Health and safety at work

Introduction

The following work presents topics and subtopics about safety and hygiene at work, whose objective is based precisely on the consequences of the interaction between these words: work, as a source of risk and health as a precious asset for man that can be altered by work.

In this sense, it can be said that the current concession of occupational safety and hygiene has its origin precisely in the evolution experienced by both terms, reaching the conclusion that said current situation in which, far from constituting exclusively a means of subsistence, is an important element of social valuation and development of creative activity, thus forming a right and a duty of the person, the current trend in this field should lead to achieving a better quality of life and optimal working conditions in order to prevent the health of the person man who works can be affected by the situations that he himself create.

What Is Safety And Hygiene At Work?

Occupational safety and hygiene are integral parts of working conditions. Its regulation in the company and its application by all the elements of the same makes its general knowledge necessary. Although this knowledge is necessary for the workers, it is especially necessary for the responsible managers of the companies, since they are the ones who must ensure that each productive act is carried out with maximum productivity, and this would not be possible if human or human losses are admitted. the property in its realization.

Basic Concepts Of Safety At Work

The word security has many connotations and meanings, but carries a unitary background for all of them.

Man has always highlighted his permanent struggle to obtain satisfactory levels of personal security, both in tangible and intangible aspects.

The presence in his environment of the numerous risks to which he has referred have awakened the need to fight to achieve the degree of security that is closest to not losing.

Therefore, security is considered to be a desirable state of people in the face of risks.

If you keep in mind that they mean greater security:

• A positive attitude against the accident.
• Some tactics or strategies to avoid the accident.
• Some techniques and systems against accidents.

All this explains that security attitudes, techniques, tactics and systems and that security is ultimately a scientific discipline with its specific terminology and its own universal principles.

The characteristics of the accident are: it is unwanted, it produces losses, and generally, there is contact with an energy source.

An accident can be defined as an unwanted event that causes loss of people, property or work processes. The accident is the result of contact with a substance or source of energy (mechanical, electrical, chemical, and / ionizing, acoustic, etc.) higher than the limit threshold of the body or structure with which the contact is made.

Most incidents decrease or deteriorate the efficiency of business operations, a task with incidents is not a task well done, the incident is any unwanted or unintended event that under very few different circumstances could cause losses for people, the property or the processes, this is how chance is in the possible severity of the injuries (losses), but the accident or incidents is due to some causes and concurs in the following principles:

• Every accident / incident is caused by at least one cause.
• In general, several causes occur in an accident / incident.
• The causes are factorially related to each other.

Risk Identification

When referring to the administrator or risk manager, we focus their function on minimizing pure risks, since it is another organizational structure that deals with speculative risks.

The first job of risk management is to identify the presence and nature of pure risks or exposures to possible adverse effects, the procedure can be facilitated if we resort to a logical breakdown identifying the jobs, activities, tasks and even the operations themselves in relation to with the environment in which they develop, it is then when the proper identification of pure risks begins, that is, of those that once controlled effectively will not cause losses, but that if they are not acted upon properly may even compromise the life of the company or its people.

Normally the relationship of pure risks identified will vary according to each specific company, and the level of description of the same can also be extended.

Pure Risks At Work

Incidents · Work accidents Occupational diseases · Fires Explosions Natural phenomena Loss of key employees Machinery breakdown Transportation losses Responsibilities for the product Builder responsibilities

Data responsibilities · Fraud · Data Violation Sabotage Industrial espionage · Bomb threat Outdoor threat Market losses Loss of customers Demonstrations Process interruptions Ecological losses

In this identification process, it refers to the consequences that each of the pure risks can give rise, consequences that will always be losses:

• for people (injury, illness, fatigue, dissatisfaction).
• for property (in movable and immovable property).
• for the process (lost time, quality, deteriorated).

Work Safety And Hygiene As A Technical Discipline

Currently, the technical content is what differentiates and characterizes occupational safety and hygiene as autonomous specialties, so its function can only be granted based on the knowledge and basic techniques of engineering. In order to carry out his function, the security technician or engineer must have knowledge of technological processes since only from these, will he be able to analyze the risks inherent in each stage of the process and study the preventive measures to be adopted, seeking their inclusion in the earliest phase of the process.

Which its definitions are the following:

• Work safety: set of procedures and technical resources applied to the effective prevention and protection against accidents.
• Occupational hygiene: set of procedures and technical resources applied to the effective prevention of occupational diseases.

Occupational hygiene and safety includes technical standards and sanitary measures of protection or of any other nature that contain as an object:

• Eliminate or reduce the risks of the different work centers.
• Encourage and develop in people in the field of law enforcement, a positive and constructive attitude regarding the prevention of accidents and occupational diseases that may arise from their professional activities.
• You will individually and collectively achieve optimal health status.

Until now, occupational safety and hygiene has been conceived as “non-medical techniques” whose objective is focused on the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases.

Analytical Safety Techniques Prior To The Accident / Incident

The analytical techniques are those that allow to know the degree of potential or existing safety, based on the identified dangers, they can be applied before or after the accidents take place.

This characteristic does not condition the effectiveness of one or the other in combating the accident, since the result of their application has, in all cases, a preventive purpose, with regard to the different safety techniques, which affects the Requirements that must be kept in mind and applied for these techniques to provide the effectiveness for which they were designed.

Work observation is a technique in which, through observation, conditions of potential losses in the work system can be detected, especially of a human type, it is considered two types of work observations, informal and planned, among the first it is possible to discern the routine ones that are of some use and that many things escape from them, and the intentional ones that serve to pay special attention in a given period to a specific worker (not for special reasons).

Intentional informal observation can result if it is applied in a generalized way, in lack of attention to work and workers of the sections that need it most, planned observations of work (OPT) constitute an important aid for the command since they allow to know with a planning time and space if workers do the necessary steps of their tasks with maximum efficiency and the working conditions are adequate, is a technique that has its own reason for being since it is not complementary to others.

What has been said does not imply that the informal and the planned ones are very incompatible with the contract, both are necessary.

The methodology for the (OPT) should include:

• Selection of the job and worker to be observed, giving priority to the worst and most critical jobs.
• Report the purpose of the observation.
• Observe the work and record its development.
• Review the result of the observation with the worker.
• Establish objectives for subsequent observations.

Security inspections

Safety inspection is the best known and most practiced pre-accident / incident analytical technique as a means of detecting and controlling potential dangers that may cause losses that affect people or property, it can be said that inspections are the foundation and the Spearhead for any preventive program with the desire to reach advanced levels in its development, which is why the procedure requires prior analysis of the work, as well as being able to affirm that it will not be in a position to be good analysis without prior repeated experience and inspections.

The difference between the two main types of inspection:

• Informal or spontaneous that can be carried out by the command while carrying out their normal supervisory activities.
• Planned inspections that will be general or critical parts.
• Inspections must be planned for each work area.
• The physical conditions and unsafe practices detected in the inspections must be reported in writing on an appropriate form.
• It is convenient to have a list of those situations that must be checked.
• Detected hazards will be classified according to severity or potential for loss.
• If the general inspection is carried out by people of a higher level than the inspected area, a copy of the report must be delivered to the command of the same so that they can adopt the corrective measures.
• A policy of inspection of critical parts that can potentially derive from significant losses is necessary.
• Automotive and material handling equipment must be perfectly identified.
• The results of the supervision of the maintenance of the standards established for the inspections must be reported to the higher levels of command.
• A special care should not deserve the control of the application of the different corrective measures that have been dedicated and the information of the result of this control to the top manager.

Factors Evaluated In The Safety Inspection

· Identification: section, date of inspection; inspector.Hazard classification Control of the situation of reported hazards · Description of hazards. Proposal solution Description of affected solutions · Firms · Circuit collected by the report and preparation.

Reactive Or Post-accident Analytical Techniques

Notification and registration of accidents / incidents

Reactive analytical techniques are those whose application takes place after accidents or incidents have occurred, whose purpose is to affect the repetition of contact and that serve to know and understand the reason for unwanted events, this purpose allows us to remember that being a The means to prevent other accidents from happening are like the previous techniques prior to the accident, true preventive techniques, the notification of accidents / incidents is the fact of communicating precisely that this type of event occurs, making it possible to investigate them.

To control notifications, you must have knowledge of the following data:

• First aid points.
• Repair, replacement and waste recovery centers.
• Fire prevention service.

In relation to accident records, which are the documents where the different data from the parties are arranged for subsequent statistical exploitation, it is convenient to refer to two sources of information:

Operational Techniques

• Design or project of facilities or equipment: these are operational concession techniques based on the inclusion of safety in the project or initial planning of facilities or equipment, seeking the adaptation of work to man and the elimination or reduction of risk.
• Study and improvement of methods: these are operational concession techniques based on the study, planning and initial programming of work methods seeking the adaptation of working conditions to man and surprise or reduction of risk.
• Standardization: its purpose is to establish methods of action in different risk situations, avoiding the adoption of improvised solutions.
• Preventive maintenance: this technique is of great importance for production, it consists in avoiding breakdowns, since it achieves their elimination, eliminating the risks of accidents.
• Defense and safeguards: consists of obstacles and barriers that prevent access to man in the risk zone.
• Individual protections: this technique should be used last or as a complement to previous techniques when the risk cannot be eliminated, in order to avoid personal injury or damage.

Order And Cleaning In The Work Centers

Causes and preventive and protective measures to be adopted against them dangers derived from the lack of order and cleanliness in the workplace.
Hazard type	Risk factor’s	Prevention / or protection measures to adopt
Falls to the same level	· Dirty floors, impregnated with slippery substances or in poor condition. · Objects, materials or waste placed in a disorderly way.	· Management and collection of surplus materials and equipment. · Correctly illuminate work areas. · Keep floors clean and in good condition.
Collisions or bumps against objects	· Equipment and machines located off site.	· Correctly illuminate work areas. · Have a good equipment control system. · Keep hallways clean.
Falls of people at different levels.	Do not use the mandatory security measures	· Use adequate security elements. Use individual protection systems
Contact with harmful substances	· Existence of harmful substances in warehouses and workplaces.	· Place these substances in remote and well-lit places. · Use suitable containers, hermetically closed and with the corresponding identification labels.
Fires	· Use work clothes impregnated with flammable substances. · Place rags or pieces of cotton impregnated with oils on hot equipment or machines.	· Prohibition of smoking or extreme measures. · Quickly remove debris, preventing it from accumulating. · Signaling of the facilities and fire fighting equipment.
Punctures and cuts	· Use of cutting tools.	· Remove waste immediately.

SECURITY COLORS: SIGINIFIED AND APPLICATIONS

Safety colors	Meaning	App
Red	· Stop Prohibition	· Stop signs. · Prohibition signs. · Emergency disconnection devices.
Yellow	· Attention · Danger	· Risk signaling. · Marking of thresholds, dangerous passages, obstacles.
Green	Security situation · First aid	· Signaling of corridors and emergency exits. · First aid and rescue stations.
Blue	Signs of obligation · Indications.	· Obligation to wear personal protective equipment. · Telephone location, workshops, etc.

Conclusion

The growth and development of industries and technology has resulted in an increase in various risks of work accidents. These risks are multiple and varied, their appearance depends on various factors, of which the three main ones are: the technical team, the work environment and the worker to achieve optimal safety and hygiene of prevention and / or reduction Of accidents, joint and permanent actions are necessary to guarantee an ideal environment where there is no occasion or opportunity for risks and accidents at work.

This can be carried out taking into account the individual within his work area, knowing the relationship that the worker has with his superiors as well as with his colleagues. It is necessary to know the days and hours to which the worker is exposed and acquire importance to the working conditions in which they work every day. All this helps to better understand the work environment that predominates in an organization.