Industrial Safety is defined as a situation which is free from danger or risk. With rapid advances in industrial processes newer types of dangers to life, limb and health are being increasingly introduced. In industry exposure to risk involves either man, material or machine or any combination of these three and is reflected as unexpected or unforeseen occurrence that interrupts an activity.
The loss due to accidents is collosial in the form of pain, loss of life, earning capacity. The pain and suffering of the injured as well as the emotional loss to the victims of the fatalities and accidents causing disfigurement or disabilities are impossible to be summed up or evaluated. Accident prevention must be-taken seriously in industry either on money loss basis or on humanitarian ground.
Thinking of accident prevention as a first step we are faced with 4 basic questions:
(i) What is an accident?
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(ii) Why is it necessary to prevent accidents?
(iii) How to stop accidents?
(iv) Who can stop accidents?
What is an accident?
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A broad definition of accident is “Accident is an unplanned not necessarily injurious or damaging event which interrupts the completion of an activity, it is invariably preceded by an unsafe act or an unsafe condition or both or some combination of unsafe acts and/or unsafe conditions”.
Under the Factories Act we have the definition of a reportable accident as “All accidents resulting in the body injury to employees which incapacitate him from work for a period of 48 hours or more should be reported to the Chief Inspector of Factories within 48 hrs. of the occurrence of the incident”.
From the different definitions of an accident it can be concluded that an accident on shop floor may affect:
(i) Man,
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(ii) Material,
(iii) Machine,
(iv) Equipment,
(v) Time.
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Considering the injury due to an accident we may find that physical injuries may be:
(i) Fatality,
(ii) Major injury,
(iii) Minor injury,
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(iv) Damage to material/equipment,
(v) Near miss/no injury.
It would be interesting to note that we get ample opportunity to prevent the occurrence of a major accident, as it is only after repeated unsafe actions or repeated exposure to unsafe conditions that even ‘no injury accident’ happens.
An accident may result in:
(a) Death
(b) Permanent total disability
(c) Permanent partial disability
(d) Temporary total disability.
These are compensable accidents under the Compensation Act if the absence from duty due to the accident is more than 3 days. When we want to compare safety performance of two or more factories or sections or performance with previous years, etc., we can compare the accident rate in different ways.
They are:
(i) Accident rates per thousand workers.
(ii) Frequency rate
It is given as days lost due to accidents occurring during the period.
(iii) Severity rate
It is given as days lost due to accidents per million man hrs. worked. It gives us an idea about the severity of accidents.
Days charged for fatal accidents or resulting in permanent total disability is 6000 man days. The number of days to be charged due to partial disability are taken as percentage of total disability and days charged can be calculated as per I.S. 3786 : 1969.
Why to stop accidents?
The accidents prevention is necessary due to two aspects:
(a) Humanitarian aspect,
(b) Economic aspect.
When an accident occurs on the shop floor the maximum sufferer is the victim who has to bear the pain due to injury, the mental agony he and his family members suffer due to the accident. The supervisor’s agony is that he loses productive worker. Management has to bear compensation, medical expenses etc. Society has to bear the burden due to overall cost of accident, may be supporting the injured workers family or supporting the lame or incapacitated worker for life also.
To the management the cost comprises of direct and indirect costs. Direct cost of accidents can be computed since it is in terms of compensation paid, medical expenses on treatment.
Indirect costs are due to:
(a) Lost time of injured employee
(b) Lost time of other employees
(c) Lost time of supervisors, executives in preparing report, investigating accident, settling claims, training new employee etc.
(d) Cost of damage to material or equipment
(e) Incidental costs due to loss of production due to delays
(f) Other welfare and benefit schemes
(g) Overhead cost over injured worker.
All these indirect costs are not easily computable but on average can be taken as about 4 times the direct costs.
It is ultimately the society which suffers all the losses since all the direct and indirect costs to the management get transferred to the product cost and the society has to pay the increased cost. Further, it is the society ultimately which bears the financial burden of all the disabled employees and their dependents if we look with a broad perspective. Thus every effort should be made to prevent accidents.
How to stop accidents?
It is estimated that around 98% of the accidents are caused either by unsafe actions or unsafe mechanical or physical conditions, the break up in general is:
Unsafe acts — 75%
Unsafe conditions — 23%
Natural calamities — 2%
The basic theory of accident occurrence may be briefly stated as:
(a) Personal injury occurs only as a result of an accident.
(b) An accident occurs only as a result of an unsafe action or exposure to an unsafe mechanical or physical condition or both.
(c) Unsafe actions or unsafe mechanical or physical conditions exist only because of faults on the part of persons and
(d) Reasons for faults are:
(i) Improper attitude
(ii) Lack of knowledge or skill
(iii) Physical unsuitability and
(iv) Improper mechanical or physical environment.
The occurrence of an injury is natural culmination of a series of events which are in a sequence, i.e., one follows the other and if this series is interrupted by elimination of even one factor, the injury possibly cannot occur.
The factors in accident sequence can guide and assist in selecting the point of attack in prevention of accidents. Thus, to stop accidents our first point of attack can be stopping unsafe acts and removing unsafe mechanical or physical conditions. Unsafe acts of workers can be removed by proper supervision, instructions, training etc.
Some of the unsafe acts are:
(i) Working without authority, failure to secure or warn.
(ii) Operating at unsafe speed.
(iii) Making safety devices inoperative.
(iv) Using unsafe equipment, hands instead of equipment or using equipment unsafely.
(v) Unsafe loading, placing, mixing, combining etc.
(vi) Taking unsafe position or posters.
(vii) Working on moving or dangerous equipment.
(viii) Distracting, teasing, abusing, startling etc.
(ix) Failure to use safe dresser personal protective devices.
Unsafe Mechanical or Physical Conditions can be classified as:
(i) Inadequately guarded
(ii) Unguarded
(iii) Defective condition (rough, sharp, slippery, decayed, corroded, cracked etc.)
(iv) Unsafe design or construction
(v) Hazardous equipment, process etc. (piling, storage, aisle face, over load, exits etc.)
(vi) Inadequate or unsuitable illumination
(vii) Inadequate or improper ventilation
(viii) Unsafe dress or apparel
(ix) Unsafe method, process, planning etc.
In majority of accidents, the direct causes can be attributed to unsafe acts of persons but most effective method of prevention of accidents is by adopting engineering measures to remove the unsafe mechanical or physical conditions involved in the situations.
The well-known prevention methods can be summarised as:
(i) Engineering revision
(ii) Instruction, persuasion and appeal
(iii) Personal adjustment and
(iv) Discipline.
Engineering revision can be done at later stages also if not done earlier and methods of engineering/revision are:
1. Job Safety Analysis:
It is a procedure to make a job safe by:
(a) Identifying the hazard of potential accidents associated with each step of the job and
(b) Developing a solution for each hazard that will either eliminate or control the exposure.
The basic step in techniques of job safety analysis are:
(i) Select the job
(ii) Break the job down into steps
(iii) Identify the hazards and potential accidents
(iv) Develop ways to eliminate the hazards and prevent the potential accidents.
2. Plant Safety Inspection:
It is a method of discovering accident risk by inspection and removing the hazard after inspection. The inspections may be periodic, intermittent, continuous or special. A check list of places to be inspected may be formed.
3. Analysis of Accidents:
All accidents occurring on the shop floor should be analysed and investigated to find the cause of the accident to prevent similar accidents. Instructions for safe methods/practices should be given for different categories of employees according to work conditions. Employees should be persuaded to adopt these safe practices.
Personal adjustment for work at different environments be made e.g. an employee who commits more accidents in noisy or dusty atmosphere be transferred to other zone. Last method which can be adopted to prevent accidents due to unsafe actions is disciplinary action against employees or department supervisor due to lack of proper supervision.
Who can stop accidents?
In case of an accident on the shop floor mostly the effected person directly is the worker and in most of the cases the accident is due to some unsafe act performed by him. He is working directly under the supervisor who can stop/prevent him from doing the unsafe act. Supervisors on the other hand can also rectify or get rectified the unsafe mechanical or physical condition prevalent on the shop floor.
Thus supervisor plays a key role in accident prevention on the shop floor since he has the opportunity to prevent accidents, authority of the management and responsibility for safe production in his area. He, on the other hand, can get guidance from his superiors or safety officer to make his section most safe/free from accidents. It does not mean that supervisor is only responsible for accidents.
The objective of accident prevention can be best achieved only if top management gives its clear policy and takes interest in safety activities and gives full support to safety programmes. The management’s function of organising, planning, directing and controlling for ultimate objective of making accident free industry cannot be delegated and requires sustained efforts to ensure success of accident prevention programme.