Occupational health and safety is deals with protecting the health and safety welfare of employees working in an organization. It is essential for organizations to develop programs that ensure Worker health and safety. Occupational health and safety not only covers employees but also covers members of nearby communities and members of general public who might be impacted by the workplace environment. It also covers suppliers, co-workers, employers, family members, customers and all people who will come in contact with the business.
Health and safety is an important issue and a legal consideration in every employee's working life. Due to poorly managed working environment, lives of workers and their families can be ruined by accidents and long-term illness. The organizations that proactively take measures to manage health and safety and safety of their workers well are likely to be more efficient and financially better off as accidents at workplace and ill health due to poorly managed working environment can be a major cost to an organization.
Theoretical concepts
According to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA):
A hazard is something that can cause harm if not controlled.
The outcome is the harm that results from an uncontrolled hazard.
A risk is a combination of the probability that a particular outcome will occur and the severity of the harm involved. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_safety_and_health]
In the context of Occupational Safety and Health, "harm" usually describes the "direct or indirect degradation, temporary or permanent, of the physical, mental, or social well-being of workers". An example can be manually handling heavy objects repetitively can be a hazard which could result in musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) or an acute back or joint injury
According to experts, there are three basic causes of accidents:
Chance occurrences
Unsafe conditions
Unsafe acts
It is compulsory for the organizations to take preventive measures to manage and minimize accidents and risks at work. There are also additional issues to health and safety risks at working place which include substance abuse and workplace violence. It is better for businesses to make sure that health and safety program for their employees and others is in place so that people do not become affected by their working activities. One major thing is that they believe it is essentially the right thing to do and therefore, is entrenched in the core corporate values of an organization. Another important factor is the corporate social responsibility. It is essential for the organizations on one part whereas it is better for organizations to project the image of socially responsible organization. Laws have been made to specify guidelines about safe working conditions for employees. These laws are practiced to avoid any legal complexities and to protect the goodwill of its employees.
Worker health and safety practitioners work as a coordinator between the legal system and their own organizations to ensure the effectiveness of health and safety measure at the organization. They help their organizations understand and comply with legal requirements of health and safety. Organizations have occupational health and safety officers who help to monitor health and safety measures and procedures in an organization. Their job is to identify hazards and measure health and safety risks, employ suitable safety controls in place, and assist the management by giving their recommendations on how to avoid accidents. Organizations have an obligation to provide health and safety training to the individuals so that in case of accidents or hazards, workers can help themselves and ensure safety of others too
Effective training programs can reduce health and safety risk that can result in injuries and deaths, legal liability, property damage, illnesses missed time from work, and workers' compensation claims. Another aspect of safety training program is that it can also help the trainer to keep the required OSHA-mandated safety training courses organized and up-to-date.
Employees promote proper safety procedures ate their workplace with the help of Safety training classes. These way employees self-manage the risk and hazards and learn how to cope with accidents and tough situations. Therefore, it is important that new employees must be properly trained about health and safety procedures and regulations at the time of orientation and embrace the importance of workplace safety as seasoned workers might negatively influence the new hires. A 1998 NIOSH study concluded that the role of training in developing and maintaining effective hazard control activities is a proven and successful method of intervention.
Hazard Assessment
Hazard assessment is a process in which individual hazards of the working environment are identified, recognized, assessed and controlled or eliminated from the source (location) in a reasonable and possible way. As technology, social expectation, resources and legal requirements change, hazard assessment tends to focus more closely on the source of the hazard. Thus hazard control is a dynamic program of proactive prevention.
Hazard assessment programs do not assigning or imply that there are "acceptable risks" within in the employee workplace. A hazard-based program might not eliminate all risks, but is also does not accepts "satisfactory" -- but still risky-outcomes. People who manage and calculate the risk are usually managers whereas those who are actually exposed to the risks are different groups of people for example worker.
Risk assessment
Modern Occupational safety and health regulatory authority usually demands that a risk assessment must be carried out prior to making an intervention. However, it should be noted that risk management requires risk to be managed to a level which is as low as is reasonably practical.
Risk assessment should:
Identify the hazards
Identify all the people/ environmental factors that will be affected by the hazard and calculate how will they effect
Evaluate the risk
Identify and prioritize appropriate control measures
The estimation of risk is based on the likelihood or probability of the harm that will be caused and the severity of consequences of the hazard. This can be expressed quantitatively by assigning low, medium and high likelihood and severity with integers and multiplying them to obtain a risk factor, or qualitatively as a report of the conditions and circumstances by which the harm could arise.
The risk assessment should be recorded for legal and documentations purpose and reviewed periodically whenever there is a significant change to working environment and work practice. The assessment should include such practical recommendations that will help to control the risk. Once these recommended controls are implemented to the risk affected area, the risk should be re-calculated to verify if it has been lowered to a minimum acceptable level
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Law
Occupational Health and Safety Act: The law passed in 1970 to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions and to preserve our human resource. The only employers it does not covers are self-employed persons, farms in which only immediate members of employer's family work and some places already protected by other federal agencies.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration: The agency created within the department of Labor to set safety and health standards for almost all workers.
Risk Assessment of Denim Manufacturing Unit
Crescent Bahuman Group established their textile unit in 1994. It is a fully vertical-integrated Denim manufacturing unit based in Pakistan. The unit has is vertically integrated, housing Weaving, dying, Sewing, Shipping and Laundry departments. CBL has a broad range of fabric that covers all sections in garment needs for Denim. They produce fabric ranging from 6 Oz/ yd2 ~ 16 Oz/yd2 in different colors and character options, produced under the state of the Art machinery and can cater to all the required Finishes which include Pigment coating etc. Their operational capabilities include:
Spinning Unit: The textile unit has an in-house manufacturing facility which produces over 22 mnlbs/annum of open End and ring yarns, with products which vary from non-slub to slub with different characteristics. Different Machines are involved in the Spinning process. The Blow-room is used for opening of bales of cotton for yarn manufacturing. These bales of cotton are converted to yarn after passing them through ring-frame machine and simplex machine.
Dyeing unit: The yarn produced is then dyed in the dyeing unit where CBL has a range of different shades from pure indigo, lighter to darker deep saturated tones and blend of sulphur bottoming and topping shades. Warp yarns are indigo dyed and sized with the help of two methods.
Threads from several back beams are combined to form a warp sheet and dyed and sized on the same machine.
Threads, about 350-400 in number are formed into ropes. 12-14 ropes run adjacent to each other through the continuous dyeing unit. After dyeing, the ropes are dried on drying cylinders and then collected in a can. After that, a worker's beam is prepared. Sizing is then done in the conventional manner.
Ball warping for Rope Dyeing and Direct warping for Slasher Dyeing are used in this process.
Weaving Unit: The fabric is produced on the latest Sulzur projectile and Air-Jet looms that help in making fabrics with different designs and weaves from RHT, LHT to broken Twills and herring bones. CBL follows the Shuttle less weaving system.
Shuttle less Weaving System: done by Airjet, Waterjet, Rapier, or a Projectile weaving machine. Now denim is generally woven through Shuttle less Weaving System namely, Airjet looms, rapier looms or projectile looms.
Finishing Unit: The final woven denim is taken out from the weaving machines at particular intervals and is tested on inspection machines so that any weaving fault that may have occurred can be detected. The woven Denim Fabrics then goes through various other finishing processes, such as washing, brushing, impregnation for dressing, singeing, and drying. It is then sent to stitching unit for stitching of Jeans.
Shipping: Standard packaging is done on paper tube in polythene by auto splicing and auto sealing.
Risk Assessment Process:
Step-1: Identify the Hazards:
Hazard means anything that can cause harm (e.g. Chemicals, Machinery, electricity, working on a ladder etc). People under constant threat while working at CBL are the employees of CBL who come in direct contact with the machinery and/or environmental conditions. As the manufacturing unit is fully vertical integrated, the risk to its more than 8000 employees increases, with each unit having its own set of hazards and risks. Different departments have different risks and hazards associated with the machinery and the working environment. In some areas, employees have to deal with high levels of noise or extreme heat conditions, while in other; they might be dealing with large cutters for fabric. Employees work under a constant accident prone environment and excessive training and monitoring helps reducing the risks. Below is a list of major risks identified at Crescent Bahuman Pvt. Ltd.
During the opening of cotton Bales process, particles of cotton get into nose and throat which can cause respiratory problems
In the spinning process, fluff or small particles of fiber are released in the air. These particles get into nose and throat causing breathing problems and asthma over longer exposures.
Workers work with large spinning machines such as simplex machine and ring-frame machine. If not handled properly or the worker is untrained, the worker can have a fatal accident
In the Weaving process, a lot of noise is faced by the worker near the weaving loom. If the workers are not wearing protective equipment or over long exposure, it can lead to permanent deafness or partial deafness.
Weaning looms are highly technical machines and can cause fatal accidents to the workers, if not trained properly.
Stitching unit has big cutters to cut the layers of fabrics. They can cause lethal accidents.
The process of sand-blasting, i.e. propelling fine bits of materials at high velocity to clean a surface can cause lung disease by extended inhalation of dust and other particles.
Fumes during the dyeing of material process are highly toxic and can lead to many respiratory diseases.
Fading of jeans is done by using Potassium Magnate (KMNO4). The chemical is sprayed on the jeans to give fading effect. This spray gets into the respiratory system of employees. Causing severe damage to respiratory system and leading to various forms of lung cancer.
Other than the above mentioned, there are many other threats while working in a manufacturing unit which can prove to be fatal for the employee.
Step-2: Identify who will be harmed:
Employees directly in contact with the machines or working in the hazardous process of cotton opening, spinning and dyeing are the prime victims. Others who might get affected are the employees working in the neighboring departments/ in neighboring organizations, the community where the unit is located in specific and the environment in general.
Step-3: Evaluate the risk
On the basis of the matrix, we will evaluate the risk for all the problems identified above:
Opening of bales process:
Severity: Major 3 (Respiratory Diseases)
Likelihood: Low 1
Score: 3 x 1 = 3
Spinning process Fluff:
Severity: Major 3 (Respiratory Diseases)
Likelihood: Low 1
Score: 3 x 1 = 3
Handling Spinning Machine:
Severity: Major 3
Likelihood: Medium 1
Score: 3 x 2 = 6
Weaving noise:
Severity: Major 3
Likelihood: Medium 1
Score: 3 x 2 = 6
Weaving Loom Handling:
Severity: Major 3
Likelihood: Medium 1
Score: 3 x 2 = 6
Stitching Cutters:
Severity: Major 3
Likelihood: Medium 1
Score: 3 x 2 = 6
Dyeing process
Severity: Major 3
Likelihood: Medium 1
Score: 3 x 2 = 6
Step-4: Identify and prioritize appropriate control measures
Opening of bales process: Employees should be provided with masks to cover their nose and mouths. Moreover, proper ventilation with humidity controls should be in place to suck out the particle and clean the air.
Spinning process Fluff: Same as opening process of bales, employees in the spinning unit should be made to wear masks at all times. The facility should have proper ventilation system with humidity controls.
Handling Spinning Machine: Employees should be given proper training and should be monitored and supervised until capable of handling the machine alone. The employee should be aware of all the precautions and standard operating procedures to avoid any accidents. Employees should have emergency training drills to be aware of how to tackle emergency situations
Weaving noise: Employees at CBL should wear ear plugs at all times in order to avoid any damage to hearing ability. The ear plugs should be part of the uniform.
Weaving Loom Handling: Employees should be given proper training and should be monitored and supervised until capable of handling the machine alone. The employee should be aware of all the precautions and standard operating procedures to avoid any accidents. Employees should have emergency training drills to be aware of how to tackle emergency situations
Stitching Cutters: Cutters should always be operated under supervision. First-aid kits should be installed within the reach of employees. Employees with proper training should be the only ones to operate the cutters.
Dyeing process: Masks should be made compulsory for employees in the dyeing unit. Proper ventilation and filtering plant should be in place to clean the working environment of hazardous chemicals and to save the general environment.
Fading of Jeans: Employees assigned for spraying should be wearing specially designed masks.
Other than the mentioned hazards, sever life endangering hazard include fire possibilities and electric shock possibilities for employees. These hazards are of critical regions threats that can lead to immediate death.
Health and Safety Training:
As a standard procedure, health and safety trainings are given to all employees at the time of induction and refresher courses along with close supervision is done. It is mandatory for all employees to wear masks. Ear plugs are a part of uniform for employees in Weaving unit. Employee's knowledge of operating the machine is tested frequently under supervision. All employees undergo safety drills that emphasize on precautions to take in emergency situations of fire, electric shock, theft/robbery and other hazardous situations such a bomb threat. Contact numbers for help centers are posted in all departments. Fire extinguishers and emergency exits are in place and marked.
Risk Assessment Form
RISK ASSESSMENT Sheet No: 1
Description:
Opening of bales process:
Location: Blow-room
Nature of Hazard
Health- inhaling fiber
Assessment - Assuming No Controls
Severity
Likelihood
Risk Total
(Severity * Likelihood)
Degree of Risk
3
1
3
Action required
Recommended Controls
Wearing masks
Training employees of health and safety hazards
Proper ventilation
Re-Assessment - With Controls
Severity
Likelihood
Risk Total
(Severity * Likelihood)
Degree of Risk
1
1
1
Low risk
Further Risk Reduction Required? No
Assessment carried out by: A Supervisor Signature: A Supervisor
Position: Supervisor Date:
