Share Your Experience: Protecting Safety 4

[mikiekwoods]

I wanted to post an open ended question to let people share their experiences.

Have you ever felt there was a time you had a disagreement with your superiors about safety? What actions did you take? Were you satisfied with the results? What advice would you give to a new engineer in a similar circumstance?

 

[kelowna]

Yes, several

On one occasion (I was very young) I tried to resolve it quietly talking to my boss' boss (there was a situation that he refused to address). Unfortunately nobody did anything, and although nothing bad happened I regretted not doing more ever since, I left that company shortly afterwards.

On all other occasions I stood my ground and refused to be pushed around, there were moments of a lot of tension and threats were made, but every time all was resolved satisfactorily. There were no negative effects on my career that I am aware of.

Advice? Keep your ground and never compromise on safety. Talk to somebody senior you trust and come with possible solutions as well as highlighting the problem.

 

[Ron]

I agree with Kelowna. Personal safety is only something YOU can decide. Even when all of the "regulatory" hoops are jumped through, you might still "feel" unsafe in certain situations. Stick to you guns.

Even in our proposals we address jobsite safety and leave the decision up to our individuals after basic regulatory safety has been established.

 

[moltenmetal]

If I can give one piece of advice on situations of this nature, it is to be careful that you do not PRESUME that the people in question, whether they be owners, managers or workers, wish to knowingly carry out an action that will put people's lives or health at serious risk. In my experience, that presumption is usually incorrect. More often than not, the people about to make the bad decision are either ignorant of the magnitude of the risk or potential consequences, or aren't aware of alternatives which will allow them to meet their goals with greatly reduced risk. They see themselves as having no alternative.

Stopping work WHILE alternative solutions are discussed is sometimes necessary. In many jurisdictions the right to do so is mandated in labour law. We've had to write that time for sober second thought, involving someone without the "project blinders" on, into some of our work procedures.

Approach these issues with the same problem-solving attitude that you use in solving more straightforward technical problems, and you'll find that you can very often avoid both the unsafe actions themselves AND the need for the job-terminating confrontation. The latter is in your toolbox as a professional engineer, but it's not by any means the first tool you reach for.

 

[mauricestoker]

Never back down on safety issues.

I worked for years in a BSL-3/ABSL-3 environment, as well as pathology labs and wet repositories, handling planning, design, construction, and O&M. That O&M portion was big as when something went sideways, it meant that my co-workers and myself might be working in Tyvek and PAPR's, not very comfortable.

I try to err on the side of safety; most of the safety features I incorporated in A/BSL-3 design were not in the BMBL, or AAALAC, when they were installed, but are now. I had a lot of arguing with A-E firms, Corps of Engineers, and ASHRAE (the IMC settled the matter, subducting) on interpetations that seemed less than safe, but met current accepted professional practices.

Project costs are dwarfed by O&M costs over a facility lifetime. Having to go to administrative controls, as opposed to engineering controls, burns through a lot of money over a lifetime.

If you have a situation which you feel to be inherently unsafe, I would first recommend seeing if your firm has a hazard communications plan.

 

[zdas04]

I'm always on the other side of this issue. I design safe stuff, I write detailed installation/operation procedures and then hit a stinking "policy" that mandates more controls than I've designed in. I know that these policies are there to avoid having to have every action engineered, but my argument (that I win about half the time) is that if something is engineered then the Engineer is assuming the liability and all the codes allow that.

I'm never going to put someone at risk, but I'm also not going to design double-block-and-bleed to inspect an orifice plate. The "safety" pendulum is WAY too far to the side right now, I keep hoping it will move back toward the center before it starts over the top.

David

 

[MadMango]

In one of my first jobs I was designing a piece of equipment that had a serious pinch point. The director of engineering at the time did not see it as a huge problem. I tried to stand my ground, but being so green I didn't know how deep I could dig in. I made my concerns know in available ways, such as meeting minutes during design reviews, etc. On the side I designed proper pinch guards and had a set made and ready for installation. During one of the operational tests the director almost lost the tip of his elbow, and gave me that "maybe you're right" looks. I presented the pinch guards and had them installed in 10mins, and they ended up going into production.

As far as advice, I'd say not to openly argue with your superiors, do it "offline". Try to find a more senior co-worker to herald your cause if needed/possible. If you are working against bean counters, try to present your argument in language they will understand (liability).

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."

Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of these Forums?

 

[KENAT]

Copied & pasted from the thread on ethics in engineering...

Explosive devices are color coded so that people finding one can have a good idea of what it can do. It's not just bomb squad/EOD folks but even firemen, police and the like.

Some idiot Chartered Engineer (UK equivalent of PE) wanted to not follow this color coding to save a few cents per unit. He was the new golden boy who had the ear of management etc. I kicked up a stink, I wasn't going to knowingly let it happen, even if it didn't bode well for my career. I won out, though for a while I thought it wasn't going to do my career any favours.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[SomptingGuy]

I recently did a code review for some code written by my manager. It was supposed to be safety critical; it wasn't. I could feel him fuming and muttering. My point was that just because it was "probably" ok, how would he feel when a bus using it in a new and unexpected application ploughs into a crowd of people with its windscreen wipers running frantically, but no brakes?

- Steve

 

[MacGyverS2000]

SG,

Did your boss used to work for Toyota? ;-)

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[moltenmetal]

zdas04, I hear you on that one. Too many amongst us have been reduced to asking the question "Where in the code/procedure/spec does it say I can do that?", rather than actually solving the problem at hand based on a sound knowledge of the underlying principles. I've seen numerous innovative ideas unnnecessarily killed outright, and innumerable projects burdened to the point of breaking with unnecessary and counterproductive "safety"-related apparatus. This happened because engineers were afraid or unable to do what they should be trained to do: to assess and manage risk in their design.

We engineers haven't just engineered our way out of a job, we've rendered it nearly impossible to practice AS an engineer in a lot of fields.

In some industries, specifications have become like some religious texts rather than living guidance documents- written by the ancients who have long ago departed, full of contradictions and lacking relevance to modern times, but somehow still beyond question!

 

[zdas04]

mm,
Your last statement is just too quotable

In some industries, specifications have become like some religious texts rather than living guidance documents- written by the ancients who have long ago departed, full of contradictions and lacking relevance to modern times, but somehow still beyond question!

Not sure I would have put the "in some industries" part, but the rest is too true.

Star for that.

David

 

[mauricestoker]

MoltenMetal,

I think you are right on with the "assess and manage risk". The engineers and architects have a large piece of this but not all. I've run into multiple occassions where security requirements butt heads with safety requirements. That's when the security and safety people need to have their seat at the table. The owners and operators need to have a seat and say what is acceptable and what is not. I've never had a project where the owners/operators would accept administrative controls at the start of design.

Architects and engineers are not always the authority on identifying operational risks, and I would argue they should not be. If you want an anlysis of the risk involved with infected monkey poop, do you talk to an architect-engineer only, or do you include the animal handlers, microbiologists, IACUC, IH, lab safety, etc?

 

[moltenmetal]

David, thanks a lot- I appreciate it. The "some industries" includes the entirety of mine, for sure. I just love when I see a spec from one major oil or chemicals company saying "Thou shalt always do this", and a similar spec from their competitor which says "Thou shalt NEVER do that"! Gives me a chuckle, whenever it doesn't cost me money because I didn't see it soon enough!

mauricestoker: You need all the players at the table, but a good PM can get the job done even when it's not possible to get them all around the same table at the same time.

A good engineer appreciates what they don't know, realizes that engineers' single biggest source of failure is a "failure of imagination", and has a respect bordering on fear for the results of bad assumptions or mistakes. But what distinguishes a good engineer from a coward who hides behind specs and standards is that they are neither paralyzed by their fear of risk, nor unwilling to seek out the advice of more knowledgeable specialists when it is necessary to mitigate that risk.

 

[zdas04]

I had a boss once that described that as the "cat on a hot stove" method of building specs. In that method a cat jumps on a hot stove, burns themselves, never jumps on a stove again. So one oil company does some research (or goes to one of my classes) and learns that air can be purged from lines safely using methane with proper procedures and they mandate that kind of purge. Another oil company has a purge related fatality and proclaims that henceforth all purges will be done with inert gas and anyone using an explosive gas for a purge will be fired if they survive. The company I worked for was two days from implementing an "always use nitrogen" policy when I yelled BULLSHIT in the right office and we implemented training instead of a stupid policy.

That boss said that if a company did not trash every single one of their technical policies every 10 years they were doomed to gridlock. But it is expensive to trash the engineering specs and start over. So I'm seeing a ton of gridlock--one job that I did 360 times with an average of 9 hours per time with zero lost time injuries over 7 years, now takes 2 weeks and there is about 3 lost time injuries per year doing it. The difference is that I wrote specific procedures and my replacements follow policies and specs.

The world needs technical specifications. Engineers should treat them as defining the boundary conditions not defining the design.

David

 

[mauricestoker]

A good PM knows when not to accept risk.

 

[JLSeagull]

Engineers frequently disagree with management regarding safety. Sometimes a company must balance differing views regarding safety. Some issues pertain to design, others pertain to procedures etc.

Last year I demanded site specific training for a plant visit when the safety people advised that an escort was adequate. I took the safety training before entering the plant.

See the following thread that I posted this morning.

http://eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=265733&page=1

My employer claimed that safety is number 1 etc. However when working offshore our crew had no survival training as required in the UK. Also, once we had gas on the platform I suggested that we needed flame retardant coveralls. The safety supervisor advised that these were not requirements in Mexico even though my contractor's parent company had a policy that flame retardant coveralls were required.

Some issues are worthy of management conflict - and some not. We each apply our individual judgement in such cases.

 

[plasgears]

Frequently safety measures follow after disaster. Our drive thru paint booth has a blow out panel assuming that explosion is a distinct possibility. Another company dealing with explosives has a blow out curtain in their final assy buildings for oxidizers.

If you detect a potential problem, quietly discuss it with the boss. When I was active in flight instruction it was deemed our responsibility to report unsafe conditions. Every unsafe condition I reported was acted upon by the FAA. They even had a no-exposure reporting system in place to make it easy to report.

Automotive has a similar system. Painful as it may be, it has to be followed, Mr Toyota.

 

[HamishMcTavish]

1) Everything that is designed or built has a probability of failure on demand...EVERYTHING.

2) Every procedural system can be got around / bent / ignored.

3) Something only stays "safe" as when it was designed when it is used / maintained as intended.

4) Something is "safe" when the risk of serious injury or death (workers or public) has been reduced to an acceptable level.

AS long as we as engineers remember the above then I have no problem with designers stating that something is "safe" if they have actually gone through a process of requirements capture and then designed against those requirements but as zdas04 says the requirements should not specify the design.


Regards, HM

No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary - William of Occam