Principles don’t work when safety is not a value among the people they are meant to guide. In the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People“, Stephen R. Covey discusses the difference between principles and values. He does so to show the difference in those “highly effective people”. I want to use the same […]
My team can bring a lot of RISK REDUCTION to your HIGH RISK activities (i.e., SIF) by simply working with you on your: 1) Control of Hazardous Energy (i.e., LOTO) 2) Permit-Required Confined Space Entries, and 3) Electrical Safety Related Work Practices (ESRWP) No fanfare or shiny objects. Just hardcore safety, exceeding OSHA minimums, and
I was taught to do this by ALL my former bosses. My goal was to bring everyone up to my safety expectations while recognizing that “building” means consensus. The idea is that when I had to compromise my expectations, I was ALWAYS still on the right side of the line, pulling others toward me, even
All these social media posts decrying the traditional Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) tools are so ridiculous! Most of the people posting such garbage are either academics or marketing people trying to sell the next “silver bullet” in OSH. Most importantly, very few have hands-on experience in developing, implementing, and managing safety and health on
I wrote an article last week about how many people did not get the memo about the ladder changes. I’ve done three startups in the past four years, and each one still had cages on its hundreds of fixed ladders. And they were not happy to be told that those were not the correct design.
Today, OSHA updated its National Emphasis Program, which protects workers from outdoor and indoor heat-related hazards, to direct agency resources where they can make the biggest impact – focusing inspections and outreach in industries and workplaces where heat stress risks are most likely to occur. Originally issued in April 2022, the revised National Emphasis Program
Snapped this pic on a PSM-covered process. Can you see what it is? Yep, it’s a gauge; a Safety Critical gauge at that. But can you read the gauge? I took the pic at no zoom, so you can get a feel for the level of challenge in reading this “safety critical” gauge, which is
Snapped this pic this week and thought it would be a great pic to start a discussion about Car-Sealing valves in their OPEN position. And yes, Car Seals are for more than just Pressure Relief Systems. In the pic below, there are two (2) valves that are candidates for Car Seals; one (1) of the
At 2:45 p.m. on September 19, 2014, two employees, both 50, were replacing a valve in a process line that transported 70% caustic solution of sodium hydroxide (NAOH) from storage tanks to a loading rack. While they were removing the valve and a stopper plate that had been previously inserted into the line, the employees
Employee #1, a 33-year-old apprentice steamfitter, was a member of a 2-man crew installing a 6 in. diameter PVC heating pipeline linked with a school gymnasium under construction. Pressure testing the line’s integrity, including coupling connections, had begun at the specified air pressure of 150 psi. Shortly before 1:30 p.m. on August 29, 1991, Employee
We have seen this life-threatening failure at least once or twice in our work! Most facilities have NO IDEA of how close they were to killing an employee. Some claimed it’s “common sense”, but trust me, these fatalities happen more often than most think. Hence, OSHA has required the following since its 1998 revision of
Employee #1, a warehouse operator, dropped his safety glasses into the compartment of a railroad tank car that was being filled with aerosol. The aerosol was blown through a line by low-pressure nitrogen (N2) gas. After Employee #1 notified coworkers and his supervisor, the material flow was turned off, but NOT the gas. Wearing an
