OHS: Hazard Audit and Control - Essay Example

OH&S - Hazard Audit and Control Prepared by Submitted to Word count Introduction A hazard can be described as a situation with potential of causing the injury or illness. The hazards in ware house are regarding the heavy load lifting, dangerous goods and damage to the property. The risk can be claimed as the likelihood of exposure to a hazard. This may be due to an injury or a disease, To avoid the above mentioned risks, the OHS can be implemented by the employers. It assures the workers the guarantee about their health and safety in the work place. The health and safety of the workers should be the responsibility of employer, government agency and the employees collectively. The collective responsibility of the employees should involve the employer and the government agencies to implement the health and safety regulations at work place. The conditions that affect the employees' health are regarding fork lifts, shelving, hoists and work benches, heavy load lifting, and heavy machinery. The precautions to avoid accidents should be taken and the long time effects on the health of the employees need to be avoided. Audit of OHS in Warehouse 1.1 Fork lifts: The tools and machinery used in the warehouse are capable of causing injury through accidents. The conveyors, forklifts, scissor lifts, stacker cranes and overhead gantry may result in falls, entrapment in moving parts, falling or objects, collapsing stacks and dislodgement in machine parts. The machinery involved in the ware house can be a danger to the health of the employee, if it is not designed to be safe, not well made, not properly guarded, not well maintained, used in different conditions than it was meant for, illegal modification and the conditions like the operator not supervising the or not able to concentrate for any reason. The occupational health and safety laws in Australia will cover the hazards that are associated with tools, equipment and machinery in the work place. Some states in the country and territories do have problem specific regulations. These are capable of minimizing the plant hazards. The employer must assure that tools and equipment are safe. If the machinery used is the old one, it may cause break down. The people or the companies who design, manufacture, sell and install the machinery have to make sure that they design safe tools and working conditions for the workers according to the Australia. The employees too need to show the responsibility according to the state or territory government laws. They should follow the operating procedures given by the employer. These procedures are generally supplied to the employees by the representative of the employer in the form of supervisor or manager. The employee should behave in ways that are safe, which are provided by employer and can avoid danger to health and safety due to machinery. The employee should report to the manager in case of detection of problems regarding the fork lifts and machinery. The company has to follow the strategies of reducing risk. Checking the plant for probability of causing an accident is necessary as it can affect the people's health. This is known as identifying the hazard. In case of fork lifts, the machinery involved should be checked by employee and super visor everyday for symptoms of causing hazards. This is possible from making out the situation about the probability of danger happening. The measures should be taken to avoid them also need to be drafted. When it was found that the fork lift is not in a position to work according to safety conditions, it should be turned off till it was repaired. Every day the supervisor should assess the machines with the employees about their working condition. The changes made to prevent any accident or health affect are known as the measures taken for controlling the risk. The regular monitoring of the methods is needed to protect the people from accidents or health problems. This will be very effective as the regular checking will expose any faults present in the methods involved. It should be a convention to turn off the lock out mechanism when it is not in good condition. It can be made sure that the managers, supervisors and employees have proper training and instructions in the use of the plant. The fork lifts and other machinery should be adequately supervised when they are in use. If any old machinery is put into use, it should be checked thoroughly for safe working conditions. 1 The company can replace machinery, for example; fork lift to ensure safety to the employees working in warehouse. An Australian company ICA developed high bay warehousing system that is capable of replacing the fork lifts cost effectively. In this case the aisle specific stacker cranes run by radio frequency technology are used to replace the pallets at any height. This can handle multiple and heavy loads. The stacker cranes can eliminate the cost of running a fork lift fleet and this minimizes the company's risk for maintaining OH&S operations for the employees regarding this area of work. This means that this method poses comparably less risk for the employees involved. This is due to the technology of reaching greater heights that tynes the fork lift. In this manner the stacker cranes will minimize the risk or hazard probability for the employees operating these cranes. It was observed by the supervisors and managers of ICA that the hazards happened with the stacker cranes are less than that of the fork lifts. (ICA, 2006) 2 1.2 Shelving in the warehouse: It is compulsory for the employer to assess the relevant work tasks. This will reveal the probability of fall hazards if any. The likeliness of fall being occurred should be estimated first. The safest way of performing the task can be identified by avoiding the risk of falling. In the case of assessing the risks regarding shelves, the necessity of the items being assessed should be known first. If they are not needed, they can be removed. It can be noted that the large and heavy items increases the risk of falling. So, when any identification of risk has been done, the unnecessary heavy and large items should be removed first. Before that the platform of the shelves should be checked for the stability and safety. The weight and size of the items in the shelves need to be taken into consideration while assessing the safety of the shelves. If the platform of the shelves is not stable, the risk will be increased as every item will have a probability of falling and can result in a safety hazard. In accessing the items of the shelves the company should provide the mobile step platform with mechanical hoist. This is used to access items that are stored in at a height in the shelves. This will avoid the carrying of loads up and down the ladder. Any load can be put on the mobile step platform and can be lifted to the height it should be stored and can be kept there. In brining them down also, the same procedure can be observed in reverse. There should be availability of chutes, hoists, fork lifts in the work place to allow the item to lift and place at a height or bring them down from a higher shelf. The carrying of the items by the person should be avoided by providing them mobile platforms and hoists. The carrying of the item on the ground also can be avoided by arranging mechanized trolleys. It is compulsory to avoid the platforms, steps, mechanical aids or ladders used in conditions that increase likelihood of slipping and falling. This can be done by preventing the persons from carrying loads while on climbing, moving down or while walking. The shelves in the chiller room, freezer or a hot environment should be more carefully accessed as there is extra probability for a hazard happening. The shelves located in the storage of substances like oil, paint, water or other chemicals should not be slippery and should be kept clean to avoid hazards. The employer should take care that the shelves located on a mezzanine cannot fall or knock of any employee. For this purpose, the time and duration of the persons working at a certain height need to be estimated. The frequency of climbing and coming down also should be noted and the precautions should be taken accordingly. The objects in the shelves should be properly packed for a secure grip.( Work safe Victoria, 2005) 3 2. Means of Control 2.1 Identifying the risk prone people: The means of control depends on identifying the risk prone employees by the company. Legally it is inevitable to identify the risk prone people by the employer. The workers in ware house work with different types of machinery. Avoiding the necessity to walk in the ware house area is capable of eliminating the hazard happening. After the identification of the hazard prone atmosphere and situations, the managers need to take steps to avoid them. This is possible when the mechanization of the warehouse is up to maximum extent. The inspections and the monitoring of the managers reveal these defects and can lead to the steps to minimize or to eliminate them. There should be separate OH&S managers in every department and a general manager to monitor them. The managers should inspect with specific objectives and this needs the routine inspection. A weekly or monthly inspection of specific tasks or processes will result in timely addressing of the problems regarding work place stress. It should be legally inevitable to inspect regarding the pending investigation of the complaint and alerts can be done every month. This is capable of avoiding the unexpected break downs of the work and happening of hazards. After avoiding the break downs and hazard happenings, the follow up of the works started can ensure removal of ware house work related stress and depression caused due to environment.. 4 3. Recommendations The management must show concern about the employees working outside the ware house buildings. They are involved in controlling the machinery regarding heavy load lifting. Though there is no problem about handling chemicals in the ware house of the firm, the precautions regarding the lifting of loads and working under slippery conditions needs to be avoided. All the processes in the ware house operations can be mechanized and this helps in avoiding lifting the loads. The number of workers needed for the work should be planned accordingly by taking into consideration the rest breaks given to the workers. The working of employees without work break is also a cause for the happening of a hazard. The temperature and humidity also should be taken into consideration, while thinking to avoid the machine related problems. This is due to the fact that the inefficient machinery produces more heat in the atmosphere. This can be avoided by making the working of the machinery smooth and adopting sophisticated technology. There is a probability that some of the machinery can work in certain temperature range only. Regarding the working benches in warehouse the height of them should be made comfortable to the workers to ensure safety while working. If the benches are not at reasonable height, there is a probability of the items to fall down while working and that may cause injury to the workers. The probability of the hazard happening in a company that is complying with OH&S up to the mark can be as follows. Probability Consequence Frequent Probable Occasional Remote Catastrophic Low Low Low Low Fatal Low Low LOW Low Critical Low Low Low Low Marginal Low Low Low High Negligible High Low Low Low Regarding the clothes worn by the employees, they may impact the health of the employees in different conditions of temperature. So the company should supply uniform for the employees that can avoid negative effects due to temperature. The storage processes in the ware house can be mechanized and this should avoid the extreme cold and heat conditions for the employees. A separate department should be created in the company to look after the OH&S issues. There should be a general manager who looks after the OH&S issues and each department must have an employee who give information about OH&S issues and will report to the OH&S department. This is capable of making the monitoring of OH&S issues in time and accurately. 5 References 1.Learner's guide, 2007, Ensure a safe work place 2. Recommendations of the Governor, 2002, Statewide Safety and Loss Control Committee, ,electronic, 29-5-07, http://adm.idaho.gov/insurance/risk/Safety_and_Loss_Model_2002.pdf 3. ICA, 2006, industrial conveying in Australia, industry search, ,electronic, 31-5-07, http://www.industrysearch.com.au/News/Warehouse_stacker_technology_replaces_conveyors-22861 4. Australian Government, 2007, What's a problem, Australian Government, ,electronic, 31-5-07, http://www.ascc.gov.au/ascc/healthsafety/hazardssafetyissues/plantequipment/managingrisk/managingplantandequipmenthazardsinformationsheet.htm 5. Work safe victoria, 2005, Prevention of falls accessing shelves, Work safe Victoria, , electronic, 31-5-07, http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/resources/file/ebcd95435dc4a69/prevention_falls_shelves.pdf Read More