Safety Definitions | HSE Definitions

                                                               Safety Definition | S TO W

Safety Definitions

Safety: A general definition of safety is the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury but about HSE. “The freedom from unacceptable risk of harms, safety hazards includes electricity, slips and trips, machinery, explosion”. (HSE 2000) .For example, a person walking through a damaged floor trips from a hole and gets injured.

Safety Inspections: A safety inspection involves the straightforward observation of a workplace and/or the activities or equipment within it. A safety inspection is usually carried out by a manager, employee’s representative, and safety Advisor and is often aided by the use of a checklist that may be carried out routinely and has the aim of identifying hazards and assessing the use and effectiveness of control measures.

Safety Audits: A safety audit is a thorough, critical examination of an organization’s safety management systems & procedures. It is normally a lengthy process carried out by a trained auditor, often someone from outside the organization to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the organization.

Safety Survey: A safety survey focuses on specific health and safety topics and is normally carried out by a specialist e.g. noise surveys carried out by a consultant, and fire survey carried out by insurers. Detailed reports on the main strengths and weaknesses, with an action plan, are normally produced as a result of surveys.

Safety Tour: A safety tour is an unplanned unscheduled examination of the workplace to assess whether or not acceptable standards of housekeeping, safe access, fire precautions, etc. are being maintained. Some hazards may be identified but a tour gives a general impression rather than a thorough analysis of hazards. Safety Tours by senior managers or directors can demonstrate the profile of, and commitment to, health and safety

Safety Sampling: A random sampling exercise observing health and safety conditions and practices (e.g. to observe the use of hearing protection.) notes compliances and non-compliances which are counted to provide a score of the overall effectiveness of safety performance. Sampling is where only a partial amount of a particular area is looked at to establish an indication of the standard of compliance as a whole. For example, a random inspection of some pieces of lifting Tackle could indicate the general standard

Safe Working Load (SWL): The maximum load as determined by a competent person that an item of lifting equipment may raise, lower or suspend under particular service conditions, the SWL can be lower than, but can never exceed the WLL working load limits.

Safeguard Physical: Safeguard physical or procedural measures are in place to reduce the likelihood of occurrence of preventive measures or to mitigate the impact of the related consequences of protective measures.

Sanction to test (STT):  Sanction to test is a process of temporary de-isolation re-isolation required at the intermediate stage of a work activity involving equipment function checks and pre-start tests.

Secondary containment: Secondary containment is an impermeable physical barrier specifically designed to prevent the release of materials into the environment that have breached primary containment.

Sick Leave:  Sick leave is a leave of absence from work due to incapacity to perform duties resulting from any injury or illness that occurs, as prescribed by the treating physician in a relevant local, federal, or international health authority licensed health care facility. Sick leave allows an employee to address their health & safety needs to recover from illness, injury, or disability that prevents the performance of usual duties.

SIF Safety: Safety instrumented function, Safety function, with a specific integrity level, that is necessary to achieve functional safety by putting a process in a safe state or maintaining it in a safe state under predefined conditions. SIF is instrumented using Safety Instrumented Systems.

SIL Safety: Safety integrity level (SIL) is defined as a level of risk reduction provided by a safety function, or to specify a target level of risk reduction. In simple terms, SIL is a measurement of performance required for a safety instrumented function (SIF), and SIL is a statistical representation of the reliability that SIS requires and is capable of when a process demand occurs. SIL is the measure of the reliability of an SIS safety instrumented system, and a given SIL level relates to a specific range of associated.

SIMOPS:  Simultaneous Operations are two or more activities occurring at the same time, or in the same area, that can impact adversely on each other.

Societal Risk:  Societal risk is defined as the frequency per period, usually per year, that N or more fatalities can occur as a result of industrial activities. When presented graphically, the plot is usually known as the F-N curve.

Temporary Equipment: Temporary equipment is any equipment that is not a permanent part of a facility and is intended to be removed after a finite period. Temporary equipment may hook up and can be a potential source of ignition.

The Control of Major Accident Hazards Report: The control of major accident hazards report is a report compiled by a major hazard site operator and submitted to organizations, as part of the environmental process that demonstrates that the site operator has taken all steps necessary to prevent major accidents and to reduce their consequences. It is a facility or operation-specific demonstration of the safety management system in action, documenting that risks have been, or will be, reduced to acceptable or ‘as low as reasonably practicable.

Third-Party: The third party is any individual other than an organization's employee or a reportable contractor. As these persons are not part of the Company-controlled workforce, they are not considered for workplace injury reporting; however, fatalities of such individuals are recordable in some cases.

Tool Box Talk (TBT): The Tool Box Talk is a short safety briefing that shall be given at the worksite to all members of the work party involved in the work controlled by the permit to work system and certificate immediately before commencing the job.

Top Management: The top management person or group of people who directs and controls an organization at the highest level. Top management is empowered to delegate authority and provide resources within the organization. If the scope of the management system covers only part of an organization, then top management refers to those who direct and control that part of the organization. Top management controls the organization as defined within the energy management system scope and boundaries of the energy management system.

Total Reportable Illnesses: The total reportable illnesses are the sum of all confirmed occupational illnesses work-related, whether or not they resulted in deaths, permanent total disabilities, permanent partial disabilities, lost workday cases, or restricted work cases.

Toxic Gases: Toxic gases or noxious gases are gases that are harmful to living things. They can easily build up in confined working spaces when the production process uses noxious gases. It may also result in the biological chemical breakdown of a substance that is being stored in a tank.

Trench: The trench is defined as a narrow excavation about its length made below the surface of the ground. In general, the depth of a trench is greater than its width, but the width of a trench measured at the bottom is not greater than 4.6 m / 15 feet.

Upper Limb Disorders ULD: Upper limb disorder is a broad spectrum of conditions that affect muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves, or other soft tissues and joints. The upper limbs include the neck, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, and fingers. ULD can occur in almost any workplace and are usually preventable. If prevention is unsuccessful, systems are required to ensure that they are promptly reported, diagnosed, and treated.

Visual Inspection: A visual inspection is a visual check and, where necessary, a function check of the lifting equipment by a competent person before each use. In determining the suitability and scope of the inspection, reference shall be made to information such as manufacturer’s instructions and relevant industry standards.

Waste: Waste wide-ranging term taken to include any scrap material, effluent, or unwanted surplus substance or article which requires to be disposed of,  Explosive and radioactive wastes are included in the waste.

Work Environment:  The work environment is composed of the employer’s premises and other locations where employees or reportable contractors are engaged in work-related activities or are present as a condition of their employment. The environment includes not only physical location but also the equipment or material used by the employee during his or her work.

Worker: The worker is anybody who is directly employed by organizations, or contractors including sub-contractors working for companies. The term worker referred to employees and Reportable. Contractors in contexts that apply equally to both.

Working at Height: Working at height means working in any place where, if precautions were not taken, a person could fall a distance liable to cause personal injury. Extra controls e.g. Body Harness shall be placed when working at a height greater or equal to 1.8 meters.

Working Load Limit (WLL): The working load limit is the maximum working load designed by the manufacturer. This load represents a force that is much less than that required to make the lifting equipment fail or yield.