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Incident
Reporting & Control Using SHERS |
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Systems Vision develops the
software that facilitates and directs Health, Safety
and Environmental improvements.
Today more than ever before all organisations must
give a high priority to health, safety and environmental
issues. Companies have a duty to the care and safety
of their employees and customers, schools have a
duty to their students, hospitals must care for
patients and visitors and everybody has a responsibility
to ensure they are acting in an environmentally
friendly manner.
This case study concentrates on the issues faced
by a heavy industrial company that employs between
150 and 175 employees and is a World Wide leader
in its field. Due to the nature of their business
they have asked to remain anonymous, so we will
refer to them as ‘Hard Work Inc’.
Hard Work Inc. had numerous safety issues relating
to both employees and the environment. Due to the
nature of their industry and the large number of
manual workers the management team have developed
a strong focus on safety.
There were two areas of concern. Firstly the number
of minor environmental incidents were resulting
in heavy penalties and in the long term a major
incident could result in possible closure by government
bodies and secondly employees were following a general
trend of claiming against the company. These claims
were expensive not only in the payouts to employees
but in the administration and legal costs.
The Environmental Officers philosophy was ...’All
incidents within the company have a risk and a consequence.
These can be viewed as two triangles with decreasing
and increasing potential, I believe that it is good
to have a number of minor incidents, these can help
reduce the potential of a serious problem. No company
is completely safe, it is not possible. By collecting
and acting on as many small incidents as possible
I believe that we are able to minimise the potential
of a major incident. Very few major incidents just
happen, when you look back you can see that there
were signs. When employees are encouraged to record
as many minor incidents as possible, then the resolution
of these will in turn prevent the more serious issues.
How often do we hear the words….It was an
accident waiting to happen. So often employees have
commented or mentioned an incident, but it has been
forgotten…. “I nearly slipped on that
new flooring”. Even this type of ”near
miss” incident needs to be recorded onto the
system. If the report shows that there were several
near misses then acting now could save a more serious
incident such as a fall resulting in an injury and
cost.’
At the bottom there are a lot or very minor incidents,
that have only a small consequence. At the top there
is only a small risk of a major incident, but the
consequence of such a major incident would be catastrophic.
Hard Work Inc. had developed a manual procedure
for recoding incidents and through training and
procedures had a work force that had fully embraced
the importance of recording incidents. They have
a dedicated Safety Officer, Regular Safety meetings
and a Bonus scheme linked to reducing accidents.
But despite their efforts they were struggling to
reduce the number of incidents that occurred on
site. All the employees were aware that ‘they
had been lucky’, in as much as they had not
had a fatality or major environmental incident.
The management team felt as if they were sitting
on a time bomb.
Systems Vision worked with Hard Work Inc. to develop
a package that could be used by all types of organisation.
The package was named SHERS (Safety, Health and
Environmental Reporting System). The Managing Director
of Systems Vision said .
"we could see that this was a company doing
all the right things, but gaining none of the right
results, they were a company desperate to improve
safety and environmental incidents relating to safety
and the environment, they were happy to dedicate
resources but were making no head way."
Why was Systems Vision and the implementation
of SHERS able to make a difference?
Analysis with Hard Work Inc.
showed that it was easy to instigate a system whereby
incidents were recorded and reported. And the analysis
of this data was able to highlight areas of concern.
Hard Work Inc. had used several systems that were
able to record and report on such data. But the
true strength of SHERS was in its ability to designate
responsibilities, follow up actions that were associated
with them and the ability to automatically communicate
these actions.
The Safety Officer said:
"the main feature that SHERS has given
us is speed of communication and allocation of exact
responsibility. Each location can be associated
with a designated responsible employee and other
employees who should be informed of any incidents.
As soon as an incident is entered onto the system
an e-mail is automatically generated and sent to
all these employees. The employee responsible for
the area will then investigate the incident and
decide why the incident occurred and what needs
to be done to ensure that it does not happen again.
For example the investigation may show that a hand
rail was loose or maybe an employee did not follow
the correct procedure. The person deemed responsible
for the area will enter his or her findings into
SHERS and can also raise Accident, Damage and Action
reports. Once the action is on the system it is
visible to all and made a priority."
The project team believe that it is the action reports
that are the real strength of the SHERS system.
They said:
"so often the need to fix a problem is
delayed by poor communication, waiting for safety
meetings or finding time to schedule in the maintenance.
SHERS facilitates the ability to communicate safety
issues and required actions immediately, no meetings
no delays The Action report automatically e-mails
the person that is to be responsible for fixing
the problem, he will receive an e-mail, everybody
knows who is responsible and what they have got
to do to fix the problem."
SHERS shows all the outstanding actions, so everybody
is aware of the status on the resolution of a problem.
Hard Work Inc. believe that this capability to quickly
communicate the required action and for all users
to monitor the progress of when actions have been
completed is the real driving force behind fixing
potential hazards. There can be no question of responsibility
or miscommunication of whether a job has been made
safe.
The safety officer can tell exactly where there
is outstanding work and who is responsible for it.
The Safety Officer uses the system to report on
the cost of damage both in terms of employee absenteeism,
legal costs and equipment replacement. He says:
"The system is a powerful tool for determining
where resources and priorities need to be focused."
SHERS gives Hard Work Inc. the information that
proves they have been pro-active in their attitude
and response to incidents.
The Managing director of Systems Vision
said...
"It would be nice
to believe that we all want to operate in pro active
manner towards safety and the environment, but whether
we wish to or not in today’s society we have
no choice. More than ever before people will take
legal action against organisations and governments
will fine companies that violate the environment."
"Organisations unwilling to make these
issues a priority will eventually pay dearly."
SHERS reflects the need for organisations not only
to provide safe, healthy and clean working conditions,
but it allows organisations to prove that they have
been pro active and take these issues seriously.
For most businesses this type of attitude will decrease
the cost of accidents, not only in the cost of time
that an employee is absent but also in the cost
of insurance claims, which are becoming a normal
course of action.
SHERS uses Internet technology allowing users to
easily enter incidents that have occurred onto the
system.
How SHERS work.
Organisations mould SHERS
to their own specific requirements, via a set of
clear and easy-to-use parameters.
Authorised users enter incidents, categorised and
defined by the parameters.
SHERS automatically sends e-mails to the relevant
personnel, immediately enabling rapid response and
ensuring early awareness. Early investigation will
always aid in fact finding.
Once on the system, incidents can be controlled,
investigated and monitored, building data that is
then automatically analysed and reported both statistically
and graphically. This will ultimately lead to a
reduction of incidents and costs relating to such
incidents.
Automatic analysis allows the determination of Risk
Management and planned safety improvements, showing
where to concentrate resources most effectively,
giving a return on investment and improvements in
safety, health and environmental issues.
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