Environmental Health unit I

BOS 3651, Total Environmental Health and Safety Management 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit I Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

5. Apply risk management principles to reduce the impact of workplace hazards. 5.1 Explain the difficulty in defining acceptable risk. 5.2 Discuss how the ALARP concept can be used in determining acceptable levels of risk.

7. Examine management tools necessary to implement effective safety management systems.

7.1 Analyze the major sections of ANSI/AIHA Z10.

Reading Assignment Introduction Chapter 1: Overview of ANSI/AIHA Z10-2012 Chapter 2: Achieving Acceptable Risk Levels: The Operational Goal

Unit Lesson Welcome! While this course will introduce you to the concepts of safety management systems, the “total” in the course title means that you will also be drawing from the knowledge gained in previous courses to complete the unit assignments and the course project. After completing the course, you should have increased confidence in applying what you have learned in your educational journey to real-word situations. What does a successful Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) program look like? What are the

characteristics that set one organization apart from another when it comes to reducing the numbers of illnesses and injuries? Perhaps your answer would include things like compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) standards, elimination of workplace hazards or quality safety training. These are all important factors, but the answer goes much deeper. You may have heard that organizations with a safety culture are the most successful, but most of us would be hard-pressed to really define a safety culture. Is it when safety is an inherent value rather than a simple priority?

Is it when management empowers employees? Is it when everyone in an organization is involved with the program? It is a very elusive concept, but one thing can be said for certain: It does not happen on its own. Organizations with successful accident prevention programs work hard to get there. One of the things these organizations seem to have in common is that they have a safety management process that guides them in their efforts. Another characteristic is that it is a never-ending process; that is, once a problem has been solved, they start over to look for other ways to prevent it from happening again. Wait, isn’t this the same type of system that organizations use to manage their business processes? Of course it is, and that is the key: Successful OSH programs are managed in much the same way as other business processes. There are at least two advantages to this. One is that the language of the system is already familiar to the non-safety folks in the organization, so they are more willing to adopt it. Two, it seems to work! If you research safety management standards, you will find that there are many available. The British National Standards Institute publishes The Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS) 18001 and

UNIT I STUDY GUIDE

Introduction to Safety

Management Systems

(Boyd, Maier, & Caton, 2008)

BOS 3651, Total Environmental Health and Safety Management 2

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British Standard (BS) 8800; the International Labor Organization (ILO) publishes ILO-OSH 2001. This course will introduce you to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the American Industrial Hygiene Association’s (AIHA) ANSI/AIHA Z10, American National Standard for Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems (Z10 for short). Why this standard as opposed to the others? Z10 was developed to include and build on many of the best management practices from the other available standards (Manuele, 2014). Even if your organization already uses one of the other standards, you will find that Z10 is compatible and can add value. The course is not designed to get you to use Z10 exclusively, but rather to help you recognize the characteristics of a good safety management system and how such a management system can be used to develop or improve an OSH program. Nearly all safety management systems contain similar elements (for example: management leadership, employee participation, hazard analysis, risk assessment, incident investigation, and audits. Even OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) has most of these elements (OSHA, n.d.). So why not just use VPP? OSHA’s VPP program was developed in the 1980s to recognize the safety efforts of high-performing organizations. It was not developed as a safety management standard, although over the years it has become a de facto standard of sorts. VPP has been criticized lately for not being effective. Organizations who have maintained VPP Star status for years are still experiencing fatalities. One of the things that sets Z10 apart from VPP and many of the published standards is its focus on continuous improvement—specifically the use of Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle throughout the standard. Later in the course, we will spend time reviewing the PDCA concepts and practice applying them. One of the pitfalls of using VPP—or any standard—is the temptation to reach the end (full compliance with the standard) and then reduce efforts. Z10 recognizes that the process is never complete and drives organizations to continuous improvement. Z10 also focuses on assessing workplace hazards in terms of risk rather than standards compliance. In an ideal world, we would be able to reduce workplace risk to zero, but the very nature of risk as an expression of probability makes this impossible. As discussed by Manuele (2014) one of the most important management tasks related to workplace safety is the defining of acceptable risk. There is no “one size fits all” definition. Each organization will have different constraints related to its own processes and finances (yes, finances play an important role in defining acceptable risk). If an organization has an effective safety management system, however, the safety culture can help the organization reach a consensus. We will be referring back to risk and risk management frequently as we learn more about Z10.

Throughout the course we will be looking deeper into the process elements of Z10 and using them to evaluate OSH programs where you work or used to work. The course project will be a report to management on the status of the safety program, with recommendations and timelines to correct deficiencies and put the organization on the path to a world-class OSH program.

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References Boyd, M. A., Maier, M. P., & Caton, J. E. (2008). Capability management [Digital image]. Retrieved from

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capability_management.jpg Manuele, F. A. (2014). Advanced safety management: Focusing on Z10 and serious injury prevention (2nd

ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Occupational Safety And Health Administration. (n.d.). OSHA voluntary protection programs (VPP). Retrieved

from http://www.osha.gov/dcsp/vpp/index.html

Suggested Reading The website below will give you some insight into injury and illness prevention programs. The website contains OSHA videos and documents that provide additional OSHA reading and content:

Occupational Safety And Health Administration. (2012). Injury and illness prevention programs. Retrieved from http://www.osha.gov/dsg/topics/safetyhealth/index.html

Learning Activities (Non-Graded) How does your organization measure up to what OSHA thinks is important in a safety management system? Access the OSHA Web site (www.osha.gov) and search for “Safety & Health Management Systems eTool”; click on the bottom section of the graphic (“Doing a Safety & Health Check Up”), read the page that comes up and then click on “Go to the On-Line Evaluation.” Complete the assessment for the four program areas, and then use the eTool to generate a report. Non-graded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information.