Unit VI Essay

• Weight: 9% of course grade
• Grading Rubric
• Due: Tuesday, 12/17/2019 11:59 PM (CST)

Instructions

In this unit, you have learned about reducing risks through safety design. For this assignment, you will further explore that topic. Compose an essay in which you summarize the fundamentals of the safety design review process, systems safety, and prevention by design. In your essay, you should address the following issues:

• Describe the safety design review process.
• Explain the role and importance of safety in a safety management system.
• Discuss how these concepts inter-relate with the safety management systems approach.

Your essay must be a minimum of two pages in length, and it should use standard essay format with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. You must use a minimum of two scholarly sources in addition to your textbook. Any information from these sources should be cited and referenced in APA format, and your paper should be formatted in accordance with APA guidelines.

study guide,

text boosk –

Manuele, F. A. (2014). Advanced safety management: Focusing on Z10 and serious injury prevention (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VI Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to: 4. Examine the components of an effective hazard prevention and control system. 4.1 Examine the relationship between prevention through design and safety management systems. 4.2 Describe the safety design review process. 7. Examine management tools necessary to implement effective safety management systems. 7.1 Explain the role and importance of safety in a safety management system. Course/Unit Learning Outcomes Learning Activity 4.1 Unit lesson; Chapter 16; Essay 4.2 Unit lesson; Chapter 15; Essay 7.1 Unit lesson; Chapter 17; Essay Reading Assignment Chapter 15: Safety Design Reviews: Section 5.1.3 of Z10 Chapter 16: Prevention Through Design: Sections 5.1.1 to 5.1.4 of Z10 Chapter 17: A Primer on System Safety: Sections 4.0, 4.2, 5.1.1, 5.1.2, and Appendix F Unit Lesson In Unit V, we examined how a decision hierarchy can be used to reduce risk. At the top of the hierarchy is eliminating the hazard. No one will dispute that this is the most effective method of reducing risk. Why, then, is it not applied to more hazards? One reason often given is cost. For example, carbon monoxide (CO) buildup is a common hazard when gasoline-powered forklifts are operated in warehouses. An effective way to eliminate the CO hazard is to replace the gasoline forklifts with electric lifts. Electric lifts produce zero emissions; however, it is expensive to replace an entire fleet of forklifts. In addition, battery-charging stations must be constructed, and battery-powered vehicles introduce a new set of hazards like dealing with battery electrolyte. Reduced effectiveness is another common concern. Electric forklifts do not have the same lifting capacity as gasoline-powered lifts and may need to be charged more frequently. Improving warehouse ventilation is a typical engineering solution to CO buildup, but ventilation only modifies the release of the hazard. It will likely reduce risk to a tolerable level, but the hazard is still present. Sometimes, reducing the risk to workers results in a less effective product. Methylene chloride has long been the main ingredient in most paint strippers, but the chemical is a serious health hazard to workers, so new paint-stripping products that contain less harmful ingredients have been introduced. Most workers who use these new, less hazardous products will say they do not work as well, and use of them may even create new hazards. Mechanical methods are sometimes added to the stripping process and tools used can cause musculoskeletal problems due to vibration. Simply put, it is often easier and less costly to go to the middle of the hierarchy of controls when looking for ways to reduce risk. Some organizations choose to use the easiest and least costly method for reducing risk, personal protective equipment (PPE). As we learned in the previous unit, PPE should be used only when no other controls are possible or as a supplement to another higher-order control. UNIT VI STUDY GUIDE Reducing Risks Though the Design Process BOS 3651, Total Environmental Health and Safety Management 2 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Section 5.1.3 of ANSI/AIHA Z10 requires design reviews to ensure hazards and risks are addressed (Manuele, 2014). Many safety practitioners already participate in these reviews within their organizations. Unfortunately, the reviews often take place at the end of the design process. While it is possible to make an impact on safety at this stage, which is much better than finding the hazards after the project is complete, organizations may be reluctant to make changes since changes can delay the project and affect the budget. Project leaders may not see the possibilities of cost avoidance that accompany safer designs. Nonetheless, safety practitioners need to proactively identify and document design flaws that result in risks to personnel and equipment. Design reviews for safety can be time consuming, but there are numerous resources available. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards once again provide a good starting point. Ensuring that applicable standards are addressed in designs reduces the risk of injury or illness as well as the risk of OSHA fines and citations, and it keeps the costs visible to management. What about hazards and risks that are not covered by standards? How are those identified? Manuele (2014) suggests that ergonomic issues would be a good place for the safety professional to start. Much research has been done relative to ergonomics, and applying one of the many ergonomic design criteria checklists that are available can result in huge benefits. Consider, for example, a conveyor line in a poultry plant where the employer hires individuals to perform various cuts on turkeys that come down the line. Without thinking the process through up front, a short person would have to reach above the shoulders to make cuts where a tall person might have to stoop 8 to 10 hours a day making thousands of cuts. This could result in repetitive motion injuries for both individuals and the possibility of a back injury as well for the tall individual. If work stations were designed with adjustable-height standing platforms or adjustable conveyor heights at work stations, associated labor and medical costs could be reduced. Such an approach could actually be engineered into the operation before the facility even opened its doors. In the textbook, Manuele (2014) makes a strong case for a concept called prevention through design (PtD) as a preferred methodology for reducing hazards and risks. It is well-documented that the sooner hazards are identified in the design process, the more effective and less costly the controls will be. Original installation of a large ventilation system during facility construction, for instance, is much less costly than a retro-fitted system because the installation can be fluidly designed to align with the design of the building without having to work around existing walls and barriers or having to figure out solutions to existing space restrictions. Consider a situation, for instance, where the only place to install a large baghouse for a new ventilation system is on the other side of the building from the source of the metal fume emissions. This would result in a need for large fans and long lengths of ducting in order to make the ventilation system fit the existing structure. If the building was designed with the need for a baghouse in mind, however, a nearby pad for the baghouse could have easily been drawn into the building plans. Installation during facility construction can also be performed at an optimal point in the construction process. This, once again, can limit the need for working in tight corners and punching holes through existing barriers as the ventilation and ducting system can be installed before barriers are erected and when other trade workers that may need to work with the installation such as electricians are available to complete their part of the installation. There is also the benefit of not interrupting the production process in an existing facility. Retrofits often have to be completed when the facility is in operation and may interfere with the facility’s operations from time to time. Prevention through design (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 2014) BOS 3651, Total Environmental Health and Safety Management 3 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title In 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) began a PtD initiative. The intent of this initiative is to get employers to consider managing risks by getting them to an acceptable level as soon as possible in the life cycle of the product or in the workplace (NIOSH, 2014). It is important to note that NIOSH does not limit PtD to the construction of facilities but to anything in the workplace that creates risk. This would include equipment, products used, and work processes. For instance, given our forklift scenario, the decision to purchase electric forklifts in the first place instead of LP-gas powered vehicles could be considered a PtD approach to limiting CO emissions in the facility. Current research shows that 80% of companies are aware of PtD, and 77% included PtD in their operations (NIOSH, 2013). Going back to our gasoline-powered forklift example, if PtD was applied when the warehouse was being designed (or redesigned) the need for forklifts might be limited significantly by including automated handling and conveyor systems. Prevention through design is not necessarily new to the safety profession. The aerospace industry recognized early in its existence that the fly-fix-fly approach to safety was not a cost-effective way to identify design hazards. In response, the industry, led by the U.S. Air Force, adopted an identify-analyze-control methodology we now know as system safety. Manuele (2014) acknowledges that there are many definitions for system safety, but for the safety professional looking to reduce risk at the design stage, it is a way to analyze hazards and quantify the effectiveness of selected risk controls. In the aerospace and nuclear power industries, system safety analyses can be complex and are usually conducted by specially trained engineers. In less complex industries with less complex designs, system safety tools can easily be adapted and used by safety professionals. Hopefully, as you read through your unit readings, you will come to appreciate the concept of prevention through design. Considering and mitigating hazards up front can save headaches and money down the road. Indeed, there are a lot of benefits to thinking things through up front. This goes for everything from planning our summer vacations to strategic management planning performed by Fortune 100 firms. Planning to mitigate risks is also found in multiple industries. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Process Safety Management standard, for instance, requires a PtD approach in their Management of Change provisions for significant process changes in facilities that process or store large quantities of highly hazardous substances. This is because it is makes much more sense to deal with significant risks up front than to take the risk later. References Manuele, F. A. (2014). Advanced safety management: Focusing on Z10 and serious injury prevention (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health. (2014). The state of the national initiative on prevention through design (NIOSH Publication No. 2014–123). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2014-123/pdfs/2014-1… National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health. (2014). Prevention through design [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/ptd Suggested Reading In order to access the following resources, click the links below. Learn more about reducing risks through the design process in the following suggested readings: Go to the CDC Web site (www.cdc.gov), and search for “prevention through design.” Explore the many informative webpages containing information on this topic. Association for Iron & Steel Technology. (2011, January). Safety through design: A proactive safety tool. Safety First, 31-34. Retrieved from http://www.aist.org/publ