Having a sound work plan is a critical element of getting work accomplished as having the right tools and equipment to get the work done. This holds true for any type of work activity that you are setting out to perform. Without a plan, a lot of potential hazards may go missed or unnoticed and things are left to chance……….particularly the outcome of the work.

This week we are going to take a look at why we should have a plan and some ideas of what makes up a quality work plan.

Let’s Get Focused

Safety Guiding Principles

Twenty years ago when I was in the Navy, if you would have asked me what safety in the workplace meant, I would have told you that basically it meant not getting hurt. There were no such things as Safety offices, Safety Managers, or even Safety meetings in the fields in which I was employed. We knew we had to wear earplugs…well most of the time anyway. Work gloves were optional at best. Probably the only thing that was consistently enforced was steel toe shoes. Fast forward ten years…

I am now in my 4th year of being a Supervisor in a high end office furniture manufacturing environment. The meaning of being safe has changed a great deal to me now. Now I have to worry about other peoples’ safety as well as my own…but is it really for the right reasons? We have a very good safety record at the company where I am working. We all understand and follow the safety guidelines that have been established with very little coaching needed. We even have Safety meetings once a quarter. Most of these meeting focus around OSHA requirements and standards and stress how we have to keep up our good safety record to help keep our insurance rates down. While this is a true statement, it was also the only statement from senior management as to why it was important to be safe. At the time I was proud of the Safety record we had. Looking back I just wish the message as to why it was important was better. Fast forward another seven years…

I am now starting my first outage at a commercial nuclear power site. In big bold print across the walls, in what seems like almost every building are these Safety Guiding Principles:• All Injuries are preventable• Leadership is responsible for preventing injuries• Plan Safety into our work• We look out for ourselves and for each other

The Supervisors that I am working for start all our Pre-Job briefs talking about safety. The Project Manager starts every shift with a safety message of the day. The people I am working with are all peer checking each other on safety. Safety is the most stressed topic pretty much every day. We have a kick off meeting with the Maintenance Manager towards the end of in-processing the first week. At this meeting, his first topic is of course, Safety. He starts by telling everyone in the room that if we do not believe in the first safety guiding principle, All Injuries are Preventable, then he would like for us to please go ahead and leave. He was not rude, it was not directed to any one person. In fact it was very professional. He was simply that passionate about it. When he explained why, there was no mention of OSHA or insurance rates or INPO ratings. His answer was simple and personal. He wanted all of us to go home to our families the same way we showed up to his plant.

Let’s Get Focused

Safety Guiding Principles (continued)

Needless to say that first outage made a very big impression on me. When I first decided to head to an outage it was kind of an experiment to see if I would like it or not. By the end of that first week I was hooked and have not looked back. I have moved into some different roles over the last few years, but every one of them has one thing in common. Our safety is more important than any other aspect of our jobs. We owe it to ourselves, our families, and each other to follow those four simple guiding principles in everything we do. See you all this fall.

Al WeaverVP of Operations—BHI Energy Power Services Division

Diversity Quote

“We need diversity of thought in the world to face the new challenges.”

Tim Berners-Lee

Good Work Planning

Good work planning consist of knowing how to eliminate, control or protect each other and the environment against all types of hazards. We should do this in the following order:

Design or engineer hazards out altogether Apply engineering controls to reduce or control hazards Apply administrative controls Rely on personal protective equipment (PPE)

Notice that PPE is the last, not first resort. In planning for and addressing hazards and risk, we should not leap-frog over the first 3 levels and go straight to PPE. If we jump straight to PPE for the sake of convenience and low cost, this does not fit well with our expectation of Zero Injury and Accidents.

Positively Influence Prevention

The best place to positively influence the prevention of an accident is during the planning and set-up process. Where effective, work plans can help determine if hazards and risk are present and specify how they should be controlled.

We know that accidents themselves occur to people who work at-risk or when we are willing to accept the risks in performing work without adequate consideration for safety. Once our work process is compromised or an accident sequence begins, it is going to be difficult to stop it or control it at this point. Getting out in front of the event and considering all possibilities is what will deter and prevent accidents from happening.

No Plan = Planning to Fail

If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail and the very best you can hope for is to get through what you’re doing without anything going wrong. A plan helps to define success and establish the process or steps that you will take to get to success as safely as possible.

Particularly as it relates to desired safety performance, without a solid, effective work plan, you’re basically relinquishing total control over the outcome of the performed work strictly to chance. Luck becomes the sole reason for success.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

A plan is all of what you make of it. The “garbage in, garbage out” adage comes to mind. Specific information is critical to ensuring the appropriate information is communicated to all affected workers on a task to ensure optimum Safety. You can’t merely say, “Be Safe”, and expect affective workers to figure out the details on their own.

For one thing, they may figure it out and they may not. For communicating hazards and their controls, work plans must avoid blanket statements such as “work safely”, “ensure you use your PPE”, or “pay attention”. Communicating hazards, work plans, PPE use, and mitigating steps must be clear and understood by everyone.

Proactive Approach

All of what’s been discussed this week should ultimately lead to information for a high quality and effective Pre-Job Briefing. Planning safety into our work is a key element of the Plan—Do—Check—Act cycle. If the focus is on DO only, we have missed the boat entirely and are extremely at-risk.

Planning is our way of be proactive and being proactive means:

Acting in anticipation of events and preventing unwanted consequences or outcomes, instead of reacting to outcomes.Planning for the unexpected and then working the plan.Constantly looking for improvement opportunities.

It takes less effort and costs far less money to be proactive than it does to react to outcomes that are the result of poor or no planning!

Effective Planning for Optimal Hazard Identification & Risk Reduction

• Effective work plans must take into account a certain amount of “what if” in the consideration for the possible unexpected and ensure the plan is worked.

• Define potential hazards, levels of risk and corresponding control measures based on the work scope. JHA’s can help.

• Plan ahead. Do not take unplanned short cuts.

• Realistic Contingencies—Work that does not allow for extensive investigation or optimal planning happens all the time. Make sure you have a realistic contingencies (or a “plan B”), to keep the work moving forward according to schedule. Assuming a “perfect state” is an ill-conceived and flaw-laden approach that most certainly will haunt you before work is completed.

• Identify and take action to remove or correct hazards. Do not place yourself at risk while addressing the hazard. Mark the hazard and initiate corrective action if the hazard has to be negotiated.

• Engage safety professionals to assist you with hazard identification and control specification. Planners are not expected to become safety experts. Safety professionals are experts, so use them to support you.

• Make sure that issues and barriers to working the plan get fed back into the planning process to improve the plan the next time around. Don’t needlessly repeat the same mistakes.

What is the point of a Pre-Job Briefing?

If you recall, the point to the pre-job briefing is to raise our “Level of Awareness” to a level into the conscious mode. When fully conscious, we are able to bring into the mind’s eye that which otherwise may be missed. We are able to function at a professional level.

The challenge is staying at this level of awareness—staying Fully Conscious.

After a briefing or during a break, your mind has had the opportunity to drift down into the lower levels of “Automatic” or “Just Reacting”.

This is when the “Two Minute Rule” or “Take A Minute” tool should be used to move back into fully conscious.

Minimum questions:What are the Hazards - “What are we doing about them”What is the most likely thing to go wrong? – how are we going to prevent?

When we use these tools for the purpose for which they were designed, to raise our “Level of Awareness”, we will get a different result…EVERYTIME.

Employee crushed to death in garbage compactor

Cal/OSHA is investigating how a grocery store employee was crushed to death in a garbage compactor.

An employee of Grocery Outlet in Redwood City, CA, discovered Mendie Udo in the machine. Firefighters pronounced him dead at the scene. Udo worked as a janitor at the store.

Police say there were no signs of foul play. Cal/OSHA’s full investigation could take up to six months. However, the agency says there’s no doubt he was crushed in the machine.

Cal/OSHA says it appears Udo was leaning into the machine before the incident occurred. Udo, 43, had worked at the store for several years.

OSHA on compactors and machine guards

In 2006, OSHA issued a standard interpretation letter in response to a question it received about machine guards for trash compactors.

The question: Is an interlock required on the side door of a trash compactor, if the side access door is located 55 inches from ground level, and the door is closed and latched while the compactor is cycling?

OSHA responded that interlocks aren’t required. OSHA’s machine guarding standard describes several acceptable methods for machine guarding. It said if the door described in this situation effectively prevented employee access to points-of-operation, the door would be considered sufficient guarding.

Unfortunately, this fatality involving a trash compactor isn’t an isolated incident. Severe injuries and deaths are reported each year because of improper use of compactors.

Here are some safety steps to prevent these injuries:

• The compactor operating key should never be left in the machine when it’s not attended. Only trained employees should have the compactor keys.

• Employees should never place hands and arms in the compactor and should never climb into it. Long-handled hooks and rods should be used to clear jams. The compactor should be de-energized using lockout/tagout steps when jams need to be cleared. If something falls into the compactor that needs to be retrieved, the machine should be locked and tagged out before the item is retrieved.

• All point of operation guards should be kept in place at all times. If maintenance requires a guard to be moved or removed, they should be put back in place before operation resumes.

• Electrical control box doors should be kept closed and secured at all times.

• Never hose down the compactor when the power is on. Turn the power switch to the off position and remove the key before washing down the compactor.

• Always check the interior of the bin before the compactor is started.