How would you address conflicting safety priorities in a large industrial facility?

In my experience the most positive way to address conflicting safety priorities within any large establishment is to look into the core values of said establishment. Is the company still in line with these values? Is drifting happening? Do the values need to be updated? What value could be backdropped with the conflict?

Some authors consider that safety should not be a priority since priorities are changeable. Safety should be a value of the organization so that it is permanent and transversal. However, in reality, the only priority of organizations is to ensure their very existence, which is what guarantees the continuity of operations and employees. Risk assessment helps to prioritize the process of allocating limited resources. In order to generate an action plan that is balanced and makes economic sense. Since you cannot be certain, you play the probabilities. Risk analysis is a probabilistic process with a significant dose of subjectivity. The presence of several experts is recommended to mitigate bias.

Implementing a detailed and effective plan and acting as per the plan, review and check. A continuous inprovement and inclusive risk assessment communicated with the concerned employees might help address the issues.

Ao longo da minha carreira na gest?o industrial, sempre tratei a avalia??o de risco como a primeira etapa crítica para garantir a seguran?a. Uma experiência marcante foi em um projeto de expans?o, onde identifiquei que o layout original comprometia a evacua??o em caso de emergência. Com base nessa avalia??o, revisamos todo o processo, implementando melhorias no sistema de ventila??o e rotas de fuga, o que n?o só elevou a seguran?a como também aumentou a eficiência operacional. A análise de riscos contínua é o que garante que a seguran?a nunca seja negligenciada frente a outras prioridades operacionais.

Safety staff, whom is responsible for compiling risk assessments, should: 1. Daily communicate applicable hazards prior to shifts starting. 2. Daily inspections concentrating on identifying compliance, or not. 3. Failures to comply addressed through communication with Supervisors and immediate corrective action implemented. 4. Negligence to implement immediate corrective action reported to next level of management. 5. Unacceptable solutions failing to mitigate hazards shall be recorded and reported to management for action. 6.Serious consequences shall result in immediate communication with responsible management and stop work instructions initiated. 7. Hazardous situations reported should be raised at management safety meetings.

Showcasing HSE commitment by the management representatives from various departments will eventually have a positive impact on the overall safety culture of the team members and will reduce the conflicts considerably. Functional HSE committee gatherings and meetings can also help reduce the anticipated conflicts during the project tenure.

Trabalhar com equipes multifuncionais sempre foi uma das minhas principais estratégias para lidar com quest?es complexas de seguran?a em projetos industriais. Em uma ocasi?o, liderei um grupo com engenheiros de diversas áreas — produ??o, manuten??o, seguran?a do trabalho — para resolver um problema de falhas recorrentes em equipamentos que geravam risco de acidentes. A sinergia entre os diferentes departamentos foi essencial para identificar a causa raiz e propor solu??es que n?o só mitigaram o risco, mas também melhoraram a produtividade. O valor dessas equipes está em enxergar o problema de diferentes angulos, resultando em solu??es mais robustas.

Companies must have competent risk management and safety personnel. Often, very good salaries are invested in quality, production and logistics managers, but not in safety managers. If safety is really a value of the organization, the organization must invest, to the extent of its possibilities, to equip itself with the best skills and tools (e.g. specialized software) in the field of safety.

A comunica??o é a base para uma gest?o de seguran?a eficiente, especialmente em ambientes industriais. Participei de uma implementa??o onde os canais de comunica??o eram o maior obstáculo, com equipes recebendo informa??es críticas com atraso. Com uma abordagem focada em comunica??o instantanea, implementamos um sistema de avisos em tempo real, conectando dispositivos móveis ao controle central de seguran?a. Isso reduziu drasticamente o tempo de resposta em situa??es de risco e elevou o engajamento das equipes. Investir em canais de comunica??o efetivos é garantir que todos estejam alinhados e preparados para agir.

La estadistica nos brinda una panoramica generalizada sobre los incidentes de seguridad, sin embargo, es crucial tomar conciencia sobre la multitud de variantes presentes al momentonde un incidente, y no tener una "fe ciega" a los datos.