Health, Safety & Environmental (HSE) Management In Engineering Practice
COMPONENTS OF HSE MANAGEMENT
Health, Safety and Environmental management should be part of the engineering profession in a country for the intended purpose of
o duty of care
o economic reasons and
o legal reasons.
HSE management should therefore consider five broad phases:
* Specifications
* Design and implementation
* Installation and commissioning
* Operation and maintenance
* Changes after commissioning.
* Compliance with the standards requires four essential elements:
* Identification of safety functions required for the safe shutdown
* Assignment of a safety integrity level (SIL) for every safety function
* Use of the safety lifecycle for the engineering design and
* Verification of the SIL achieved for every safety function.
3.0 ENGINEERING CODE OF PRACTICE
The engineering code of practice takes into consideration the following:
* Public safety: Giving priority to the safety and well-being of the city and having regard to this principle in assessing obligations to the clients, employers and colleagues.
* Risk Management: Taking reasonable steps to reduce the risk of lack of lives, injuries or suffering.
* Workplace and construction site: Minimizing potential dangers mixed up in construction and manufacture of engineering products and processes.
* Public/Community well-being
* Communication
* Conflicts of interest
* Confidentiality
The privilege of practicing engineering is entrusted to those qualified and who have the duty for applying engineering skills, scientific knowledge and ingenuity for the advancement of human welfare and quality of life. Fundamental principles of conduct of engineers include truth, honesty and trustworthiness in their service to the society, honourable and ethical practice showing fairness, courtesy and good faith towards clients, colleagues among others. Engineers take societal, cultural, economic, environmental and safety aspects into consideration and strive for the efficient use of the world's resources to meet longterm human needs.
4.0 SAFE ENGINEERING DESIGNS
Safety is a concern in virtually all engineering design processes. Engineers should comprehend safety in the context of engineering design and what it means to say that a design is safe against human injuries.
Current design methods prioritize economic considerations over environmental ones. In some instances, economic considerations also serve environmental goals. For example, the minimization of materials found in a structure means resources are saved. If they're saved at the trouble of along the operating life of a product, then, economic considerations conflict with environmental interests which demand that products be made as durable as possible because of the have to minimize resource usage and waste generation in the long term.
Safety may be the antonym of risk. So, a design is safe to the extent that it reduces risk. Safe design is aimed at minimizing risk in the standard sense of this term.
A safe design may be the combination of those procedures and principles that are used by engineers to make designed objects safe against accidents resulting in human death or injuries, longterm health effects, harm to the surroundings or malfunctioning generally.
Several design strategies used to achieve safety in operations of potentially dangerous technology are:
* inherently safe design
* safety factors
* negative feedback (self-shutdown) and
* multiple independent safety barriers.
Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) may be the most common approach to assessing safety but safe designs are accustomed to reduce risks in the typical (probabilistic) sense but is inadequate. Safe design strategies are accustomed to reduce estimated probabilities of injuries or reducing uncertainties not merely risks. They're used to handle hazards and eventualities that cannot be assigned meaningful probabilities.
5.0 DESIGN PRINCIPLES IN ENGINEERING
You can find four (4) main design principles in Engineering practice.
(a) Inherently safe design:
This minimizes the inherent dangers in the process so far as possible. Potential hazards are excluded instead of enclosed or coped with. For example, dangerous substances are replaced by less dangerous ones and fire proof materials are used instead of inflammable ones.
(b) Safety Factors
Construction ought to be strong enough to resist load and disturbances exceeding those that are intended. A common way to obtain such safety reserves is to employ explicitly chosen numerical safety factors are used. If a safety factor of two (2) is utilized when building a bridge, then the bridge is calculated to resist twice the maximal load to which it'll be exposed to used.
(c) Negative feedback mechanisms
This is introduced to accomplish a self-shutdown in case of device failure or once the operator looses control. Examples are safety valves that discrete steam once the pressure is too much in a steam boiler and the dead man's hole that stops the train when the driver falls asleep. The most important safety measures in the nuclear industry would be to ensure that reactors close down automatically in critical situations.
(d) Multiple Independent Safety Barriers
Safety barriers are arranged in chains, in order that each barrier is independent of its predecessors (if the initial fails, the second reason is still intact). The initial barriers prevent accidents; the next barriers limit the results of a major accident and rescue services because the last resort.
Safety factors and multiple safety barriers cope with uncertainties and risks. But currently, Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) can be used but does not cope with uncertainties. Probabilistic calculations can support but will not supplant the Engineers' ethically responsible judgment (environment, health and safety culture).
Safety engineering principles likewise incorporate education of operators, maintenance of equipment and installations and incidence reporting are types of safety practices of general importance.
6.0 HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
The Engineering profession is likely to be the harbinger of Health, Safety & Environmental management by virtue of the complexity of the output of the profession and their impacts on the lives of the general populace. How have we carried this along inside our professional practices?
Seven (7) bad engineering practices have been identified:
* Believing that if something isn't specifically stated, either "shall do" or "shall not do" in the standards, an engineer does not need to be worried about it.
* Thinking that meeting the minimum requirements means the procedure is safe and complies with the typical.
* Ignoring the significance of good engineering practice.
* Designing systems that meet economic requirements but not safety protection requirements.
* Neglecting human factors (errors in calculations etc)
* Concentrating on capital cost rather than on lifecycle costs.
* Focusing only on the safety integrity level (SIL) and not on prevention.
Safety can be an essential ethical requirement in engineering practice. Approaches for safe design are employed not only to reduce estimated probabilities of injuries but also to cope with hazards and eventualities that can't be assigned meaningful probabilities. Designers have an ethical responsibility to make constructions that are safe for future use. Safety is concerned with avoiding certain classes of events that are morally right to avoid.
In engineering design, safety consideration always includes safety against unintended human death or injuries that occur because of the unintended use of the designed object for:
* Prevention of damage to the environment
* Prevention of longterm health effects
For example, if a bridge collapses, the engineers who designed it are held accountable.
Building designers and builders must obey construction safety in the use of Scaffolds, tool nets, tool boxes, mechanical lifts and manual lifts under safe procedures, usage of personal protective equipments (PPEs) on sites (boots/helmets), clear passages and road-ways, construction tapes to cordon off work areas etc. Most engineers have neglected this aspect, thus, playing with the lives of the generality of the populace.
What engineers do have lasting influences on safety and define our degree of Environment, Health and Safety culture.
7.0 ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS IN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
Ethical obligations are essential in order for engineers to carry out their profession. Without the obligation of confidentiality, clients cannot trust engineers with commercially sensitive information. Without these information, engineers could not do their jobs. The moral obligations of our profession can be understood as duties which are essential.
There are five (5) fundamental values essential for the ethical obligations:
* Protection of lives and safeguarding of individuals.
* Professionalism, integrity and competence
* Commitment to community/public well-being
* Sustainable management and care for the environment
* Sustaining engineering knowledge
8.0 ENGINEERING PRACTICE REQUIREMENTS
* Engineers shall hold paramount the Health, Safety and Environment/welfare of the general public in the practice of their profession.
* Engineers shall practice only in their areas or field of competence, in a careful and diligent manner and in conformance with standards, laws, codes, regulations applicable to engineering practice.
* Engineers shall examine the societal and environmental impact of their actions and projects, including the use and conservation of resources and energy to make informed recommendations and decisions..
* Engineers should declare their interests clearly.
* Engineers shall sign and take responsibility for several engineering works which they prepared or directly supervised. Engineers may sign works made by others only making use of their consent and after sufficient review and verification.
* Engineers shall become faithful agents for their employers or clients and maintain confidentiality, avoid conflicts of interest whenever possible and disclose unavoidable conflicts.
* Engineers professional concerns should be made known to the client and the results of engineering decisions or judgments.
* Engineers should reject any public works, engineering decisions or practice that endanger the HSE of the general public.
* Engineers shall invest in life-long learning, make an effort to advance the body of engineering knowledge and really should encourage other engineers to accomplish likewise.
* Engineers shall promote responsibility, commitment and ethics both in the training and practice phases of engineering. They ought to enhance society's awareness of engineer's responsibilities to the public and encourage the communication of the principles of ethical conduct among engineers.
9.0 HSE SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT
This is about the long term survival of humanity. It recognizes that decisions made today must enable both those in the present as well as folks of the foreseeable future to create effective choices about their quality of life.
Failure to identify risks to safety and the shortcoming to address or control these risks can result in massive costs, both human and economic. The multidisciplinary nature of safety engineering implies that a very broad array of professionals are actively involved with accident prevention or safety engineering.
A crucial fault endangers or few people. A catastrophic fault endangers, harms or kills a substantial amount of people. Engineer's errors or inability to incorporate the HSE management in his practice spells catastrophic.
10.0 JUST HOW FORWARD
Everyone must strengthen his or her understanding of HSE awareness by making safety important. Also, cost effective solutions to be able to gain the biggest return on investment should be developed.
Engineers take early design of a system, analyze it to find what faults may appear and then propose safety requirements in design specifications upfront and changes to existing systems to help make the system safer.
If significant safety problems are discovered late in the look process, correcting them can e very costly. This kind of error gets the potential to waste large sums of money.
* Always, take all reasonable care to ensure that your work and the results of one's work cause no unacceptable risk to safety.
* Take all reasonable steps to make your management/client and those to whom they will have a duty of care aware of the risks you identify.
https://blogfreely.net/boycoat7/how-exactly-to-communicate-workplace-safety-messages Make anyone overruling or neglecting your expert advice formally aware of the consequent risks.
* It is important for engineers to maintain a deep and broad knowledge of the countless technical and professional practice conditions that they'll inevitably encounter within their role as employees of public owners. This is achieved through appropriate education, training, experience, license, professional engineering practice and continuing professional development.
11.0 CONCLUSION
The engineering practice like the construction industry may be the agent of social and economic development, the barometer of economic activities and an extremely large employer of labour in Nigeria. It accounts for over 60% of the full total capital investment. It is the largest employer of labour (think of all of the electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical and computer jobs in industries).
Health, Safety and environment, that is concerned with life and property should be taken serious in this profession. Safety procedures are essential to prevent accidents, diseases and harmful effects on the fitness of the public most importantly arising from the actions in the market on site and its environs or off site.
Good HSE management is visible in a country through the grade of the professional ethics of the professionals, engineers inclusive and the amount of her health values and hawaii of her environment, that is, her level of cleanliness (personal hygiene and public sanitation).
It can only be developed through personal commitment, willingness and self-sacrifice due to the long and short run benefits therein. HSE management habit starts with safety consciousness. Rope Access Specialists Kensal Rise with every single one of us and really should be taken along to our professional practices.
People should notice that their health and well-being are related to the caliber of their environment and should apply thoughtful principles to try and improve the quality of their environment.
As Engineers, we have to lead others in being safety conscious at all times and refraining from doing anything that may lead to accident. We ought to apply safety measures to all or any our day to day activities and take our safety and that of others all around us as our responsibilities especially inside our practices.
Finally, as Engineers we have to pursue sustainable Health, Safety & environmental management and make it part and parcel of our engineering practice today for the continued relevance of our profession tomorrow. It really is only when that is done our professional ethics will be meaningful knowing fully well that the merchandise of our professional practices have great impact on the lives of the entire citizens of this country.
Health, Safety & Environmental management habit is therefore not merely necessary and but remains an essential ingredient of our professional ethics in engineering practice in Nigeria and elsewhere and this must be sustained always by all.