Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Process Wednesday: plant safety signs

Sign in red box at right. SafeStart image credit: SafeStart
I occasionally pass by a chemical facility that has a dispensing station for chemicals; I believe that it moves compound from the tank into a tanker truck. While the placarded compound is pretty boring, I think the sign (see red box to right) that gives a safety warning is pretty interesting.

The sign is apparently part of a safety program called "SafeStart". You can see a larger version of the sign next to the photo. I think the sign is particularly insightful; certainly, rushing, frustration, fatigue and complacency would be a huge part of the mental state that lead to incidents or accidents. [I'll also note that I suspect that some people (myself included) occasionally spend 80% of their day in one or more of those states.] I particularly like the concept of "line-of-fire" -- at a dispensing station, an operator/driver would certainly have to be concerned about that. 

I also wonder if this sign has too many words to be effective; at some point, a sign has too much text to be effective. I'm not sure that it's reached that point, but I'm sure it's getting close. 

3 comments:

  1. One would wish that displaying such Warning Signs are motivated by true concern and respect for employees and others however in current society often sense more a matter of avoidance mitigation for OSHA fines and ambulance chasing lawyers (to whom posting do not appear to be a good deterrent anyway and can even be twisted to use against plaintiffs)
    CMCguy

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  2. I don't think the sign is meant to be used alone at all.

    We use the Safestart program where I work, its a facility that does R&D, kilo lab, and pilot plant scale manufacture of API. The signs and/or posters are meant only as daily reminders for the mental checklist that the safety program teaches us about.

    The training also makes us think about the fact that almost all accidents are avoidable and under our own control. You start to become very self aware if you fall into one of the states of mind that can lead to errors which cause accidents. At that point you can become more aware and take extra care to avoid making said mistakes.

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  3. A9:47a: So it sounds like it's been a useful tool?

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