Introduction to Basic Manufacturing Processes and ... - always yours

Industrial Safety 27
by safety measures. Every industrial personnel are required to contribute the efforts towards
safety. For ensuring industrial safety, the first factory act in India was passed by the Governor
General of India on 23rd Sept., 1948. It was further amended in 1950, 1951, 1954 and 1976,
which came into force on 26th November, 1976.
3.2 SAFETY CONCEPTS
In all kinds of industries, each shop supervisor is generally assigned the responsibility of
safety in his shop regarding the men, machines and materials. Every supervisor in each shop
ensures to the top executives in respect of all kinds of the safety matters. He is supposed to
incorporate all new safety measures needed in the shop from time to time. With the growth
in the size of the industry and depending upon the hazardousness of industrial processes, a
full fledged safety department should be created under the intensive supervision through a
safety manager. The safety manager may be given a line position or staff position depending
upon the working conditions in the industry. Sometimes the responsibility for safety rests on
a safety committee formed by the top executives of the organization. A safety committee may
consist of executives, supervisors, and shop floor workers. Thus the lower level employees get
a channel of communication on safety matters direct to executive level. It is a matter of fact
that those organizations which made safety committees had lower record of accidents than
those without safety committees. Safety committees always motivate all the industrial
employees for developing safety consciousness. It acts also as a policy making body on safety
matters. To enhance the efficiency of the safety committee, some safety problem may be
assigned to safety staff for identifying and implementing safety rules and publicizing them. Its
members should be asked to go on the shop floor and watch what is being done there till date
about the safety measures. It should be asked to report periodically as what improvements
have been made and what more can be done for safety aspects in near future for avoiding
any mis-happening in the plant. Safety committee often organizes safety programs to make
industrial persons sufficiently alert for overall safety within the plant. A safety program tends
to discover when, where and why accidents occur. It always aims at reducing accidents and
the losses associated with them. It begins with the assumption that more work-connected
accidents can be prevented. It does not have an end rather it is a continuous process to
achieve adequate safety. It involves providing, safety equipments and special training to
employees. It consists of support by top management, appointing a safety officer, engineering
a safe plant, processes and operations, educating all industrial employees to work safely,
studying and analyzing the accidents to prevent their occurrence in future, holding safety
contests, safety weeks etc., and awarding incentives or special prizes to departments which
enforces the safety rules and having least number of accidents.
A safety programme should always include engineering safety at the design and equipment
installation stage, education of employees in safe practices, concerns the attitude of employees
and management. It should motivate all the industrial employees in accident prevention and
safety consciousness. It must provide all safety instructions and training essential for the
employees to think, act and work safely so that the number of accidents can be minimized.
Safety education must give knowledge about safe and unsafe mechanical conditions and
personal practices. Safety training must involve induction and orientation of new recruits to
safety rules and practices, explaining safety function, during their initial job training through
efforts made by the first level supervisors. Formulating employee’s safety committees, holding
of employee’s safety meeting, display of charts, posters, film etc. are very much essential in
each industry for stressing the need to act safely. It educates employees to develop their