Active Agenda: Hazard Abatement and Hazard Reporting

I was resting comfortably (on my laurels) in my office when the operations manager entered holding a bloody, shredded glove. An employee’s hand was pulled into a chain conveyor, but thankfully, her fingers were intact.

After inspecting the machine, it was obvious this incident could have been prevented. After interviewing employees, and calling our sister facilities, we discovered the incident was not only predicted, but we had incurred an amputation on the same type of machine at our east coast facility several years before. Our management systems had failed.

Although the practice of identifying, tracking and abating hazards is a simple and practical method of loss control, many businesses fail to collect information and take action (e.g., share, then abate) to resolve issues before they result in loss.

The difference between effective hazard abatement programs and those that consume gloves and fingers is often the system utilized to manage hazard reporting. Many organizations duplicate hazard reporting along functional lines, thereby adding to the confusion and administration required to effectively prioritize and abate hazards across an enterprise.

Active Agenda’s Hazard Reporting module is designed to collect hazard reports and centralize the information using a single business process. These reports then can be made available across departments, facilities and time zones.

Many years on the receiving end of hazard reports has taught us that one hazard report can communicate many hazards. The Hazard Reporting module allows you to associate many hazards with a single report. In fact, many hazard reports indicate that hazards are present in more than one functional area. For example, the Hazard Reporting module can address all functional areas of a facility, including:

•Human Safety
•Product Quality/Safety
•Property Protection
•Labor Relations
•Environmental Protection
•Operational Efficiency
•Customer Satisfaction

Each hazard report entered can be associated with many hazards, which then can be associated with many functional areas and controls. This makes the organization’s hazard list, and related control hierarchy, easy to track, measure and manage. In other words, ANSI Z10 made simple ... and better.

What Gets Measured

All hazards entered into Active Agenda are associated with risk likelihood and risk severity. The likelihood and severity assignments combine to create a risk index and related recommendations. These values can be changed to reflect each organization’s preferred terms and values. This process assists with the prioritization of hazards for abatement purposes and occurs automatically within Active Agenda.

Risk Likelihood: The default risk likelihood categories used by Active Agenda include:

•Remote (Extremely unlikely to occur)
•Low (Possible but unlikely to occur)
•Moderate (Moderate risk of occurrence)
•High (Likely to occur)
•Probable (Very likely to occur in immediate future)

Risk Severity: The default risk severity categories used by Active Agenda include:

•Slight (Minor First Aid Injury OR $50)
•Appreciable (Injury involving physician OR $50 - $1,000)
•Serious (Serious injury or illness OR $1,000 - $100,000)
•Severe (Death or disabling injury OR $100,000 - $1,000,000)
•Catastrophic (Deaths &/or disabling injuries OR >$1,000,000)

Risk Recommendations: Active Agenda utilizes the following default risk recommendation categories:

•Take action if and when appropriate
•Take action when practical
•Take all reasonable action as soon as possible
•Take action immediately

The Hazard Reporting module collects hazard reports from across the enterprise in a central “bucket.” This central view of organizational hazards can be filtered, reported and charted based on any field used to report hazards. The Hazard Reporting module tracks and measures hazard types, locations, personal accountabilities, hazard status, abatement costs, actions assigned, hazard locations, financial exposures or opportunities, resolution delays and more.

What Gets Done

Active Agenda automatically generates hazard reporting forms for data collection so that reports will be made (multi-language). The module then allows for the assignment of abatement accountabilities so that reported hazards don’t fall through the cracks. If an employee leaves, accountabilities can be easily transferred to an incumbent. The module also enables facility comparisons and calculates resolution delays.
By using the Active Agenda module for Hazard Reporting, - hazard reporting, tracking, accountability, abatement and communication gets done ... before gloves get pulled into machines!

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