Hazard prevention and regular maintenance

Whenever discussions occur about making work facilities safer, we often look at ways to introduce new devices, tools, or practices.

This mindset of looking for additional ways to improve safety often leads to overlooking ways to improve safety without adding anything...

Looking for additional ways to improve safety often leads to overlooking ways to improve safety without adding anything. One way we can improve safety for those working in our facilities is by ensuring we are keeping up with preventative maintenance schedules for our equipment. It isn’t necessarily interesting or fun, but it is an essential part of maintaining a safe work environment.

WorkSafe Employer criteria element 6.8 states that “preventative maintenance schedules provided by the equipment manufacturers are followed for all machinery used by employees”. Maintenance encompasses a variety of tasks, including but not limited to: inspection, testing, upkeep, replacement, cleaning, adjustment, and repair. While in theory all of your facilities already follows these practices, we know that it can be difficult to keep up with such a schedule.

Prevention is key

The WorkSafe Employer program focuses on preventative maintenance because it is how we control machine hazards we work around. Safe work procedures are not entirely protective and good practices around unsafe equipment can still have disastrous consequences.

To ensure that proper maintenance occurs, we recommend that a maintenance schedule or calendar is created. When maintenance scheduling is informal, it is easily disregarded or forgotten. A specific schedule with assigned duties helps ensure your machinery and equipment remain in safe working order and you are not exposing your staff to additional hazards.

In creating a schedule, we recommend evaluating the types and frequencies of use; some maintenance can be folded into the usage process. For instance, standard operating procedures (SOPs) for an infrequently used machine may include required inspection and adjustment before each use. We recommend looking for ways to fold the maintenance of machines into other parallel tasks to mitigate time requirements.

Conduct a self-audit

Once you have evaluated usage and created an efficient maintenance schedule you will need to ensure it is followed, and this is done through an audit. Though not an explicit part of this WSE requirement, self-audits provide an assurance that your program is being followed as intended.

We can help!

As always, if you would like help with ideas of implementation of such programs, reach out to us at retro@awcnet.org.