Notes on industrial safety in China

In the wake of the Tianjin disaster, I am starting to prepare my lectures on Industrial Risk Prevention for the fall semester at the Sino-European Institute of Technology of Shanghai University. Sadly, there has never been a shortage of horror stories to illustrate my courses.

As usual, many foreign and local commentators chose to question or even attack the Chinese government, while nobody seems to have noted the extraordinary timing of such a large-scale event, a day after a third devaluation of the Chinese Yuan. It is not my role however to comment further on this.

In this post, I would simply like to highlight the technical or managerial challenges that industrial companies face in China, challenges usually overlooked by media articles on the Tianjin catastrophe.

Note that I am quoting (rather extensively) from articles I wrote on the subject of industrial safety in Shanghai Business Review () in 2011 and 2013.

Occupational safety, for both company employees and the general public, remains a perennial issue in China.

Safety issues have remained at the top of the agenda for several years now, and have attracted attention from the central government while receiving wide coverage from traditional and social media. Nevertheless, government and corporate initiatives, most of which call for more frequent audits, have not managed to significantly reduce the number of new incidents.

China’s fire safety record is poor. Those in the profession can recall countless locked fire-doors and disconnected alarm systems, as well as instances involving cartons of prestigious cigarette brands being offered to fire safety officials as bribes. Leading certification firm Bureau Veritas reports that its fire protection system audits, conducted in new facilities, show 10 per cent of systems not working at all and another 40 per cent with major non-compliance. Years have passed, but the statistics have not improved.

Major elevator mishaps and escalator accidents have also been reported in buildings across the country, often involving well-known Western brands, with the causes usually traced to basic design or maintenance problems. Accidents on construction sites have led relevant ministries to call for more onsite audits. Many issues are linked to the practice of “cascading subcontracts”, in which vital responsibilities are eventually subcontracted all the way down to farmers working with their own makeshift tools. Food safety is perhaps the scariest issue, with criminal cases making headlines. Problems with the cold chain, i.e. the refrigeration systems in warehouses, trucks and shops, are much less visible to the public but are well-known to food industry professionals. The list goes on and on, across a wide spectrum of industries.

As fond as local and international media are of blaming the government, a solid regulatory framework has already been put in place, as in the case of fire safety. Industrial best practices are also well-documented, as with equipment inspection procedures. Aside from the government’s willingness and capacity to regulate, it is the practical enforcement of regulations and best practices than remain the biggest challenge in China.

Specific obstacles include the sheer size of the country, the large number of sites and facilities, and the number of workers involved. Fast economic growth has greatly contributed to the problem, with hundreds of highly complex projects running simultaneously across China. At the same time, the country is facing an acute skills shortage across disciplines, from qualified workers to experienced managers, as well as high turnover due to competition for projects.

The lack of a structured methodology to working out and solving problems is a major challenge. A classic example would be the inability of most technicians to follow step-by-step instructions. Their approach often involves starting from the end, finding that it does not work, going a few steps back, improvising a bit, calling on some colleagues for input, and then perhaps finding a quick-fix. The problem remains hidden until it appears again, sometimes with disastrous results. The right paperwork will often be properly filled-in, in full compliance with administrative requirements, but leaving no trace of what really happened.

The traditional safety methodology, advocated by Western firms and backed by decades of experience abroad, consists of ensuring compliance with a strict recording system, normally resulting in extensive paper procedures. Although such a paper-based approach actually fits in well with the Chinese bureaucratic experience, it delivers very little improvement in practice. The neat, colourful company policy folders are often left to collect dust on the site manager’s shelf, with no assurance whatsoever that those procedures are actually being followed on site, or that the reports are accurate. This leads to a multiplication of spot checks- the government “solution” for safety accidents – breeding the need for a massive support organisation, with auditors, administrators, supervisors and clerks to handle papers and spreadsheets. Inevitably, the question arises: who audits the auditors?

We believe that the traditional Western approach is flawed, as it fails to address the Chinese situation. In such conditions, questions remain as to how to implement best practices, how to ensure regulatory compliance, and how to prevent risks, on a large scale, with a low-skilled workforce and under-qualified middle-management?

I would like to add to these technical notes, which I hope may help companies rethink their approach to industrial safety in China, that my thoughts are with the many victims of the Tianjin blasts.