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  #1  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2016, 12:45 PM
jfk2396 jfk2396 is offline
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Safety in Construction

I was talking with a work colleague the other day and we were discussing the current level of safety in construction with regards to both lost work time and deaths.
Is there any more that we can do to prevent serious accidents?
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  #2  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2016, 2:24 PM
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  #3  
Old Posted Jan 21, 2016, 8:51 PM
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Deaths are super low.

I think it'd be better to look at long term things like back problems. Reduce the wear and tear so that when these people are 50 they don't have all these problems.
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Old Posted Jan 27, 2016, 8:54 PM
jfk2396 jfk2396 is offline
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Yes, deaths are low but even one death s one too many.

Long term strategies would help definitely be a good idea for backs and other problems such as particulant inhaleraton
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Old Posted Jan 27, 2016, 11:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jfk2396 View Post
Yes, deaths are low but even one death s one too many.

Long term strategies would help definitely be a good idea for backs and other problems such as particulant inhaleraton

There are plenty of safety laws on the books, they just arent followed in most places.
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Old Posted Jan 28, 2016, 12:37 AM
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There are plenty of safety laws on the books, they just arent followed in most places.
This.
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  #7  
Old Posted Feb 2, 2016, 4:28 PM
mhays mhays is online now
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In my region, safety is a near-obsession for any major general contractor.

Generally the policies and procedures are there. If it's a union shop everyone is trained in advance. At my firm, everyone also goes through an orientation on every project, including subs. There's a crew huddle every day. Every task is planned in advance, with the safe approach planned and discussed in advance.

If a subcontractor's IT guy walks onto one of our sites without safety glasses, gloves, boots, and a visibility vest, the incident and corrective action will be detailed in a weekly report (along with any others) to every employee. If a hammer falls from 15 feet, there will be a root cause analysis meeting.

Some companies say the right things but their culture seems to put schedule ahead of safety. The impression of the average worker is key here...is the president saying the right things but the foreman is more about sucking it up and beating the schedule? That's been a big focus at my employer...speak up, do things right, stop work if necessary, whether it's the activity that's unsafe or you tweaked a knee.

Beating schedules is important to winning more work, but being safe is just as important, even before the human side. Clients ask for safety approaches and stats all the time, particularly large companies and public agencies. Nobody wants an unsafe contractor building a high school addition, or the cost and delay of an accident. It's also helpful for us to hire and keep the best people.
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Old Posted Feb 3, 2016, 5:25 PM
jfk2396 jfk2396 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhays View Post
In my region, safety is a near-obsession for any major general contractor.

Generally the policies and procedures are there. If it's a union shop everyone is trained in advance. At my firm, everyone also goes through an orientation on every project, including subs. There's a crew huddle every day. Every task is planned in advance, with the safe approach planned and discussed in advance.

If a subcontractor's IT guy walks onto one of our sites without safety glasses, gloves, boots, and a visibility vest, the incident and corrective action will be detailed in a weekly report (along with any others) to every employee. If a hammer falls from 15 feet, there will be a root cause analysis meeting.

Some companies say the right things but their culture seems to put schedule ahead of safety. The impression of the average worker is key here...is the president saying the right things but the foreman is more about sucking it up and beating the schedule? That's been a big focus at my employer...speak up, do things right, stop work if necessary, whether it's the activity that's unsafe or you tweaked a knee.

Beating schedules is important to winning more work, but being safe is just as important, even before the human side. Clients ask for safety approaches and stats all the time, particularly large companies and public agencies. Nobody wants an unsafe contractor building a high school addition, or the cost and delay of an accident. It's also helpful for us to hire and keep the best people.
Yes that's true. Time is money so you can only have so many LOPA's but how do you decide how many is the right number of LOPA.
Nothing can be 100% safe as a series of unfortunate events can always happen. Its just a question of what percent of safety is the 'accepted' percent of safety. 95% 99% 99.9%?
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  #9  
Old Posted Feb 3, 2016, 9:33 PM
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Much of it is about conforming to a proven standard, like x feet from a power line, railings of a certain dimension/type, etc.

More broadly it's also about not accepting any accident or rate other than zero. Perfection is hard to reach, but if your target is zero you'll strive for that, vs. patting yourself on the back for a time loss rate of 1.0 or whatever.
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  #10  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2016, 11:57 AM
jfk2396 jfk2396 is offline
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Its all about context.
I agree that even 1 is too high, but....

Surely time loss numbers are different for different industries as some injuries have higher risks of random incidents occurring.
Using an extreme example an industry involving catching knives would have a higher allowed time loss than that of one of catching melons....
Obviously the above example is a metaphor...
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