Abstract
A health hazard basement plays a critical role in assessing an employee’s health risk exposure in different units within any industrial facility. Consequently, an organization’s operations that present poor working hygiene exposes its employees to an industrial environment prone to risks commonly associated with their exposure to hazardous materials. As such, identifying the operations of Acme Manufacturing Company (AMC) plays a critical role in assessing its level of implementation of the industrial health safety guidelines for the safety of its employees while carrying out their routine job requirements.
Introduction
Various risks that employees face in any organization come from hazards and the workers’ exposure to them. Thus, assessing risks and vulnerability to hazard occupies a central position in industrial and health hygiene plans. The risks laborers face on the job depend mostly on the site’s threats and the level of employees’ subjection to those hazards. Using systematic techniques to describe vulnerability to chemical, biological, and physical elements significantly impacts the process. The allocation of health resources can become more useful after conducting an in-depth and organized employee risk characterization to ascertain the company laborers’ health risks. The program elements should comprise training, improved medical surveillance strategies, better procurement practices, and control measures to collect valuable data for evaluating the program. All the calculations and data are attached in the appendix section of this report.
After having observed the environment in which all the industrial operations of AMC are conducted, the following report of a physical examination of different sections of the company was presented. In particular, these sections include the ventilation room, welding room, hazardous materials storage area, and foundry room. The examination of these sections is to help in assessing the level of employees’ risks throughout their routine duties within the organization. Among the significant hazardous activities, an employee falls, slips, noise, vibrations, and unguaranteed machinery are included, which pose physical threats to the workforce. The observation of the potential employee vulnerability was vital in identifying, assessing, and developing methods to control those threats.
Report Details
Welding Room
The AMC has a welding room portioned into different sections using curtains. Mixing of various industrial chemicals happens at the entrance and back of the welding room. The employees are exposed to the iron oxide within this operational unit. The workers also unnecessarily move within this section and are prone to constant interruption of ongoing work processes. The available seats for the employees taking rest hours are not sufficient to meet the one-time capacity. As such, most of the employees often assume a standing position which is unsafe on a routine activity. These risk factors, therefore, present a common cause of accidents throughout the employees’ engagement in their duties.
Hazardous Materials Storage Area
The company has a distinct hazardous materials storage area from the rest of its other units. However, this unit is associated with many health risk factors. For instance, hazardous materials are not adequately ventilated. AMC provides an insurance cover dictating that each carrier must meet a minimum of 13 air changes per hour, which is within the regular recommended changing interval (United States Department of Labor, 2020). The Ergonomic hazards identified within the storage area included low lighting, repetitive motion, poor employee posture, as well as unnecessary movements (United States Department of Labor, 2020). The above risk factors were observable in almost the entire space allocated for material storage. These factors provide high-risk exposure to the company pool of employees. Better safety measures must, therefore, be implemented as an alternative approach to enhance the safety of the organization’s workers.
Foundry Room
The AMC has a foundry room where all metal casting processes take place. However, this room is outdated to support all the engineering safety controls effectively. The employees conduct their daily operations near an open canopy exhaust hood while putting their faces in the direction of its flow. The organization needs to put in place a new exhaust system that eliminates any contact between the flowing hood and the handlers of such industrial materials (United States Department of Labor, 2020). Other hazardous materials that were also observable within this unit included cleaning solutions, carbon monoxide, dangerous vapors, and cleaning solvents. Other health risk factors include biological hazards of the bodily fluids of workers. These were the result of employers’ torn clothes and unguaranteed personal protective pieces of equipment. Other common causes of the employees’ exposure to bodily fluids were a result of their exposure to the insect bites found within the assemblage area. Such health risk factors present a need for the organization to further implement health safety requirements in trying to meet those set by occupational health safety standards.
After having conducted the risk assessments, it was observable that the employees presented an exposure level rate of 10 minutes which is below the approved short-term exposure limit of 15 (United States Department of Labor, 2020). The level of employees’ tampering and the removal rate of their protective gear is consistently high. This was alarming to the safety of the employees. Based on the identified results and their comparison to the existing occupational exposure limits and permissible exposure limits, the health safety of AMC’s employees towards risk hazards is below the approved health safety standards set at 15 (United States Department of Labor, 2020). It is, therefore, unacceptable for the operations of the company to continue in the same fashion. Instead, there is a need for other critical recommendations to help assess employee safety during their operations.
Conclusions and Recommendations
In trying to establish health safety programs for the employees of AMC, it is recommended that the company track various work-related hazards and multiple illnesses related to health risk exposures. The data obtained from these assessments can help in recommending effective courses of action essential to preventing injuries that workers can face in their different workstations. Based on the employee’s health risk analysis, it is recommended that the organization should conduct chemical sampling and analysis to assess potential threats that the various chemicals used in the manufacturing of various products pose to the entire employee population.
The organization must carry out a source evaluation on all the sources of employee risk factors in addressing the dangers the workforce can face within the premises. It must review all its sources of health jeopardy in both failure mode and job safety analysis. The factory needs to implement a SMART touch software that will help to monitor the industrial hygiene of the entire operations. The plant also has a role in providing a learning and training environment for the safety of the whole organization’s employees. BSCI’s choice to implement health risk safety plan is beneficial. For instance, the program can support the management in implementing safety actions towards instilling a safety culture for the benefit of all the stakeholders of the company. Safety guidelines also help the firm in managing potential perils by identifying the recommended and limits, thereby improving the safety of employees throughout their professional duties.
By complying with the industrial safety guidelines and recommendations, the employees of the organization can easily equip themselves with all the quantitative measurements. At the same time, they can develop their skills and abilities to help them identify and manage potential health hazards and the associated risks before they occur. Therefore, the company is in a position to manage the rate of injuries in all industrial operations. This will lower other costs associated with insurance covers, improve the productivity of employees, and reduce employee turnover attributable to operational injuries. Managing and implementing safety practices also boosts the profitability of a company in the long run by ensuring smooth and cost-effective operations within the company. The industrial safety guidelines are, therefore, crucial in managing the safety of workers at the workplace.
Reference
United States Department of Labor (2020). Occupational safety and health administration. Web.
Appendices
Sampling results
Receive the following analytical report
- (150*4.3)+ (150-3.7) + (240*2.2) or 645+555+528 or 1728/480 mins = 3.6 mg/m³
- (180*2.1)+ (120*2.8) + (240*3.1) or 378+336+774 or 1458/480 mins = 3.03 mg/m³
- (205*1.7)+ (125*1.25) + (150*1.03) or 348.5+156.25+154.5 or 659/480 mins = 1.37 mg/m³
- (165*12.8)+ (72*11.2) + (126*9.8) + (120*12) or 2112+806.4+1205.4+1440 or 4255.8/480 mins = 8.87 mg/m³
- (190*7.8)+ (149*14.2) + (140*1.8) or 1482+2115.8+252 or 3849.8/480 mins = 8.02 mg/m³