Correlate Health and Safety and Food Safety

Is it important to evaluate HSE performance in food processing units. Do you consider LTI, near misses, first aid cases, medical treatment cases, Occupation ill, Fatality statistics on monthly basis. Can we co-relate HSE and Food Safety in any of the operational/QA process.

Regards
Jomy Abraham

An example for excercise...

Accident Details:
Fingure crushed in the motor of a sifter which is used to sift a powdered ground product. During the continous sifting process the crushed piece of this fingre is gone to the product and fingre piece is sifted out.

Yes its a health safety issue- may be due to improper barriers required for rotatory equipments or due to lack of training.

Yes its a food safety issue - An external object is entered into the product- can be considered as a physical hazard or as a biological hazard.

Do you think that both the statements are correct.... If Yes, do you think that food safety expert should be a health Safety expert too?

Regards
Jomy Abraham

Is it important to evaluate HSE performance in food processing units. Do you consider LTI, near misses, first aid cases, medical treatment cases, Occupation ill, Fatality statistics on monthly basis. Can we co-relate HSE and Food Safety in any of the operational/QA process.

Regards
Jomy Abraham

Of course there is a correlation. It would be nice but we cannot all be experts in all disciplines, however all employees should at least have a basic understanding of all elements. In my opinion a business should ensure all decisions and actions are balanced considering employee safety, food safety, quality and productivity in equal measures. As leaders we should promote this culture by word and action. Employees heads should at all times be full of all elements forming the integrated business system.

If food safety and health safety systems are corelated, to whom the HSE officer and QA officer reports ( yes, in organization chart). or do we need to have both QA Manager and HSE Manager. As its correlated, can we set up a QA and HSE Manager as Head ( an expert in both). or Shall we set the reporting of HSE officer to Maintenance Manager?

Which reporting structure could be recommended by a food Safety expert?

Regards
Jomy Abraham

Of course there is a correlation. It would be nice but we cannot all be experts in all disciplines, however all employees should at least have a basic understanding of all elements. In my opinion a business should ensure all decisions and actions are balanced considering employee safety, food safety, quality and productivity in equal measures. As leaders we should promote this culture by word and action. Employees heads should at all times be full of all elements forming the integrated business system.

If food safety and health safety systems are corelated, to whom the HSE officer and QA officer reports ( yes, in organization chart). or do we need to have both QA Manager and HSE Manager. As its correlated, can we set up a QA and HSE Manager as Head ( an expert in both). or Shall we set the reporting of HSE officer to Maintenance Manager?

Which reporting structure could be recommended by a food Safety expert?

Regards
Jomy Abraham

Dear Mr. Abraham,

If the firm is expanding its management team then its good to add a new designation HSE manager, but my recommendation will be , its best to train your QA & Maintenance team on the aspects of HSE, and as far as reporting is considered, HACCP / FSMS Team Leader is the right person.

Regards,
Dennis

Appreciate your suggestion
OSHAS certification will support the organization to maintain the HSE/SHE standard. As its comes under under an external Certification, defenitely MR of the org will be a good person. As you suggested, training is important. Merge with QA department is a good idea, if the manpower recruitment is difficult...

so the person should be trained on OSHAS, NEBOSH, CPR, First AID etc...

Are these courses mandatory to attain good knowledge in the subject or simply OSHAS is enough for the QA dept to handle it?

Regards
Jomy Abraham

Dear Mr. Abraham,

If the firm is expanding its management team then its good to add a new designation HSE manager, but my recommendation will be , its best to train your QA & Maintenance team on the aspects of HSE, and as far as reporting is considered, HACCP / FSMS Team Leader is the right person.

Regards,
Dennis

Appreciate your suggestion
OSHAS certification will support the organization to maintain the HSE/SHE standard. As its comes under under an external Certification, defenitely MR of the org will be a good person. As you suggested, training is important. Merge with QA department is a good idea, if the manpower recruitment is difficult...

so the person should be trained on OSHAS, NEBOSH, CPR, First AID etc...

Are these courses mandatory to attain good knowledge in the subject or simply OSHAS is enough for the QA dept to handle it?

Regards
Jomy Abraham

Dear Mr. Abraham.

Yes its a good to have a trained leader in NEBOSH, OSHAS. But the major requirement shall be to get your staff trained regarding the different hazards that occur in their particular operation. On Job trainings are the best way. Though buddy system & mentoring area bit old fashioned, they have been found to be effective.
There are system like STOP / BBS etc, which basically was developed to reduce the risk & injuries in work place. Each and everyone is responsible and is authorized to stop a work if he/she feels that it might pose a threat to the person working.

OSHAS Certification is good for the company but don't forget its a system and it requires implementation.
Earlier i recommended MR/ Team leader of QMS as the reporting centre point because he will be able to delegate the work accordingly as he has got a team of experts along with him.

Regards,
Dennis

We look at timeliness of completing audits for both food safety and HSE.  We also look at training and competence for both functions.

If you are competent in both then it makes sense in a small organisation to combine the functions, however there may come a time when capacity becomes an issue and one function will loose out to the other and it may be appropriate to seperate functions to different postholders. There may also be times when the demands of each are in conflict and care should be taken to ensure competing demands are recognised in the decision making process.