all concerned, in a factory is of paramount importance (Elders & Burdorf, 2001. p 587-603). Bibliography: 1. Chiou, S., Pan, C., Fosbroke, D., (1997). Identification of risk factors associated with traumatic injury. Advances in Occupational Ergonomics and Safety II. Edited by Das, Biman and Karwowski, Waldemar, IOS Press and Ohmsha, p145-193. 2. Elders, L., Burdorf, L., (2001). Interrelations of risk factors and the working environment. Occupational Environmental Medicine, 58, 587 – 603. 3. Njoro Canning Factory Limited. Retrieved 4/28/2014 from. http://www.njorocanning.co.ke Appendix A: health and safety committee members Table 1: Courtesy of Njoro Canning Factory, Departments of Health and Safety Michael Harker - Director of Corporate Affairs Division Ian Bateman - Chairman, Head of Safety and Quality Melvin Samuel - Head of Safety Heather Sheeley - Safety Manager – CEPR Elaine Andrews - Senior Safety Advisor – Centre for Infections Colin Webb - Safety Advisor - CRCE Tim Harry - Deputy Site Director – CEPR Elaine Farmery - CHaPD Andrew Robinson - Operations Manager - ERD Brian McCloskey - Deputy Division Director - LaRS Vanessa Mayatt - Non-executive director Robert George - Laboratory Director – Centre for Infections Appendix B ACTIVITY OBJECTIVE ACTION WHEN? STATUS HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGEMENT • To develop, and communicate a Health and Safety management strategy and to ensure that policy and arrangements are uniformly implemented. Prepare management strategy document for approval. Ensure strategy is available to all staff and Managers via email and intranet. Ensure strategy is incorporated into internally and externally delivered training packages as relevant. Ensure all new and revised job descriptions include H&Sresponsibilities. Ensure individual appraisal includes H&S responsibilities. APR APR DEC SEP SEP SEP SEP Completed Completed In Centre Plans In Centre Plans In Centre Plans In Centre Plans In Centre ACTIVITY OBJECTIVE • Ensure individual personal development ACTION WHEN? Plans STATUS includes H&S competence and training needs. • Ongoing CENTRE/DIVISIONAL ACTION PLANS • Ensure Centres/Divisions can implement H&S Policy and Arrangements. Review existing arrangements against H&S Strategy and Corporate H&S Plan Review existing resources. SEP SEP NOV In Centre Plans In Centre Plans Completed HEALTH AND SAFETY POLICIES Prepare list of Policies/arrangements necessary to fully implement management of the wide range of H&S issues across the Agency. Prepare reviewed list of policies/arrangements for approval by H&S. To prioritize preparation of policies. Centres to review existing Policies to contribute best practice to corporate policy and to identify any policy needs which will not be APR APR Completed Completed In Centre Plans Table 2: Courtesy of Njoro Canning Factory, Department of Health and Safety To Nakuru Figure 1: Njoro Map, Courtesy of Google Maps To Mau Narok Figure 2: Courtesy of Njoro Canning Factory. Departments of Health and Safety Figure 3: Courtesy of Njoro Canning Factory. Departments of Health and Safety Read More