Definition of Industrial Safety

In the facilities where industrial activities are carried out, standards and procedures must be applied to guarantee the safety. For this reason, we speak of industrial safety. The main purpose of any industrial safety plan is, logically, to minimize any possible threat or risk that could harm the industry, both the people who work in it, and the environment or the infrastructures.

Organizational model

For a company in an industrial sector to adopt a series of security measures, the following conditions must be met:

1) a rule legal of a general nature (for example, a decree),

2) a regulation to provide guidance on the safety guidelines that must be met and

3) Complementary technical instructions detailing all the specific aspects of a company's security.

Basic principles of industrial safety

The concept of security must be understood as a set of legal, technical and human elements that are oriented towards levels of risk that can be considered tolerable.

Safety regulations are basically aimed at guaranteeing the physical integrity of workers.

Technical knowledge is essential and in this regard security professionals must know all the aspects involved (materials used, work processes, methods organizational ...).

In any industrial safety plan, it is necessary to define what the dangers and risks are. These two concepts may seem equivalent, but they are not. A hazard is something that is identified, while risk is assessed. In this way, a hazard is a potential energy of damage and a risk is the probability for the danger to materialize. Thus, cars on the roads constitute a danger and the fact of crossing a road is a risk.

Industrial safety plans include a series of sections:

1) occupational risk prevention programs in which the different responsibilities of workers are structured,

2) methods and objectives for applying the politics prevention of occupational risks and the consequent review and self appraisal of the same and

3) external control systems through independent audits that can evaluate all industrial safety processes.

For everything related to industrial safety to be effective, occupational hygiene criteria are also incorporated. Hygiene is understood as the set of guidelines that tend to protect the physical and mental integrity of the worker.

Photos: Fotolia - Osmancendeoglu / Balint Radu

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