OPERATIONS SAFETY MANAGEMENT PLAN
General Considerations
This Operations Safety Management Plan (OSMP) will apply to all staff as well as departments within the facility. Matters concerning security will be handled by members of the department of security who will be based in the facility. The members of the security have been adequately trained to perform tasks usually handled by security. However, the members of the security work on the presumption that they will not be armed anytime they are at work and that they are not authorized to engage in police activities. In a case where there is a need for police assistance, the local law enforcement agency will be notified to provide assistance.
The overall objective of this OSMP is to ensure that the facility achieves the highest practical level of safety and security for any hazards which are likely to occur within its environs. To ensure that this is achieved, high standards of system safety shall be attained in all areas of the facility. A program will be developed and implemented to assist in identification, assessment, and control of all safety hazards. A high level of safety awareness shall be developed and retained among the employees through testing programs, on-the-job training, and screening before employment. A safety standard shall also be established for contract service providers to ensure that they are also compliant. This safety plan is also to ensure that the system safety is part of the facility’s daily operations through operational standards and procedures, equipment maintenance, inspections, record keeping, audits, quality assurance and quality control. To help establish and maintain processes for event investigation, emergency preparedness, and response, and dealing with security threats. This safety plan will also ensure that the safety issues in the organization are in compliance with all regulatory requirements. For the purpose of this safety plan, the major three sources of hazards that will be the focus of the plan include physical conditions, surrounding activities, and work technology (Mitropoulos, Abdelhamid, & Howell, 2005).
This OSMP will comply with industry standards, codes, and regulations such as work, health, and safety standards (WHS) and occupational health and safety standards (OH&S). Safety reports and documents generated by the facility shall be kept in a central location. All documents and reports shall be filed systematically for easy retrieval. The documentation and reporting shall be either in electronic form or physical records. This OSMP is not the ultimate document. It is subject to review. Amendments can be made to enhance its content. Any amendments made shall be followed by notification of everybody who need to be aware of what has been changed. Communication can be achieved by training, e-mails, verbal, or using memos.
Safety Organization
The key factor in the safety are the people who work in the safety department. The organization will recruit not only qualified people but also an adequate number of people to carry out safety operations. A staffing and manpower policy will guide in the recruitment of the people who will work in the safety department. There will be an organizational structure specifically for the safety department showing the hierarchy of staff and their position titles. The organizational structure will display some things key among them are the responsibilities of various office holders, their accountability, and also their authority in the department. When it comes to safety issues, communication is paramount. Various ways of communication will be employed. E-mails, phone calls, memos, warning signs, sirens, and other means of communication will be utilized. The most efficient form of communication will be chosen depending on the situation at hand. The organization structure also shows an idea of how information flows from the top level manager to the bottom and also how it flows from the bottom of the organization to the top. Information passed can vary. Some information from the top level management to the lower level management can be feedback over an issue, instructions, or even policy issues. On the other hand, information from the bottom can be about issues like results of an investigations or reports of incidences.
In the organization, there are occasions where other parties may be engaged in activities within the facilities of the organization. Such parties could be subcontractors invited to do some activities. Although they might have their way of managing safety issues, the organization will ensure that the subcontractor is informed about safety concerns within the facility. The subcontractor’s safety policy will be compared with that of the organization. Any discrepancies need to be addressed before the contractor commences work. Further, dedicated officers will be assigned to monitor subcontractor activities to ensure that its safety practices are consistent with the policy of the organization. For example, the subcontractor shall be required to provide its employees with personal protective equipment and also use warning signs where accidents are likely to occur. Overall, the subcontractor shall be expected to comply with industry standards and regulations on occupational health and safety at work.
Efficiency is very important in safety operations. Maintaining the required level of efficiency in safety operations require good coordination. While certain staff will be involved in the actual work, there are some who will be tasked with coordination of safety operations. These coordination’s can take place throughout all operations including responding to incidences, investigations, and drafting policies. Coordination will be carried out by people with good experience and skills. To make the staff manageable, they will be a group in work groups. Work groups will be composed of a certain number of members, and each group will have a group leader. The group leader will be responsible for affairs about his group. Group leaders will also be expected to possess team leadership skills so that they lead their groups effectively. Although there will be different groups, they will be interdependent. There will be system interfaces to ensure that the groups share information among themselves. For example, disaster response group need to share information with other groups involved with maintenance, quality assurance, and occupational safety.
Procedures
There is a need to maintain order in the safety department. There must be a defined way of doing things. The department shall devise procedures which apply to all its activities. The procedures will describe how affairs of the department are run in a systematic manner. There will be processes that need to be followed when reporting problems or making a follow-up to certain issues. There will also be a procedure that needs to be adopted when one is reporting an accident or an incident investigation. This includes methods or methodologies, staffing or participants, follow-up. Follow-up includes tracing to hazards and risks analyses, and communication channels that should be used during follow-ups. Testing and audit programs cannot be done haphazardly. There will be a procedure detailing how testing and audit programs are conducted from the start to the end. The testing and audit program shall specify the methodologies to be employed, schedule of activities, reviews and follow-up, metrics, trend analysis, and operational assumptions that should be made during hazard and risk analyses.
Procedures will consider all possible scenarios in a safety operation. Certain procedures will be required for day-to-day activities such as facility inspections, maintenance, and audit. There will also be procedures to be followed during emergency operations and contingency plans. These procedures will detail what should be done and in what sequence. Like any other department, change management is critical in a safety department. As such, there will be a procedure that needs to be followed during change processes. Changes need to be managed and controlled because systems are not static but rather dynamic processes which are ever adapting to achieve their ends and also to respond to changes within themselves as well as their environments (Leveson, 2011). This will ensure that any transitions occur smoothly and that safety is not compromised. Training of personnel in the department is crucial. This will ensure that they are updated, and they acquire relevant skills needed to handle safety issues effectively and efficiently. But there will be a procedure which will be followed when organizing training to ensure that appropriate content is chosen for the right staff. There will be a detailed procedure showing when, how, why, what, and who should attend training. Safety is mostly about making decisions. To be an effective decision maker, there must be a clear procedure showing how decision-making processes are conducted. Further, there will be a procedure that will be followed by conflict resolutions.
Schedule
During a safety operation, plans guide on the activities that will take place from the moment an incident is reported to the last minute when the operation is concluded. There are activities involved in any process. Such processes can also include investigations, maintenance, policy making, and so forth. In every process, there will be a clear plan on how activities occur in a sequence. Critical checkpoints will be marked in the plan. Milestones are also marked to show major achievements. The schedule of activities will also indicate items like start and completion dates for reviews, tasks, and reports. Within the schedule, there is a need to indicate the participants who are involved in the task to be accomplished as well as the procedures which are to be followed during the review.
Safety Information System
Safety department will gather a lot of information and generate a lot of reports. This information needs to be disseminated to various parties. This information includes hazard and risk analyses as well as hazard logs. The information gathered will be stored for easy retrieval by whoever wants to peruse them. There will be guidelines on various aspects of analyses and logs, particularly the controls, feedback procedures, and reviews. Mechanisms of tracking hazards will be put in place. Similarly, mechanisms of hazard reporting will be put in place to help in accurate and timely reporting of incidences. Every incident or accident offers lessons to be learned. For example, error management involves asset of strategies employed by workers to identify and correct errors before consequences arise (Mitropoulos, Abdelhamid, & Howell, 2005). If the strategies are successful, they are documented for use in similar situations in future. If strategies fail, they are also documented so that they cannot be used in future. Lessons learned will be documented and kept for future reference. Reports, analysis, and other documents will be safely kept in a safety data library to ensure that all documents and files are in safe custody. To guide on safekeeping of the data and other information, there will be policies guiding on how documents and files need to be safely kept in the safety data library.
Operations Hazard Analysis
Safety operations involve a lot of analysis. A fundamental principle which guide the modern investigation of incidents is to find out the underlying causes of incidents (Kwon, Yoon, & Moon, 2006). That is why the theory of causation will be recommended for use in the organization. This includes the use of accident causation management system advanced by Kwon, Yoon, and Moon (2006). Analysis not only helps in the identification of the root causes of the problems but also helps in the identification of the right approaches to addressing the problems in the safety system. To identify hazards and address safety problems, several tools can be employed.In this organization, some of the tools of analysis will include the modern approaches such as the STAMP. STAMP has been identified as a methodology which can be employed for occupational safety (Levson, 2011). This system approach departs from the traditional model in that it stresses the understanding of the impact of system design on behavior. It is more focused on changing the system more than changing the person. Other hazard and risk analysis tools will be incorporated into the operations safety analysis. Analysis of hazards and incidences will inform the solutions that are needed to come up with working mitigation of various hazards. Embedded real-time systems have been found to be very effective for the determination of safety criteria both for the society as well as the industry. However, Motus, Vingerhoeds, and Meriste (2005a) pointed out that when computer applications fail to perform satisfactorily for a given application, there is no point trying to get a more powerful processor because it will not help solve the problem. He further pointed out that powerful processors may not be good both for technical and economic reasons. The department will be picking the most suitable applications for a given situation. In certain situations, there is a need to consider software intensive systems. Software-intensive systems have been described as those systems which contain real-time and embedded systems, decision-support systems, interactive problem solvers, and proactive systems (Motus, Vingerhoeds, and Meriste, 2005b).
Evaluation and Planned Use of Feedback for System Maintenance
Keeping abreast of any changes will require that evaluations are conducted on a regular basis. The findings then form the basis for updating the plan. Once updated, the revised version is adopted. All the people in the safety department are made aware of the changes and the likely impact on the operations. The reason why the plan needs to be improved over time is to ensure that it can become a reliable and effective plan which can help in responding to a wide variety of incidences. There is a need to not only identify but also eliminate risks in the organization to acceptable levels throughout the incident lifecycle and also throughout the system. According to the ASSE (2015), a safe system is the one where risks are accepted continuously. The changes to the safety plan are supported by the reorganization principle advanced by Jackson and Ferris (2013) which states that a system which is by nature technical or organizational should be such that it is capable of changing its entire structure or architecture in the face of a threat.
Safety Control Structure Diagram
A safety control diagram will incorporate some features within the facility and the safety department. The safety control structure diagram will be just a diagram devoid of narratives. It will depict not only the work system(s) but also depict relationships and pathways among components/variables of the affected systems as well as the controls within the pathways. The safety control structure will comprise information pathways, physical flow arrows, and feedback pathways. A typical operations safety control structure for the organization is shown in Fig.1 below.
References
American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). (2015). Practicing System Safety. Retrieved from: www.asse.org
Jackson, S., & Ferris, T. L. (2013). Resilience principles for engineered systems. Systems Engineering, 16(2), 152-164.
Kwon, H., Yoon, H., & Moon, I. (2006). Industrial applications of accident causation management system. Chemical Engineering Communications, 193(8), 1024-1037.
Leveson, N.G. (2011). Engineering a Safer World: Systems Thinking Applied to Safety. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Mitropoulos, P., Abdelhamid, T. S., & Howell, G. A. (2005). Systems model of construction accident causation. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 131(7), 816-825.
Motus, L., Vingerhoeds, R. A., & Meriste, M. (2005a, March). Challenges for real-time systems engineering. Part 1: state of the art/Sardsusteemide arendustehnoloogia kitsaskohad. 1. osa: hetkeseis ja uldtrendid. In Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences: Engineering (Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 3-18). Estonian Academy Publishers.
Motus, L., Vingerhoeds, R. A., & Meriste, M. (2005, March). „Challenges for Real-Time Systems Engineering, part 2: Towards Time-aware Technology.” In Proceedings. Of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Engineering (Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 18-30).
