Industrial Accident Prevention (Part 2)

In Part #1 we talked about enhancing Industrial Safety through the correct usage of PPE since 45% of accidents occur because of Operator Negligence or Lack of Adequate Knowledge, and what to include in a system that can help improve human safety.

Unfortunately with increasing frequence, Safety is left as a responsibility of the Security & Safety Team -which many times consists of only one person per industrial facility- while the rest of the company is not as focused on it as they should be, until an accident happens. Why is this?

There are two types of problems

1. Technical problems
2. Business problems

Technical problems can be Tooling damage, operators that don't show up for their shift, people walking in restricted areas and get involved in an incident or a machine malfunction, these are problems that have to be fixed and each one has an associated time and cost.

Business problems are the direct consequence for the business because of a Technical problem, so our previous examples will cause a Business problem such as not being able to deliver an order on time because of a Tooling damage, to have an increased cost for the manufacturing batch because a more costlier operator has to substitute the one that didn't show up and now the profits will have a hit, a finished good that will have to be shipped by air because a delay caused by a broken machine, or having a partial or total halt on the production floor because there was an accident due to a person not using PPE correctly or wandering in restricted areas. To fix a Business problem is the underlying and real reason for the urgency of fixing a Technical problem.

This makes Industrial Safety a requirement for everybody in the Company, and this is the reason the Safety & Security officer is so upset when a forklift operator shows Bad Behavior and makes wide turns, or drives over the speed limits, or somebody is not using the PPE correctly.

This forklift is running without signaling lights, there are no security cones or fences. It is running free through the Warehouse. Would you like to be notified when such an action occurs?

So next time that someone over at Corporate or at the Finance department questions or reduces your budget for Safety and Security you can include the Business problem that your planned budget will solve instead of just budgeting based on last years expense.

You can know everything that happens on your floor plan that is out of compliance with the Safety & Security restrictions, on real time and for incident analysis.

If this new view of Business problems makes sense or you want help on how to calculating those costs leave me a comment.

If you want to learn more visit us at Braingine, The Machine Vision Company?.