Safety in conveyer belt factory
Recently, I visited one conveyer belt factory by the request of HR manager in order to give suggestions on accident control. Here is my suggestion:
Date of factory visit: 11th June, 2009
1. Cutter gripper: Gripper is slippery. It should be non smooth;
2. Use of cutter: Proper attention should be taken care of to handle the cutter specially during rushing from one worksite to other; Cutter should pay attention to the cutting point.
3. Uneven floor: Some alert sign like white line can be drawn on the uneven area in order to draw other’s attention specially during rushing hours;
4. Signal: Based on risk factor analysis, accident sites should be identified. Some blinking red light may be arranged at the probable accident site if there is no other possibility to remove probable cause of accident.
5. Machine height: Machine height should be higher than man’s height. If it is not possible, keep alert message there;
6. Safety notes: Safety issues related to each job of the worker should be properly identified and safety notes with picture should be prepared. Concerned worker should carry those safety notes. Safety vigilance officers should help workers to comprehend the safety notes
7. Mental fatigue: Mental fatigue due to exposure of toxic chemicals, high noise, routinized work, over time etc. may cause accident. Change in the schedule or job rotation may reduce mental fatigue;
8. Maintenance problem: Except schedule maintenance, no attention is paid to regular maintenance of equipment and machine especially for operation. Some intrinsic motivational strategy should be taken to develop daily cleaning habit among the workers;
9. Non-use of safety measures: Very few workers use helmet, gloves and shoes. This may cause burn, eye or feet injury. Besides, workers working with chemicals do not use air mask. Again this may weaken their health and signal detection capacity. This should be under the vigilance in both day and night shift. Outsiders like contractors and temporary staffs should use safety measures otherwise faulty observational learning will be taken place in the mind of permanent workers;
10. Ergonomic audit : Machine wise ergonomic audit should be done to control machine related accident and to suggest specific posture to be followed by the machine operators. The audit should cover human engineering aspect besides product and process engineering;
11. Safety culture: Involvement of family members of the workers for safety drama, drawing, and music will help to develop safety mind set in the workers. For this reason, specific safety behavior at each machine site or at work site should be identified properly. And they will be used in the above performing art therapies.
12. Safety operations: Workers are not aware of specific safety procedures to be followed in each operation at the site. They use their experiences. This should be properly monitored.
13. Safety circle: Development of safety circle in each site will develop participation mood in the workers. In the circle, through fish-bone diagram, workers will identify the root cause of accident and specific safety prevention measures through group discussion. Members of the safety circle should be open minded to control accident. For example, they will find out specific types of house keeping in the work site.
14. House keeping: Currently, attention is paid to dusting. But this is not sufficient. Coals, iron rods, steel cords, iron beams are scattered on the passageways. Passageways should be cleaned.
15. Assessment center: Different psychological factors cause stress. Therefore individual characteristics (abilities, accident proneness, personality characteristics, quality of working life, organizational commitment) of each worker should be thoroughly assessed by the specialists in assessment centers. Later on they will be properly regressed to the outcome variables. Another function of assessment center will be to study safety knowledge and safety attitudes or values. Instead of mere percentage or descriptive statistics, it is worthwhile to use inferential statistics for strategic intervention.
Date of factory visit: 11th June, 2009
1. Cutter gripper: Gripper is slippery. It should be non smooth;
2. Use of cutter: Proper attention should be taken care of to handle the cutter specially during rushing from one worksite to other; Cutter should pay attention to the cutting point.
3. Uneven floor: Some alert sign like white line can be drawn on the uneven area in order to draw other’s attention specially during rushing hours;
4. Signal: Based on risk factor analysis, accident sites should be identified. Some blinking red light may be arranged at the probable accident site if there is no other possibility to remove probable cause of accident.
5. Machine height: Machine height should be higher than man’s height. If it is not possible, keep alert message there;
6. Safety notes: Safety issues related to each job of the worker should be properly identified and safety notes with picture should be prepared. Concerned worker should carry those safety notes. Safety vigilance officers should help workers to comprehend the safety notes
7. Mental fatigue: Mental fatigue due to exposure of toxic chemicals, high noise, routinized work, over time etc. may cause accident. Change in the schedule or job rotation may reduce mental fatigue;
8. Maintenance problem: Except schedule maintenance, no attention is paid to regular maintenance of equipment and machine especially for operation. Some intrinsic motivational strategy should be taken to develop daily cleaning habit among the workers;
9. Non-use of safety measures: Very few workers use helmet, gloves and shoes. This may cause burn, eye or feet injury. Besides, workers working with chemicals do not use air mask. Again this may weaken their health and signal detection capacity. This should be under the vigilance in both day and night shift. Outsiders like contractors and temporary staffs should use safety measures otherwise faulty observational learning will be taken place in the mind of permanent workers;
10. Ergonomic audit : Machine wise ergonomic audit should be done to control machine related accident and to suggest specific posture to be followed by the machine operators. The audit should cover human engineering aspect besides product and process engineering;
11. Safety culture: Involvement of family members of the workers for safety drama, drawing, and music will help to develop safety mind set in the workers. For this reason, specific safety behavior at each machine site or at work site should be identified properly. And they will be used in the above performing art therapies.
12. Safety operations: Workers are not aware of specific safety procedures to be followed in each operation at the site. They use their experiences. This should be properly monitored.
13. Safety circle: Development of safety circle in each site will develop participation mood in the workers. In the circle, through fish-bone diagram, workers will identify the root cause of accident and specific safety prevention measures through group discussion. Members of the safety circle should be open minded to control accident. For example, they will find out specific types of house keeping in the work site.
14. House keeping: Currently, attention is paid to dusting. But this is not sufficient. Coals, iron rods, steel cords, iron beams are scattered on the passageways. Passageways should be cleaned.
15. Assessment center: Different psychological factors cause stress. Therefore individual characteristics (abilities, accident proneness, personality characteristics, quality of working life, organizational commitment) of each worker should be thoroughly assessed by the specialists in assessment centers. Later on they will be properly regressed to the outcome variables. Another function of assessment center will be to study safety knowledge and safety attitudes or values. Instead of mere percentage or descriptive statistics, it is worthwhile to use inferential statistics for strategic intervention.
Comments