Ego - obstacle to safe practices

Generally, safety professionals have advisory role. Any advise from company's safety professional(s) may be taken with good heart, reluctantly accepted because of pressure from top management or will be rejected vehemently. Sometimes, safety professionals will be questioned about their knowledge/experience/capability in matters of production activities and production managers try to draw a line saying that they are more capable of taking care of their work and also of safety in their work place and that they do not need any advise from safety professionals.
However, when some incident happens, safety professional of the company will become the first target of these production managers, saying that they were not sufficiently warned about the hazard, that the safety professional slept without doing his job, and so on. This will be the case even if there were some incidents in the work place.
Surprisingly, sometimes, even regulators too question safety professionals of the company instead of engaging the production managers for safety related lapses in the work place.
The ego in the minds of production managers (and down below) is an obstacle to listen to the voice of safety professional and this endangers safety of employees in the work place. They do not accept the fact that there is something (mindset to see the dangers and to learn lessons from events) missing on their part leading to occurrence of nearmisses, incidents and accidents. Any occurrence is taken as onetime affair and is not acknowledged for system deficiencies. Even efforts will be made to cover up the issues or not to bring to the notice of safety professional for investigation and thus do not want to learn lessons.
The case studies, lessons from occurrence that are freely available in the internet are taken as too theoretical or that these are not applicable to their work place. Nobody can help such managers and those working under them will only become easy prey to the hidden dangers.

Vitamin D deficiency - exposure to sun helps

In a report published in the news paper, it is stated that vitamin D deficiency can cause weak bones, obesity, chronic pains and depression. Exposure to sun helps in increase of vitamin D levels in the body which helps in quick recovery in case of fractures, and so on. Lack of vitamin D manifests itself through acute pain in the feet, shoulders, neck and joints in some individuals, as per the report. Also there is possibility of low immunity levels, diabetes, etc.
One can have sufficient vitamin D simply by exposure to sun without paying extra money.It is reported that fair skin people need about 20 min/day exposure to sun 3-4 times a week, whereas for dark skin people, it is 30-40 min exposure a day for 3-4 times a week. The ultraviolet-B radiation from sun which is intense during mid day helps to make this vitamin. One should keep moving while having sun exposure and stationary people will receive sun burns.
From the above, for working people who have to put long hours (forced/voluntary) by going to office early and coming out in the late evenings; spending the day in cubicles; not venturing out, etc are more prone to side effects of this vitamin D deficiency. Thus, though we may be in the good books of the boss for  EXTRA hard work by spending more hours in the work place, after few years when we become sick due to vitamin D deficiency, we will be sick and also fall  from the grace (of the boss).

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/diet-and-nutrition/soak-up-some-sun/article4455404.ece

The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Science : Raising the bogey of radiation from cell phone towers

An article appeared on the subject in The Hindu can be read from the link below.

The Hindu : Sci-Tech / Science : Raising the bogey of radiation

LINK

Approach to life - attitude issues

I received the following story from a friend. I thank the original author of the story for such a simple and understanding story.

The old Master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it. "How does it taste?" the Master asked. "Not good at all," spat the apprentice.

The Master chuckled and then asked the young man to take another handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and when the apprentice swirled his handful of salt into the lake, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the Master asked, "How does it taste?" "Good!" remarked the apprentice. "Do you taste the salt?" asked the Master. "No," said the young man.

The Master sat beside this troubled young man, took his hands, and said, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount we taste the 'pain' depends on the container we put it into. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things..... Stop being a glass. Become a lake!"

Fatal prank

In a prank played by a friend, a person playing cards jumped from third floor and died later. When a group of friends playing cards on the third floor of a house, suddenly a friend shouted 'police'. Fearing for the worst, a person in the group playing cards jumped from third floor, fell on insulated electrical wires and then on the ground. Though, there were no visible external injuries, the person died due to internal injuries while undergoing treatment.
Such pranks or horse play anywhere are dangerous, particularly in shop floor areas and shop floor in-charges have to warn all employees particularly those who are fresh from school/college as their awareness about workplace hazards is poor.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Man-plays-deadly-prank-on-friend/articleshow/18424161.cms

Human error-power supply failure to air traffic controller radar screen at IGI, New Delhi

In an incident involving human error, an electrician at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport, New Delhi switched off a miniature circuit breaker (MCB) while fixing an electrical fitting. This MCB as it is reported, is on the line supplying power to air traffic controller (ATC)  radar screens and screens went blank. The standby power (may be diesel generator) came into line in a few seconds and rebooting of all consoles and restoration took about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, the air traffic controllers having tough time,  guided the planes for safe landing with their experience. All departures were put on hold in between. As it is during such emergency times, Murphy's law showed its application once again. But the experienced personnel guided even a plane or two, low on fuel to land safely without panic.

From various reports in the internet about the incident, there seems to be failure of, or no uninterrupted power supply (UPS) / inverter backup directly connected to ATC radar system, as the screens went blank. That it took sometime for standby power to come into line, indicates that this is a diesel generator (DG) set power supply. This takes about 30 seconds as we experience in apartment complexes or cinema halls. Generally, people use UPS even for domestic computers, because of fear of losing data. Also, because of power cuts,  people use inverter widely at home and business houses. For critical systems, normal power supply should be through inverter/UPS so that any failure of power supply on upstream side will not affect the operations. Now-a-days, solar powered inverters are also available in the market. This should be in addition to the other backups for use. MCB/any other switch should be located on upstream side of these UPS/inverter, rather than on the downstream end so that mistakes like these will not happen. May be the authorities were confident of their backup systems.

Generally, risk assessment is same for aviation and nuclear industries. The risk assessment should be reviewed and measures should be taken to reduce risk levels. It is horrible to think of so many planes in the air without guidance for landing. 

To avoid such mistakes as in this case, there is a need for safety work permit system as practiced in all industrial facilities, for carrying out any job having impact on human lives, property and or environment. Also, that this important MCB could be switched off by mistake indicates that critical safety systems are not protected or its importance is not recognized. Authorities have to review entire safety practices, identify critical systems having impact on persons/property/environment and prepare documented procedure for implementation. Suitable caution boards/warning signs/names and contact numbers of authorities to be contacted in case of need should be displayed near these critical items. A nodal authority (safety officer) should be identified for entire ATC under  whom, permission/approval should be given for various works so that there will not be any lapse. If more than an authority is identified, there may be a situation that one will not know about permission/approval given by the other. Also, lockout/tagout (LOTO) system, if feasible needs to be put in place. 

Apart from power failure like above, it is possible that due to hardware or software glitch or even entry of insects/lizards, the screens can go blank or computer system can hang and for such a situation also, one has to plan for diverse redundant systems to avoid surprise/panic. Whenever, there is no communication between computers or computer and signal receiving/emitting towers or no change in data for a specified time (may be a second or milli second or some other duration depending upon the criticality), audio-visual alarms should be incorporated to alert the concerned personnel for immediate action.

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_radar-screens-at-igi-airport-atc-go-blank-outgoing-flights-hit_1797953

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/igia-radar-screens-go-blank-flights-disrupted/1071724/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Power-put-off-by-mistake-IGI-Airport-radars-go-dead/articleshow/18410667.cms?

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/radar-screens-go-blank-again-at-igi-airport/572005/2

Design changes - no compromise for safety

Operating facilities, in order to increase capacities, try to carry out modifications in the equipment, replace some, change process parameters, etc. This can also be done through bypassing of safety systems, to achieve quick gains. While doing all these, if the consequences on safety of the personnel, environment and property are not analyzed, then it is likely that some foolish action will lead to total closure of the plant one day. Any change proposal should undergo HAZOP/WHAT IF/ETA/FTA studies. The design should be carried out only by experienced persons and safety studies should be carried out by safety professionals. If it is done by some entry level person and is endorsed by higher ups without review, we may be inviting the disaster.

Even though the safety studies will be time consuming, it is worth doing before carrying out changes rather than repenting later. Top management should recognize this and support the safety programmes. Else, shortsightedness will shut the plant at a later date. Though, it is easy to blame safety department at that time for not doing their job, one should introspect whether the advise of safety officer was given due importance or not.

Management of change is an important activity and shall be followed by all facilities, irrespective of their size, nature of work and product.