GBP Panay Site attains 13M safe man-hours
GLOBAL Business Power Corporation (GBP) subsidiaries Panay Energy Development Corporation (PEDC) and Panay Power Corporation (PPC) recently achieved a milestone of 13 million safe man-hours without a lost-time incident (LTI).
The independent power producer’s safety management program encourages everyone in upholding safety and health consciousness in their day-to-day tasks without sacrificing the quality of workmanship.
“We are truly proud of what PEDC and PPC have collectively achieved despite the challenging year it has been. This 13 million safe man-hours achievement equates to the consolidated efforts of our sites in maintaining the safety of our workplace. We place a high level of importance in creating a positive safety culture as we believe that it is key in performing our duty to provide reliable power supply for our consumers,” said FVP Petronilo Madrid – Panay Operations.
FAA denied SpaceX a safety waiver. Its Starship SN8 rocket launched anyway
On Dec. 9, 2020, SpaceX sent one of its Starship Mars rocket prototypes, dubbed SN8, on a high-altitude test flight for the first time. The successful launch and flight ended with a dramatic and explosive hard landing, which Elon Musk had warned ahead of time might be the outcome.
On Tuesday, we learned the whole scene came in defiance of the Federal Aviation Administration, the US regulatory agency that oversees much of commercial space activity and licenses SpaceX’s Starship prototypes to operate in American airspace.
“Prior to the Starship SN8 test launch in December 2020, SpaceX sought a waiver to exceed the maximum public risk allowed by federal safety regulations,” reads a statement from an FAA spokesperson. “After the FAA denied the request, SpaceX proceeded with the flight. As a result of this non-compliance, the FAA required SpaceX to conduct an investigation of the incident. All testing that could affect public safety at the Boca Chica, Texas, launch site was suspended until the investigation was completed and the FAA approved the company’s corrective actions to protect public safety.”
Ep.65 What is the full story of just culture (part 2)?
Topics:
The problem with rewarding good behavior. How a retributive system functions. The standard for risk assessment. How restorative culture functions. Why sharing experiences is key. What is expected under a solid restorative justice system. Understanding rule-breakers. How the book fails to properly dissect rule-breaking. Practical takeaways.
Quotes:
“If our purpose is to make a better workplace, then we need a system that for most people, most of the time, it’s doing a good job.”
“When we talk about safety, we’re not talking about elements of a typical criminal offense; we’re talking about things that in the criminal courts would be talking about negligence. Which is all about meeting acceptable standards.”
“Sidney emphasizes a lot the importance of all stakeholders to share their stories with each other.”
Chairman outlines county legislature goals
Secondly, Chagnon wants the county to hire a safety coordinator and energize the safety culture throughout county operations. “A safety coordinator would make sure each of our departments and work sites has the proper safety procedure, equipment, and training, to do job safely,” he said.
In 2020, a private contractor was killed while at the county landfill in Ellery. Last winter, a snowplow driver hit a vehicle, killing the driver.
Chagnon noted a safety coordinator would be the lead investigator in those type of situations, as well as when there’s a serious injury.
FAA Investigates Explosive Landing of SpaceX’s Mars Starship Prototype
Tuesday’s launch had actually been delayed by the FAA. SpaceX wanted to launch the SN9 (Serial Number 9) prototype on Jan. 28.
According to The Verge, SpaceX violated the terms of its FAA test license with the launch of the SN8 prototype on Dec. 11.
Reuters reported that SpaceX sought a waiver to exceed the maximum public risk allowed by federal safety regulations. The FAA denied the request, Reuters reported, but SpaceX proceeded with the test, which ended when the rocket exploded while trying to land.
After the SN9 launch was delayed, Musk tweeted, “Unlike its aircraft division, which is fine, the FAA space division has a fundamentally broken regulatory structure. Their rules are meant for a handful of expendable launches per year from a few government facilities. Under those rules, humanity will never get to Mars.”
In a statement Tuesday, an FAA spokesperson said, “The FAA required SpaceX to conduct an investigation of the incident, including a comprehensive review of the company’s safety culture, operational decision-making and process discipline. All testing that could affect public safety at the Boca Chica launch site was suspended until the investigation was completed and the FAA approved the company’s corrective actions.”
That cleared the way for Tuesday’s launch of the SN9 prototype.
Water Safety CEO Urges Fishermen to Take a ‘Risk-Based’ Approach
The Chief Executive of the State agency, Water Safety Ireland, has made an appeal to all fishermen to take a “risk-based approach” to safety throughout the year to reduce tragedies which coastal communities have endured.
John Leech says that the first quarter of the year “normally brings with it some of the worst fishing vessel tragedies of the year.”
“I would like,” he says, “to see all our fishermen use a risk-based approach throughout the year and that their families support them in their endeavours. This will help reduce these awful tragedies that our coastal communities have endured each year.
Formerly the Naval Officer who led that Service’s Diving Unit and took part in many search-and-rescue operations, John Leech delivers a message about the need for “an enhanced maritime safety culture” on this week’s Podcast.
Ep, 64 What is the full story of just culture (part 1)?
For the next few weeks, we are going to cover ‘just culture’ and focus mainly on Sidney Dekker’s book of the same name.
The laws currently on the books encourage businesses to focus on liability instead of actual safety. By focusing on culpability for an accident, this is a way for businesses to get out of compensating the worker for injury. This is just some of what we will discuss today.
Topics:
Safety theory vs. safety practice. Safety culture and the Swiss Cheese Model. Updates in the third edition. The definition of just culture. To whom you apply the process and why it’s important. Listening and actually hearing. Systemic and individual action. Can an individual be too much of a danger? Preventing unnecessary blame. What to expect from this series of episodes. Practical takeaways.
Focus Forward: 3 Tips to Foster Trust, Transparency and Quality
Acknowledge the shift in expectations of businesses So much happened this year that made businesses take a hard look at their priorities and operating assumptions. We’ve seen so many companies step up in a big way. From making Net Zero commitments, to reinforcing a safety culture, to setting new diversity & inclusion goals, to extending new workforce benefits and flexible working arrangements—whether it falls under the ‘E’ the ‘S’ or the ‘G,’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have really come into focus. As a next step, companies should think about how best to make commitments, measure these impactful non-financial changes, and where and how to effectively communicate what they’ve done on a go-forward basis.
Boeing Names First Chief Aerospace Safety Officer
Boeing continues to reorganize its safety infrastructure, announcing on Wednesday that it has appointed Michael Delaney to the newly created role of chief aerospace safety officer. In his new position, Delaney will lead development of the company’s Global Aviation Safety program. He previously served as Boeing’s vice president of Commercial Airplanes Digital Transformation and led the Confident Travel Initiative.
“There is nothing more important to Boeing than the safety of our employees, products and services, and over the past year we’ve taken a series of actions to improve our safety practices and enhance our safety culture, including the establishment of our enterprise Safety Management System (SMS),” Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said in a message to employees. “Building on these efforts, today we will continue to strengthen our safety infrastructure by naming Mike Delaney as Boeing’s chief aerospace safety officer.”
Boeing’s Global Aviation Safety program includes the company’s Product and Services Safety (P&SS) organization, which was formed in 2019 as part of Boeing’s response to the fatal accidents of two 737 MAX aircraft, Aerospace Safety Analytics and Global Aviation Safety System. The Confident Travel Initiative, a program created last May to address air travel health risks during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, also falls under the Global Aviation Safety umbrella. Delaney will step into his new role immediately.
Communication, training keys to good farm safety
Employers must set a good example of safety culture for their employees
Good farm safety standards are based on communication, training and by setting a good example, according to a panel of experts who spoke during the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Virtual Convention.
“From a safety culture standpoint, communications, training and leading by example are critical parts of it,” said Jess McCluer, vice president of safety and regulatory affairs at the National Grain and Feed Association.
Megan Goodspeed, research assistant for the Northeast Center for Occupational Health and Safety in Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing, said employers need to set a good example for their workers, but also reinforce best practices.
Trans Mountain project remains on safety stand down www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/tran…
In addition to an Oct. 27 death in Edmonton and a Dec. 15 serious injury in Burnaby, there have been 91 confirmed cases of COVID-19 along the construction route, with 12 of those cases being active as of Dec. 28.
… “Over the past two months, we have seen safety incidents at our worksites that are unacceptable to Trans Mountain. This is inconsistent with Trans Mountain’s proud safety culture,” Anderson said at the time. He did not specify which safety incidents he was referencing.
Cornerstone of patient safety and infection control at hospitals
The role of patient safety and infection control: According to the World Health Organization, patient safety practices aim to prevent and reduce risks, errors & harm that occur to patients during provision of healthcare. A cornerstone of the discipline is continuous improvement based on learning from errors and adverse events. Patient safety is fundamental to delivering quality essential health services. Infection control is a byproduct of a patient safety culture. It is responsible for administering and promoting best practices to ensure the safety of our patients/ residents, visitors, and staff.
Trans Mountain shuts down pipeline expansion project to address worker safety
Trans Mountain says it is shutting down construction on its pipeline expansion project until early January for safety reasons.
Officials from the company and the Canada Energy Regulator said Wednesday that a contractor was seriously injured a day earlier at the site in Burnaby, B.C.
In a statement Thursday, Trans Mountain says the company is enacting a voluntary, project-wide safety stand-down from Friday until Jan. 4.
Construction at the Burnaby site had already stopped Wednesday after the injury.
The company says its priorities remain the safety of its workers and maintaining a safe work environment. Ian Anderson, president and CEO of Trans Mountain, says there have been safety incidents over the past two months that are unacceptable to the company.
“This is inconsistent with Trans Mountain’s proud safety culture,” he said in the release. “Trans Mountain is proactively taking the step to temporarily stand down construction on the expansion project to review, reset and refocus our efforts, and those of our contractors and their workers.”
Ep.56 Does Goal Based Regulation increase bureaucracy?
Topics:
Why regulators are often spoken of negatively. The two forms of deregulation. Goal-based and rule-based frameworks. The progressive pulling-back of Government involvement in safety. Why overregulation occurs. What is actually being regulated. Conclusions from our conversation.
Quotes:
“So, the intention of this goal-based regulatory strategy is for organizations to understand their broad obligations to adopt a risk-based management strategy and to set their own safety management requirements inside their own organization.”
“The second theme that came out of the analysis was that overregulation is because of liability management and management insecurity.”
“The next important question to ask is are we regulating safety work or regulating safety of work?”
CSB spotlights Airgas’ safety improvements after fatal incident
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) highlighted the positive actions of Airgas in a recent “Safety Spotlight.”
The agency said Airgas, an Air Liquide Company, rapidly implemented a “robust” process safety management program in response to its recommendation following CSB’s investigation into an August 2016 fatal nitrous oxide explosion at the Airgas facility in Cantonment FL.
Following the incident, the company quickly began a comprehensive initiative to review the safety programs for its nitrous oxide production facilities, trucking fleet and cylinder-filling operations. The scope of this safety initiative includes 17 different areas for process safety. Some of the company’s most significant improvements include initiatives typically associated with the most effective safety management components, including the hierarchy of controls, improved audit practices and inherently safer design.
“Taking proactive, effective action, similar to what Airgas did following this incident, is the hallmark of driving chemical safety change,” said Katherine Lemos, CSB chairman. “I applaud the company for beginning implementation of these important process safety initiatives before the CSB completed its final report. This is especially noteworthy given that OSHA’s Process Safety Management standard does not apply to its facilities.”
The CSB determined that the most probable cause of the incident was that, during the initial loading of a trailer truck, a pump heated nitrous oxide above its safe operating limits. This likely started a nitrous oxide decomposition reaction that propagated from the pump into the trailer truck, causing the explosion.
The Safety Spotlight emphasizes that in a little more than two and a half years, Airgas reengineered its entire approach to managing process safety in its nitrous oxide business. Airgas also increased its efforts aimed at sharing lessons learned and good safety practices, both inside the company and with the broader compressed gas industry. Airgas exceeded the CSB’s recommended actions by developing and rapidly executing comprehensive process safety changes that have broadly applicable lessons for the entire compressed gas industry.
Shipping company joins RSSB to benefit from rail’s safety culture
UK: DFDS Seaways Immingham has joined the Rail Safety & Standards Board as its first shipping company member.
This provides the freight shipping, warehousing and logistics operator with access to RSSB’s resource library and ‘world class’ training on human behaviour, safety culture developments and safety processes and practices.
‘DFDS has introduced a new safety management system and a safety culture programme across the business’, explained Managing Director Andrew Byrne. ’We considered which industry to use to benchmark ourselves against, and the rail industry is one that has many similarities to the port industries. RSSB can help us to create a wider safety network outside of our traditional industry partners which will help us to see different perspectives and share and learn best practices.
FDA Reviews Rollout of New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently provided a progress report on the rollout of the New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint. FDA hosted a webinar in October to review the first 100 days of the Blueprint. The one-hour webinar highlighted the implementation work that has already been done as well as provide insight on future efforts. FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response, Frank Yiannas said that the rollout is off to a great start, but COVID-19 has created some challenges.
Food Safety blueprint “FDA is committed to what I call a new level of transparency and accountability as we work to make the goals outlined in the Blueprint a reality. That work has continued through the unprecedented challenges that we’ve all faced as a result of COVID-19,” Yiannas noted. “Together I have no doubt that we will come through this crisis stronger and more resilient than ever. I believe that by embracing the New Era of Smarter Food Safety approach it will help us regain that strength. Not just the goals, but the foundational belief that we must take more modern, evolving, and smarter approaches to address and strengthen this ever-changing food safety system.”
The Blueprint is a framework to guide the FDA as it works to modernize food safety through a variety of methods. Yiannas described food safety as being “people-led, FSMA-based, and technology-enabled.” Four Core Elements of the Blueprint were highlighted during the webinar: tech-enabled traceability, smarter tools and approaches for prevention and outbreak response, new business models and retail modernization, and food safety culture. Leaders within each Core Element provided an account of the various actions taken to implement the New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint.
Why the right culture is an organisation’s greatest intangible asset
Eileen Doyle, a director of NEXTDC and Oil Search, says setting the right culture in an organisation is about finding a balance between co-operation and challenge.
“You have to work together to build that culture,” she says. “Someone at the right point has to be prepared to challenge somebody who’s not living up to it.”
Doyle has spent many years on board health and safety committees and applies what she has learnt about influencing a company’s safety culture to influencing the broader culture of the organisation.
The starting point for a board and management is to define the culture they want in the organisation.
Culture is a vibrant, dynamic ingredient into the business mix, says Peter Hearl. Chris Hyde
“First of all you set your culture, and that’ll be different for every organisation. Then you systematically define what’s important to reinforce or create that culture,” she says.
Directors need to ensure there is some sort of measurement system in place to track an organisation’s cultural performance, Doyle says.
A conversation with Anthony Cacciatore of Satellite Shelters Inc.
What is the most important part of your position?
A: The most important part of my role is to empower our employees to go home to their loved ones in the same shape as they came in to work. I help facilitate the distribution of tools, training and best practices necessary for employees to take the responsibility of safety into their own hands. Safety can’t come from just one person in an organization. I could be up on a soapbox, preaching safety to our employees, but if they’re simply listening and not living the safety culture, we’re failing as an organization.
At its core, my responsibility is to continue developing the safety culture throughout the organization. From the president of Satellite Shelters to the new hire we just brought on yesterday, the value of safety needs to live in everyone if we are to maintain the safety culture at Satellite.
Boettcher on what Waste Management looks for from a culture perspective when evaluating companies for potential M&A deals:
“We’re people-first and [champion] safety, and those are our two biggest cultural elements, and if the company doesn’t have a really good safety record, that’s a big red flag for us because that’s something that takes a while to get corrected. … So, we look for a good safety culture. It also has legacy issues when the safety culture is bad in any aspects of the landfill or logistical elements of that business, so we look at [safety] probably first, and the rest you can deal with.”
Boettcher on what Waste Management looks for from a culture perspective when evaluating companies for potential M&A deals:
“We’re people-first and [champion] safety, and those are our two biggest cultural elements, and if the company doesn’t have a really good safety record, that’s a big red flag for us because that’s something that takes a while to get corrected. … So, we look for a good safety culture. It also has legacy issues when the safety culture is bad in any aspects of the landfill or logistical elements of that business, so we look at [safety] probably first, and the rest you can deal with.”
NASA manager highlights teamwork, communication
According to Watson-Morgan, effective communication, strong teamwork, and studying past successes and failures, as well as the risk culture of other government agencies, help the collective NASA-industry-stakeholder team understand the risks, develop solutions to minimize them, and accept what risks cannot be eliminated.
NASA and the spaceflight industry will use the Moon as a testbed to further evaluate and demonstrate technologies, processes and procedures needed to send humans to Mars.
“On the Moon, we can take reasonable risks while astronauts are just three days from home,” Watson-Morgan said. “There we will prove technologies and mature systems necessary to live and work on another world before embarking on what could be a two- to three-year mission to Mars.”
Fleets Target Driver Retention, Safety Culture
Improving driver engagement and overall safety were on the minds of industry leaders during American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition on Oct. 20.
The first education session of the virtual event, “Employing Effective Driver Engagement Strategies to Improve Safety & Driver Retention,” dealt with learning how high driver turnover has impacted the industry, how to combat it and how fleets can build a strong safety culture.
The panel discussion was led by Idelic Inc. founder and CEO Hayden Cardiff and featured Ronnie Holland, director of safety for TCW Inc. and Gregg Troian, president of PGT Trucking Inc.
2020 Management Conference & Exhibition logo
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Cardiff led off by noting the staggering turnover rate of 84% and 95% at medium- and large-size fleets, respectively.
These are some of the numbers we hear year-in, year-out,” he said. “The numbers don’t change.”
Improving skills base is ‘the biggest challenge we face’
Philippe Kavafyan’s briefing to industry leaders and specialists, and key EU policymakers at the launch of the WindEurope report highlighted wind power’s requirements for engineers, technicians and support staff.
“It is the biggest challenge we face,” he said. “My job didn’t exist when I graduated. It was some time ago, but even a few years ago, no one would have expected such an exponential growth of our sector.
“Not just wind, but the rest of our infrastructure initiatives that we need for this energy transition in Europe.”
Increased demand will create future jobs with roles and skills that we cannot currently define, he said.
“We need to make sure the message is conveyed at every level of the educational system. We need to educate children to picture the world of tomorrow, to make sure that [when we are thinking about] apprenticeships we do not forget there are so many technical jobs that are being created in our sector,” he said.
“Of course, we need to continue to support innovation all the way up to advanced research, to continue the effort to attract and direct all the talent. We don’t need one specific set of skills, we have a broad range of situations, from biodiversity, all the way to infrastructure, logistics, technical but also service activities are driving a very wide range of skills,” he said.
“We talk about an exponential demand for skills and talent. Practically speaking, in a college in the northeast of Scotland, we are in a position where we can take young people and put them in a one-year rotation.
“So they can hands-on, and get really accustomed to what it is to not only service a wind turbine, but also what it is like for service technicians going offshore, along with the logistics and safety culture that it comes with it. We need to focus on the massive and wide demand for talent that we need to attract into the new jobs of the energy transition.”
Pilot and ATC Associations Call for Release of Russian Air Traffic Controllers
Both organizations called for the immediate release of the three controllers. The Global Air Traffic Control Alliance said, “The decision to impose imprisonment terms of between 5 and 6 years will do nothing to help aviation safety as it is without the principles of a just culture which is so key to ensuring the aviation community can learn from past incidents and accidents to prevent future ones.” Additionally, the GATCA said, “The three controllers from Moscow-Vnukovo have been sentenced for failing to prevent the accident at their airport even though the tools available to them at the time were not adequate for the task they needed to do. Instead they have been made scapegoats for the whole accident whilst the true reasons for the tragedy have been ignored. By doing so the Russian Federation has shown contempt for the safety culture principles set out by annexes 13 (aircraft accident and incident investigation) and 19 (safety management) to the Convention on International Civil Aviation.”