EHS Today Magazine’s 2009 National Safety Survey was recently conducted with nearly 1000 industry professionals taking part and providing some qualified insight on the topics of EHS programs, work environments, targeted injuries/illnesses, management support, job duties, OSHA performance and more. The results of the survey are discussed in a recent article entitled “National Safety Survey: Can We Still Afford To Be Safe?” penned by Laura Walter which was featured on EHS Today’s website. Walter outlines some of the trends that surfaced from the respondent’s answers and provides us with a look at the various views that were expressed on some of today’s popular EHS industry topics.

It is no surprise that an area receiving a particular amount of focus was the current economy and how it has reflected upon EHS programs and budgets. When respondents were asked about this topic, as Walter writes, “EHS professionals reported lower morale among employees, reduced or eliminated incentive programs, reduced travel opportunities, reduced training, layoffs, facility closures and fewer new equipment purchases. One respondent even claimed he had just lost his job and was preparing to file for unemployment.” EHS budget fluctuations were also reported with 10 percent of respondents indicating their budget was decreased more than 10 percent in 2009, 13 percent indicated a decrease of 1 to 10 percent, 47 percent reported their budget had remained the same, 11 percent reported an increase of 1 to 10 percent and a happy 4 percent reported a budget increase of more that 10 percent in 2009. Although some felt cuts to budgets to be threatening to their safety, several respondents indicated that their organizations had utilized layoffs as a means of eliminating inexperienced employees who commonly took risks and shortcuts which as a result improved their safety performance.

In one area of the survey, respondents were asked to rate President Obama’s approach so far to occupational health and safety. The responses to this particular question yielded a variety of opinions on the subject. With 16 percent rating Obama’s performance as good, 26 percent felt it was average, 13 percent rated it as fair, 15 percent felt is performance was poor and 27 percent indicated it was just too soon to tell. Another question dealt with OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the main federal agency charged with the enforcement of safety and health legislation in the US), asking what occupational safety and health challenge would you most like to see OSHA address during the Obama administration? This question also yielded a mixed bag of opinions with respondents expressing that OSHA focus on a range of issues such as ergonomics, workplace aggression, updating antiquated standards, the nomination of an OSHA administrator and spending more energy investigating the circumstances of violations before issuing out fines. Overall the 2009 National Safety Survey is a valuable tool for gaining insight into the current EHS landscape from the perspective of those who work directly within it. Surveys such as this one are important as they help to further understand the current trends and help to project where the industry is headed.

Industry safety standards and regulations are constantly under review and analysis in an effort to continually improve upon them. The chemical sector is no exception, as governments worldwide are working to put the whole area of accident prevention in hazardous industries under greater regulatory control, the chemical sector is specifically increasing its emphasis on process safety. In a recent article from ICIS.com author Sean Milmo takes a look at some of the issues revolving around this movement.

Entitled "Chemical firms grapple with new approach to process safety data," Mr. Milmo's article first addresses the considerable pressure mounting towards the chemical industry to increase the scale of safety data reporting as a recent series of major accidents within the industry have resulted in a significant number of injuries and fatalities. These incidents have prompted both regulatory authorities and the general public to expect the chemical industry to step up preventative measures for these types of catastrophes.

So what is being done? In both Europe and North America regulatory bodies are taking steps to improve the safety reporting landscape and implement a process safety approach. As Mr. Milmo notes, "The European Commission is reviewing the 13-year-old Seveso II directive on the control of major accident hazards with the objective of making more effective obligatory safety management systems in plants, including those covering process safety. In the US, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been urged, particularly by the country's Chemical Safety Board (CSB) that investigates chemical accidents, to enforce existing legislation on process safety more effectively." Although both sides of the Atlantic are proactively seeking a common platform for chemical sector safety standards, there is still dispute from each party as to what process safety data should be monitored. The problematic issue has been the huge variety of data that can be categorized as being indicators. There are two types of indicators, lagging and lead, lagging indicators provide information on incidents after they have happened and lead indicators help to measure the effectiveness of procedures, operating disciplines and protections that work to prevent incidents, there are also near misses which are not serious but could lead to severe incidents. The choice between these indicators is causing much confusion among experts, as what some would classify as a lead indicator others would categorize as lagging.

Although there have been some disputes along the way, much progress has been made by both US and European organizations to establish a uniform model for the application of indicators. As Mr. Milmo explains, "A consensus has now emerged that the choice of lead indicators should be left to individual companies or even sites within companies because different lead indicators are required for different products and processes." Also, in late 2007, the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS) in the US consulted with a variety of chemical and petroleum associations, regulatory bodies, trade unions and academics to create a list of process safety metrics which has gained support from North and South America as well as a few European countries. With the main priority to gain a consensus towards the metrics, the CCPS is leaving room for adjustments and continued improvements to their list. Although not perfect yet, the effort towards creating a global reporting culture is growing, which ultimately will create safer and more regulated conditions for all those working within the chemical sector across the globe.

Intelex Technologies has released its latest software innovation, the Intelex OpenPass API, a revolutionary application programming interface that will enable its users to sync and report data between multiple business management systems.

The Intelex OpenPass API functions as a conduit for seamlessly feeding data between multiple software programs. This means that Intelex’s environment, quality, and health & safety, and business management Software can now share data with pre-existing business software applications; thereby, saving time and resources while maintaining a degree of accuracy that’s difficult to achieve when data is transmitted manually.

The City of Calgary and St. Gobain are the first Intelex clients to take advantage of the OpenPass API.  The City of Calgary used our OpenPass API to import employee and location data from their pre-existing HR system into their Intelex System. They also used the OpenPass API to export employee injury data (i.e., incident number with date and time stamp) from Intelex’s Master Incidents Module into their HR program.

St. Gobain used the OpenPass API to import training courses, employee lists, and employee workgroup data from Lotus Notes into the Intelex System and Training Management Module. By using the OpenPass API St. Gobain was able to quickly populate their new Intelex System with historical data that will be a key factor in reporting accuracy and trending.

If you think that your organization could use the Intelex OpenPass API to import, export, and sync data between a pre-existing management program and your Intelex System, send an email to client.relations@intelex.com or call 416.599.6009 for more details.

Forbes.com has put together this list of the most dangerous jobs in America. The data was drawn from a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

1. Fishers and related workers (111.8 fatalities per 100,000)

2. Loggers (86.4 fatalities per 100,000)

3. Pilots and Flight Engineers (66.7 fatalities per 100,000)

4. Iron and Steel Workers (45.5 fatalities per 100,000)

5. Farmers and Ranchers (38.4 fatalities per 100,000)

6. Roofers (29.4 fatalities per 100,000)

7. Electrical Power Line Installers and Repairers (29.1 fatalities per 100,000)

8. Drivers (truckers and salespeople) (26.2 fatalities per 100,000)

9. Refuse and Recyclable Material Collectors (22.8 fatalities per 100,000)

10. Police Sheriffs and Patrol Officers (21.4 fatalities per 100,000)

Intelex is pleased to announce that we will be a platinum sponsor at NAEM's 16th Annual EHS Management Forum. The forum takes place October 22-24th at The Peabody Memphis in Memphis, Tennessee.

For those folks who are interested in learning more about streamlining safety management efforts across multiple sites, Intelex client's Tyco Flow Control North America will be presenting on "Safety – Best Practices and Emerging Issues."

Presenting on behalf of Tyco Flow Control North America is Environmental, Health & Safety Manager Keith Welch. In his current role, Keith has overall EHS responsibility and oversight for over 20 locations in Canada, the US, and Mexico.  Keith currently has his Associate Safety Professional designation and is working toward his CSP.  Keith was recently recognized by Tyco International for his outstanding EHS contributions during the company's annual EHS Conference.  In addition Keith has been responsible for leading the implementation of the Intelex software for over 30 Tyco Flow Control Americas facilities.

It is often a challenge to keep employees constantly aware and engaged when it comes to safety.  An occasional dose of shock can go a long way in reinforcing the message. This can come in the form of graphic or emotional videos such as the ones listed below.

WARNING: These clips have allegedly made otherwise "tough guys" break into sobbing fits at the prospect of a serious accident.

Off site accident (prevent-it.ca)
Ladder fall (prevent-it.ca)
Jackhammer accident (prevent-it.ca)
Kitchen fire (prevent-it.ca)

According to OSHA, July is the month with the highest occurrence of falls in the United States. This is probably due to the increase in construction activity during the summer months.

Brooks Schuelke of InjuryBoard.com discusses fall-related injuries in a recent post.  He covers various causes and highlights best practices to reduce incidences.

Continuing the same theme as Lori's previous post, here is the list of the most frequently cited standards by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration for the last fiscal year.

1. Scaffolding (construction)

2. Fall protection (construction)

3. Hazard communication

4. Control of hazardous energy

5. Respiratory protection

6. Powered industrial trucks

7. Electrical, wiring methods, components and equipment

8. Ladders (construction)

9. Machines (general requirements)

10. Electrical systems design

One of the challenges faced by organizations is showing the value derived from the management systems they have implemented.  It is often the case that an organization will implement a system such as ISO 9001:2000, OHSAS 18001 or ISO 14001 primarily to satisfy a client requirement.  When this occurs, the organization may not realize the potential value of the management system and could be wasting time and resources simply achieving the status quo.

At Intelex, we believe it is very important that organizations realize the true value of their management system approach.  Recently, Devon Ambrose, a key member of Intelex's Client Services Team, gave an informative presentation that highlighted the importance of maximizing the value of a management system by continually improving an organization.  The purpose of Devon's presentation was to explore the benefits of applying the Process Approach to a management system, thereby creating a 'Value Added Management System'.  A management system is the method in which an organization manages their processes and activities.  Devon's presentation underlined the opportunity for an organization to leverage their management system to drive continual improvement.  This opportunity is guided by the Process Approach that states that in order to facilitate meaningful decisions; a management system must consider all the variables involved in a process/activity.  Furthermore, we must understand how the processes within an organization are interrelated (referred to as the process links).

Essentially, the Process Approach creates a foundation for a Value Added Management System, by allowing for managers to pinpoint the use of resources, the overlap and interrelationship between processes (process links), and measure the effectiveness of the various contributions that make up processes.  This operational control over the processes that make up an organization's activities gives management and employees the necessary information to adjust and document activities to meet both operational and organizational objectives.

As Devon explained, this is the fundamental logic behind the Intelex system.  Consider for example an effective Quality Management System (QMS).  It must be able to track, analyze and report on all quality management initiatives from product defect tracking, to supplier management to document control.  Each process or sub-process is linked to another through variables such as inputs/outputs, resources, material, time, location and staff.  The Intelex QMS suite is structured so that interrelated processes are easily identified and accessible between modules.  If, for example, a nonconformance arises as a result of an audit, when the auditor records that nonconformance, it is also linked back to the audit record where it resulted from.  It is essential for a management solution to have continuity between its components that reflect the interrelationship between processes.  Thus, the Value Added Management System, guided by the principles of the Process Approach ensures organizations go beyond compliance to drive continual improvement.

View Devon's presentation