Operations and Maintenance Safety – It Begins in the Design Phase Webinar IEPA #21081

SUMMARY: A review of safety statistics over the previous decade will show you that the water/wastewater industry has seen significant reductions in safety incidents. However, those same numbers would show you that there has not been a measurable decrease in safety-related deaths in our industry. But why is this? Is it an issue of people not being adequately trained? Is it an issue of people not properly following the training they have received? Or is it an issue of people being required to engage in work activities that are not as safe as they could be?

This last question is the idea behind Designing for Safety. “Safety is First” or similar values are already guiding principles of most organizations.  These same organizations have training programs, safety protocols, dedicated safety personnel, etc. but safety incidents aren’t zero, and zero safety incidents should be everyone’s goal. 

Designing for Safety incorporates having Owner’s operations and maintenance personnel actively engaged during the design process.  These people are the ones who will have ultimate responsibility for the operation and maintenance of what is being designed and constructed. Their feedback is crucial to generating designs that are safe to construct and ultimately staff. 

In addition, design engineers should engage with construction personnel during the design phase to verify that the design can be constructed, installed, etc., in a safe manner. By engaging operations and construction teams in the design process, safer working environments result and, hopefully, zero safety incidents become a reality.
Attendees to this presentation will learn design strategies to make construction and operations/maintenance safer for all involved as well as provide real life examples of how this process can work to incorporate design modifications to improve the safety of a project and what can happen when this process is not followed.  

PRESENTER: Stephen Crede, Burns & McDonnell