Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH What Act covers Loss Prevention and Reliability? Health and Safety is enforceable under law.

Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH what areas are you thinking of?

Posted By Jonathan Sandler CMIOSH But the key difference is one is an Act and the other is not.

Posted By AMJAD AL ATA hi all, I am working in OHS field (now doing nebosh cert.) I have no problem in knowing what H&S field is, but my main problem that i found many positions which require HS aptitudes whilst the position is LP or Reliability Officer/engineer .. etc , so i asked to know if there are differences in terms of functions, duties ... Regards

Posted By Raymond Rapp Amjad I gave a general and perhaps all too simplistic definition as those disciplines you refer to can be quite specialised. For example, reliability can be Reliability Theory, Engineering, Statistics, Experimental etc. Thankfully Loss Prevention (or assets protection) is a little more basic and is a corporate buzzword referring to the practice of reducing inventory shrink in the form of operational errors, consumer and employee theft. Loss prevention, as a concept, has evolved from such industry staples as periodical store inventories, bag checks before employees leaving, and magnetic scanners at the entrance and exits of stores to controlling anything that could potentially affect a corporation's bottom line. Ray

Posted By AMJAD AL ATA Hi Raymond & Jonathan Thanks to both of you. Jonathan, i am here in UAE (i donot know if my location can affect my question or even the response to it!!) I am asking to know & i was confused, but i think it is clear now the differences as you both stated. Raymond, from your illutrations i get that there are a points where H&S meet LP (preventing accidents) to protect people basicly in H&S & to prevent losses in terms of assets or even people in LP. Also the relibility when one talking about the relibility of fire fighting system, say, in nuclear plant by someway the more this system is reliable the more HS of people ensured & the more asset are protected (from fire, by early detecting, alarming & extinguishing). Really in terms of organisational arrangements i didnot found HS & Relibility or HS & LP as one department, but i did found HS & Security or HS & Quality as one department. the relationship of these fields HS, security & quality is the same as that between HS, relibility & LP so it is not impossible for me to find a company where due to it is specific situations, that HS & LP is one unit or HS & Relibility is one unit. Regards

Posted By AMJAD AL ATA Hi Peter, and thanks for response, Yes, it is what i am seeking when i asked about the differences. Regrads Amjad

Posted By David Kimmins Amjad Loss Prevention is best described as a sub technique of Risk Control, I have to explain what Risk Control is before I can explain what Loss Prevention is. Risk Control includes those risk management techniques designed to minimize the frequency or severity of accidental losses or to make losses more predictable. “Loss Prevention” aims to reduce the frequency (or the likelihood) of a particular loss, For example, Company A could try to prevent intruders from committing arson by improving its security measures. Company B could erect a high wall shielding the boundary of its property. Company C could choose to train its company car drivers in defensive driving. Company D could choose to contract out meat cutting. Incidentally “Loss Reduction” aims to lower the severity of a particular loss. So in Summary, H&S is a small part of Risk Control, and is primarily involved with people. Loss Prevention can be applied to H&S or the broader aspects of Risk Control. Loss Prevention is avoiding the frequency. Reduce the amount of times people fall off a Ladder. Loss Reduction aims to reduce the severity of people falling off a ladder. Reliability is part of System Safety, as opposed to people safety (H&S). Of course Systems Safety affects people too, what if component A fails in this plane, will Component B keep it in the air. I hope this helps clear up the confusion in this thread. One earlier responder referred to Loss Prevention being about retail theft etc.. In that Industry that is what Loss Prevention has chosen to focus on reducing the liklihood of. However Loss Prevention may as equally have chosen in retail to reduce slips, trips & falls, or whatever could cause a risk to the business (which includes the people) or to the bottom line. Regards David

Posted By David Kimmins Amjad The posting by Peter Longworth correctly and succinctly summarized the disciplines/philosophies. I cannot improve on it. I would differ with your last statement that H&S and reliability are part of Loss Prevention. They may or may not be. A good Safety person should practice Loss Prevention, (they may not know they are doing it, but they'd fail pretty quickly if they did not) Again I would differ with you on H&S being work, it's also members of the public, consumers etc.. Reliability could/does also involve people as part of the process, they make mistakes too. A lot of these philosophies/disciplines overlap and blur and so they should, otherwise we would not be holistic and integrated into as many aspects as our business as we could be. Amjad, as said at the start of my overly long explanations, stick with Peter's summary. Bravo Peter. David