Posted By Richard Spencer
What are people's views on the formation of a safety engineering faculty within IOSH.

Safety engineering is particulary big in the Oil/Gas industry and others.

It seems that we need to focus on not only occupation safety but on operational safety being the environment in which the individual works.

Richard

Posted By Andy Petrie
I agree with you on this. The majority of IOSH appears to be the Occupational side of safety. The majority of my work is spent making sure things don't collapse, crash or blow up. While a occ health is a worthy subject I find it hard to get excited about ear protection and safety goggles.

There's definately a need for a Safety/Risk Engineering function within IOSH, and it's something I'd like to be involved in.

As to the previous comment about the engineering institutions covering this, well yes they do but only within that discipline. There's not a lot of opportunity for chemical engineers to interact with civils ones etc. IOSH could act as a cross dicipline function, and this could give the other members the opportunity to be involved and learn about other areas of the safety disipline.

Posted By David Kimmins
Richard

Good Idea. Thanks for differentiating between the 'engineering of' and the 'management of' safety.

I'm heavily involved in safety engineering (and safety management) but I am no longer in a hazardous industry such as explo/petrochem/ etc..

David

Posted By AlB
I am a keen believer that Safety should revolve around good design and this includes safe engineering and safely engineering out risks. As much as I think it is critical for adequate training and information to be provided to all employees, there will always be a human factor invovled, which is, unfortunately, a risk in itself. The safest way to keep people safe is by engineering risks out as much as possible.

I am no engineer, but I am looking to take a distance learning engineering degree next academic year, as I believe that this is the way forward for me, and I think there is a strong case for the Safety profession to follow.

Posted By Richard Spencer
The title safety engineer is a title that has no specific degree to it in either Australia or UK. Perhaps if IOSH was to designate a college safe engineering and competencies that would need to be met then the title ‘safety engineer’, would become more credible at least on paper.

AIB is quite correct and that in Australia there is an onus on the Designer, Manufacturer and Supplier as well as the Owner or Lessees to ensure that the safety aspects of any machinery or plant has been assessed for risks.

In Germany and the US there is a group who examine Technical Safety and award an accreditation for personnel meeting there accreditation process.

I believe it is now of fundamental important IOSH consider this important issue.

The area of safety engineering comes together as a result of the engineering profession providing a level of expertise but unfortunately no august body to my knowledge in the Australia or UK issue accreditation for those wishing to become ‘safety engineers’.

The American’s in design often consider the concept of ‘Safety Place’. Australia follows the design core value of ‘Safe Person’.

This means that the organization places ‘all its eggs in one basket’, by trying to educate those most at risk to protect themselves in the workplace.

Whilst this is an admirable core value, it is by and large a reactive measure. That is to say an organisation accepted the plant and equipment into its operating environment and now seeks to guard the human element from the hazards arising from post acceptance risk assessment. For existing plant and equipment there is a failure to recognise the need to
re-engineer existing plant and equipment.

Richard

Posted By Ron Young
Well said Mr Ure. I did sniff a little bit of eliteism creeping in with Richards post, something he's not adverse to in some of his past postings.

Posted By Frank Hallett
Oh dear - I was going to put a couple of thoughts but I think that it may be beneficial if we review the the original question and all the answers in the context of a narrative first.

Let's not get hung up splitting the Occ Health & Safety title into it's artificially segregated component parts - all aspects are important and have value; it's simply the circumstances that dictate which component has the greater value for that situation - and it is all part of the greater remit of Loss Prevention [or effective management].

If there is enough support for a Safety Engineers SIG, then fine; if not, there are already other homes for the range of interests that would come together to form that SIG.

Frank Hallett

Frank Hallett

Posted By jom
I've seen this fight played out before.

The fight isn't about safety, it's about territory.

Process Safety is not about personell safety. It's about integrity of plant and processes. It doesn't involve OHS principles other than the law to protect and safety management. It's not PPE.

Process Safety is all about personell safety. If the plant doesn't blow up people aren't harmed.

Confused? Welcome.

Engineers are trained in the plant but not in safety.

There is a need to transfer knowhow across the disciplines. Fighting over territory is for muppets.

J.

Posted By George Wedgwood
Yes, well, I think that sometimes 'we' get a name for being a bit pedantic at times - and this chat certainly has elements of it! IOSH remains very interested in what its Members want and engineering/major hazards has been discussed for some time now. However, there has never been sufficient direct interest to put forward a proposal to the Groups Management Sub Committee (formerly the Specialist Groups Management Committee) by way of a "Stage One" application. That needs enough interested members to form a nucleus to present the case.

Last year, we had some discussions with SIESO (The Society of Industrial Emergency Services Officers)with a view to them forming a SG, based on major hazards but that 'partnertship' has not materialised. Currently, we are having discussions with the Fire Risk Management Group, with a view to integrating some aspects of major hazards, and this aspect was liked by most of the GMSC. Discussions will continue at our next meeting in April.

Mention has also been made of having a Safety Management Group in IOSH but again it lacks 'critical mass'. So far, Engineering has a similar response, so unless some of you are willing to do some work and see it through, it won't happen! However, I am also an engineer but don't get hung up on the 'occupational' aspects of engineering safety as I believe firmly that we are all doing the job for one reason - to espouse the IOSH Vision!

Feel free to mail me if there is any firm interest in forming such a new Group.

Kind regards, George Wedgwood (Chair, Groups Management Sub Committee)