Safety observations on scaffolding

Conflicts in the workplace, as all plant managers know, are simply part of the job. But the important thing is conflict resolution, as it is said to be a critical skill for leadership. To establish and maintain a clear and compelling vision of security, conflicts must be treated in the healthiest way.

In security, conflict activities can lead to lapses in safety precautions at manufacturing plants or work sites and, in the worst case, can dangerously sabotage work. Here is a testimony to support the same.

In a petrochemical industry, during scaffolding operations, a supervisor gave a job to his workers: dismantle scaffolding from the top of the chimney. The height of the chimney was approximately 55 meters. A worker reached a height of 40 meters and began to dismantle the scaffolding. An engineer, who was aware of this work in progress, still sent his welder for welding operations at a height of 12 meters urgently. The reason why the welding job could have become too risky for the worker to carry out the subsequent dismantling.

Now, this resulted in a conflict activity: two workers, working in one place, one at a height of 40 meters and another at 12 meters; exactly below the worker who performs the scaffolding activity. Unfortunately, when removing the scaffolding, a 6-meter pipe, weighing approximately 20 kg, fell from his hand and fell directly onto the welder's head. The vertical pipe hit the head of the welder and, in seconds, led to the loss of life of the worker. The supervisor informed the rescue team for immediate rescue. Despite arriving at the location of the injured welder within 10 minutes after the accident, the severity of the head trauma led to his death.

Here, there were two errors: one from the engineer and one from the site supervisor. Despite the scaffolding work in progress, the engineer considered giving his permission for a conflict activity in the first place. Even the site supervisor could not monitor the activities of his site as it could have prevented the welder from performing the activity.

Even the welder, before performing his task, should have checked the job site for any work in progress for his own safety purposes. In addition, the entire security department lost the greatest need: the material safety net. It works as a protection wall; prevents accidental fall of people or objects from the site.

Managing risks through secure systems and behaviors is the right search

The risk assessment is key in such cases to ensure that everyone remains safe while they work. Awareness in workers through training allows closer scrutiny of such events; In the workplace, when the pace of activities increases, it becomes necessary to carry out the tasks with great care. EHS risks and compliance issues remain everywhere during operations, but if workers remain alert and connected, safety will never be compromised.

The previous incident offers safety learning: as far as possible, whenever we work at height, only one person must work at a time (depends on the severity of the work and the preventive measures adopted), and the appropriate monitoring for it help. Before starting to work at height, we must ensure that there is no one working up or down (with respect to the exact location of the job).

You should not work without permits and proper supervision. In the previous incident, all the errors combined led to the death of a worker. You can't buy life. Therefore, it remains our main agenda to protect and work in a responsible and safe way.