Ensuring employee safety should be placed at the top of the organisational agenda, but in some cases current health and safety practices, or their implementation and compliance, fall short. To avoid such incidents, an ongoing review of the potential for serious injury and fatality (FSI) during certain tasks and the effectiveness of current safety practices can highlight likely risk areas. By Dekra Insight, USA.
Donald Martin and Alison Black’s comprehensive study ‘Preventing Serious Injuries & Fatalities: Study Reveals Precursors and Paradigms’ (2015) shows that of incidents with fatality or serious injury (FSI) potential, over 75 per cent occurred during routine operations. For example, employee Harold was tasked with removing the guarding from the auger and cleaning the chute. Despite being a routine job, while Harold’s hands were inside the auger, a teammate pushed the wrong button and the auger cycled. It was found that the auger was required to be de-energised before the guards were removed.
