Keeping your employees safe in the work place should be a top priority. This is especially true in the oil and gas industry. To that end, today’s post will discuss why HSE management is important and some techniques you can apply to your business plan.
Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) involves creating processes for identifying workplace hazards, reducing accidents and minimizing exposure to harmful situations and substances. This is accomplished by developing detailed operating procedures and then effectively communicating the information to your team. It is important to ensure that the information has been internalized and must be monitored to verify that it is followed. The main goal is to maintain a safe and productive work environment. Why HSE Management is Important
How to Get Employees to Comply Employees must complete hours of training that many people find boring and useless. To keep them interested, you should develop a safety compliance plan that is interactive, interesting, and to-the-point.
Depending on the industry under discussion, there are varying levels of incidents that can occur which make having an effective incident management plan a necessity. The petroleum industry most certainly falls into the category of operations where establishing and consistently maintaining an effective incident management response is of paramount importance. Understanding that there is no way to completely prevent incidents -- only to successfully and completely prepare for them when they do occur -- is often the difference between a brief interruption in operations and a long-lasting, expensive situation that negatively impacts a firm's reputation. Read on as we outline four basic steps in any solid effective incident management plan.
Develop a communication plan This pertains to internal and external communication. Internally, the specifics of the plan are dependent on different factors unique to your organization (size, location, company culture), but whatever form the communication plan takes, it should be well-defined and able to be acted upon immediately. All internal employees should refer questions to your company spokesperson, with no exceptions. Externally, an honest assessment with a realistic timeline is the best course of action. Ensuring stakeholders and the public in general that you are taking every step necessary to deal with the incident in the timeliest manner possible is vital at this point. Understand how to classify (and respond to) the incident At this juncture, the severity of the incident is quantified. Will it affect operations in just one location, or at multiple company locations? Obviously this step will no doubt be drastically different depending upon the circumstances, but the key here is to understand what threats can result from the incident, and gauge the response accordingly. Formulate a basic framework for costs There's no question that any incident needs a successful resolution. However, a cost analysis is necessary to ensure that the response and recovery to the incident are not out of proportion to the severity of the situation. As with any business decision, a budget helps immensely for this step. Ensure your team is complete Probably the most important step in any effective incident management plan, having the right people in the right places is of utmost importance. The key here is to have a clearly defined plan of action, where all the members of the incident management team understand their role -- without any ambiguity -- and are ready to jump into action immediately. Developing an effective incident management response is certainly an important consideration, especially for companies operating in the petroleum industry. As is the case with any successful concept, ample planning will ensure that your organization is ready to respond -- and act quickly -- should an unexpected incident occur. If you have any questions about developing or maintaining your incident management plan, please don't hesitate to reach out to us -- there's a reason why our compliance management solutions are so highly touted! Quality is crucial in the oil and gas industry. We are constantly adjusting and readjusting in order to improve our products and services. But even with this improvement, nonconformities will happen. So, in order to act responsibly, we must have plans in place when nonconformities occur.
The impending API Q2 Specification highlights controlling nonconformities. API Q2 stresses that your organization identifies responsible parties and have the proper procedures in place for tracking nonconformities in services or service-related products (SRP). When responding to these nonconformities it is important that you treat each incident appropriately and that the effect on the service performance is analyzed thoroughly. Nonconformities should be handled in the following order: 1. Make a correction, or; 2. If correcting the issue is not possible, stop using the service-related product, or; 3. If neither option is acceptable, request a waiver or deviation from the customer. Once you have identified and corrected the nonconformity, with CAPAs (if required) you need verify the action was effective. Throughout this process, you need to document required changes and communicate, if applicable, the information with your customer and other interested parties. Control of nonconformities and related impacts are a focus of the new standard and it is important to manage the process in order to be in compliance with the requirements of API Q2. We are in the midst of the dog days of summer and staying cool is on the top of everyone’s mind. It is the perfect time of the year to take a dip in a pool or relax in the air conditioning. But many of us have to work during August, so we must keep cool while on the job.
It isn’t difficult to imagine a scenario where workers will be dealing with extreme heat this time of year. When a person is exposed to a hot environment, his/her body must find a way to release the heat. If this heat isn’t released, workers can experience some serious side effects. Workers that are more likely to be affected by heat related illness are those who are 65 years of age or older, are overweight or take medications that may cause an adverse reaction to excessive heat. Of course, this does not mean that if these do not apply to you that you are safe from heat related illness. Heat related illnesses are a significant concern in the workplace and it is important that we take the appropriate steps in order to mitigate the risk. Extreme heat should be avoided whenever possible. If exposure cannot be avoided, employers should:
Whether we are checking the weather or communicating with loved ones, technology has made a significant impact on our personal lives. As you might expect, these advances have also significantly impacted the business world.
Picture this. A quality manager needs to make sure that his organization is in compliance with ISO 9001. In order to do this, he needs to practice careful process and data management. Historically, organizations would spend countless hours every day manually recording metrics by hand and filing them away in hard copy. When it was time for an audit, the management representative had to dig through mounds of paperwork and hope that everything was where it was supposed to be. Once he finally retrieved all the information, it needed to be presented to the auditor who was required to wade through the stacks of records to ensure the processes were in compliance. What is wrong with this scenario? The quality staff is shuffling through paperwork instead of monitoring operations to identify possible improvements. Additionally, cumbersome legacy systems are unorganized and confusing, which leads to mistakes and poor audit results. With the advent of cloud-based technology, organizations can now cost effectively record quality data and develop metric reports with the click of a button. In addition, records are accessible anytime, from any web enabled device. We have successfully integrated technology into our personal lives; why not improve our businesses as well? Technology has empowered quality managers everywhere to get back to the basics and focus on managing processes instead of drowning in a sea of unmanageable data. Click here to find out how a cloud-based Quality Management System can help your organization. |
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