Who is accountable? - Should it be the Government or Should it be the Organization?

Human being played an important role before the implementation of automation in the manufacturing industries. You can say that employees are the only resources companies relied on back in those days. They are attributed as key components to a company's success as they are involved in every aspect of the operational needs.Most of the productions are carried out manually with no classified standards.

In the beginning of 17th century in human history, industrialization had led to the creation of standards with the onset of the Industrial Revolution. It was in the 18th to the 19th century where major changes took place in some of the industries such as agricultural, manufacturing, mining and transport that subsequently spread throughout Europe, America and eventually the world. The world had changed. Our lives had changed.

Powered machines began to replace manual human labour for many tasks. The Industrial Revolution continued to spur enormous growth in the manufacturing production in various countries, thus strengthening the capitalist economies. Today, standardization is universal in manufacturing. The Revolution had brought with it precision and control in which factories bring into line and adopt the power of uniformities.

It was during World War II where Ralph E. Cross, the father of automation and a pioneer in manufacturing engineering, who contributed to the development and application of automation principles as related to machine tools and manufacturing processes. Many key tasks in the manufacturing processes such as inspection, orientation, identification and assembly can now be automated.

What a difference automation make in our lives!

In spite of these significant changes made to our lives as well as it is witnessed in the manufacturing production sectors, there is one thing in common that we would all notice and agree upon that automation has had a notable impact in a wide range of highly visible industries as it can eliminate the need for workers.

It greatly reduces the need for human sensory and mental requirement as the processes and systems can be automated. In addition, human weaknesses worsen the situation limiting their productivity in a manufacturing environment. At first glance, automation might appear to devalue labour employment through its replacement with less-expensive machineries, however many roles for humans in the industrial processes nowadays lie beyond the scope of automation.

In today's complex industrial processes, automated control systems are a necessity. The extend to which human intervention into the production machineries is required to control, to manage and to maximize the system performance. High level tasks such as strategic planning in many cases require human expertise. This leads to the next question of how many employees are required to fill the position?

Currently, for manufacturing companies, the purpose of automation had shifted from increasing productivity and reducing costs to broader issues such as increasing quality and reducing processing time with a number of recruited skilled workers.

Many a time, situations may occur where a manufacturing crisis arises due to a machine malfunction that causes slowdown in production or an unscheduled downtime. More often than not, those individuals may be pressured by the management to get the equipment back up and running and these circumstances causes the greatest likelihood of companies letting down their guard concerning safety. Most of the time, the employees' safety in the operational environment can get overlooked.

In the manufacturing world, although safety is always stressed as the most important part of the manufacturing processes, but it has never been taken seriously until situations arise that tend to raise the safety issue. So, who should overcome the issues of safety against productivity?

Establishing an effective safety program for employees remain a top priority for most manufacturers today. As safety standards continue to evolve and new technologies emerge, the challenge for many organizations is where to begin. The answer is different for every company as some companies tend to neglect their employees’ safety and prioritize in the productivity which brings them to achieve profitability.

Companies should have comprehensive knowledge in practicing economies of scale with a balance between productivity and safety measures of their employees. Both factors have its presence in ensuring sustainability of a long term business.

Imagine, what will happen if high speed SCARA robots losses its control and injure one of your staffs? He or she could be handicapped if fortunate. They might even sacrifice their lives while exposing themselves in a dangerous environment at work and who is going to be responsible with it?

We ask all the players in the manufacturing industries to think again and take into considerations preventive measures and safety precautions that could take away anyone's live, or the lives of your loved ones.

Safety is typically concerned with machine-level safety. The goal is to prevent someone from getting unwanted injuries.

In today's context, Government had imposed various safety guidelines for industrial and manufacturing companies to adhere and to engage in their own application or plant. Many fears that the guidelines given by the government are not exactly applied in real life working environment in most automated industrial and manufacturing companies.

           Remember "Safety does not cost. It Pays."

It is difficult to convince operators as companies are excessively focused on satisfying management with the company's return in investment. So, it will leave the real teeth of process safety regulation out until after an incident happens.

If in any case, an unforeseen event or misfortune happened, who should be liable? The Government or The Organization? Like a wise man say, it is better to be safe than sorry.

All of us understand how machineries and heavy industrial equipments operate in factories. It can pose hazardous environment where employees are always exposed to danger from getting minor scratch to serious laceration.

One of the best examples is the conveyor belts. They are part of the factory automation. It operates in a high speed rate. Though the belts help to smoothen the manufacturing process, but if it is not handled with care, it can also create an extremely high momentum that would harm the user or the operator. What causes these industrial injuries? Companies who neglected their workers' safety, they only focus in desired profit.

Everyday, there are people who suffered disabling injuries on the job. Workplace accidents pose serious problems for employees and for a firm's competitive advantage. Many preventive strategies are designed for employers to minimize the risks of employees' facing industrial injuries.

Adherence to work safety standards should be your first priority.

An example on the history of NASA, Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.

Do you remember the incident that occurred in 1988 that had led to the death of seven crew members?

After months of investigations, the report showed that the fatal accident was caused by the decision to ignore warning message given by the engineers who raised concern over some technical failure which sacrificed the lives of seven innocent and intelligent people.

And now, we urge and hope to bring your attention to your workers' safety at work.

The bottom line is when considering implementing manufacturing safety; one should keep in mind the results study which puts the ratio of industrial accidents that may occur as high as 8:1.

Safety precaution you can never ignore.

The accountability on employees' safety at workplace had become the hot topic for discussion between the Government and the industry players.

Did the Government impose sufficient safety guidelines and policies to the practisioners?

Should the Government pay more visible role in ensuring high standards of safety?

Did the industry players do their part to follow the specified rules and regulations?

Or

Did the industry players pay attention to the lives of many who risk their lives at job?

Regardless of answers derived from the above questions, we should find be able to find it where our hearts tell us.

The key to success: Your employees injure and your business suffer.

Shortcuts and save costs are never good as your actions could have enormous negative impact not just on your part, but on your co-workers too. It is never too late to make a decision now to safeguard your business in the long run.  

WHAT DO YOU THINK? What is your point of view?

At Industrial Automation News, we are committed to promote Industrial Safety in every production workplace and we care for each of the production engineers and workers' safety in all aspects. For more information, kindly write your comments to us at [email protected] or post it online at www.ia-community.com/forums.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Safety in the industrial environment is challenging.

How much money do you have to spend to purchase safety protective equipment to prevent accidents?
 

Try asking yourself how much it will cost you whenever an accident happens - loss of life, loss of work and productivity, insurance claims, material damage, and not counting those extra hours writing reports...

Accidents are not cheap. In fact, they can be very, very expensive!

And ironically, most accidents are caused by people! And it is not easy to get people to follow what you want them to do. Everybody has a free will and they know it.

How useful are your Safety guidelines to the industry or the safety protective equipment if your workers are not using them?

How do you ensure that your workers remember safety guidelines and avoid dangerous practices? Or observe good safety practices when nobody supervises them?

Somehow, people need to get it into their subconscious mind to want to follow safety rules and regulations. If not it will be an uphill task for the safety practitioner.

Do they have to wield the big stick like a policeman and play a cat-and-mouse game all the time?

What is the best way to deliver your safety message? Does implementation of law to all players in the industry helps?

What is the best way to increase the Safety awareness in players in the industry site, and decrease the number of accident from being happening? 

Despite all the above, “Prevention of accidents is certainly better than cure”. It's so much cheaper too which it only takes one unsafe act or mindset to bring your safety record plunging down.