Posted By John
Hi all. Before my next H & S 18001 audit, I have to carry out a test to see how well our factory is prepared for an emergency. This can be anything which stretches our resources, especially testing how management respond who have crucial responsibilities. I've thought of examples such as imagining we have a chemical spillage and what would our emergency response team do to clear the area and make safe but everything I think of I can find fault with. I work in the manufacturing industry with 125 employees across three shifts and I'm not finding it easy to come up with a good practical suggestion. We already carry out fire drills but this has to be something a bit more involved. Any help would be gratefully accepted.

Posted By Barry Cooper
John
We had the same problem, so we developed an action plan for the year.
We staged first aid, spillage, fire and bomb threat excercises. We recorded these complete with failures and then raised corrective actions to address the failures. The auditors were happy with this

Barry

Posted By John Murphy
We tend to think of emergencies as fire, flood and maybe even pestilence depending on location? Seriously though, look at the wider issue of business continuity.
It is an established fact that 80% of businesses affected by a major incident close within 18 months.
90% of businesses that lose data from a disaster are forced to shut within 2 years.
58% of UK organisations were disrupted by September 11th. One in eight was seriously affected.
Do a self assesment of how well your company is prepared for an emergency or major incident using the checklist at: http://www.londonprepare.../businesscont/index.htm. This web site provides user friendly business continuity advice. There are easy to use checklists, templates and 'how to' guides that have been prepared primarily with small and medium-sized businesses and organisations in mind.

I think after you have done this you will be able to focus on a broader number of issues that should be considered and tested for emergency preparedness.

Regards

John

Posted By John
Thanks Adrian for the link. Excellent site with good ideas. I suppose I mean 'difficulties' rather than 'fault' in my posting, mainly to do with running a live exercise successfully enough to gather good feedback. As you can appreciate trying to carry out an emergency in a manufacturing environment is never going to be easy. I know you can only do your best and try to cover all situations but I want it to be as comprehensive as possible and include as many of the appropriate people as I can.
John