Roles of Safety Personnel

Questions

1. What are the types of positions that might be included in a modern

health and safety team?
Safety engineer
Environmental engineer
Industrial hygienist
Health physicist
Occupational health nurse
Occupational physician
2. Explain the types of problems modern health and safety manages can
expect to confront in attempting to implement their programs.
Lack of commitment: Safety and health professional should be
prepared to confront a less than wholehearted commitment from top
management in some companies.
Production versus safety: At times, a safety or health measure will be
viewed by some as interfering with productivity.

3. How can health and safety managers use the competitiveness issue to
gain a commitment to their programs?
The way to gain companywide commitment to safety and health is to
convey the message that a safe and healthy workplace is the best way
to improve productivity, cost, quality, image, service, and response
time.

4. Explain the importance of ongoing in-service training for modern and

health and safety managers and how to get it?
In-service training, ongoing interaction with professional colleagues,
and continued reading of professional literature are effective ways to
stay current.
New safety and health managers should join the appropriate
professional organizations, become familiar with related government
agencies, and establish links with relevant standards organizations.

5. What is meant by this statement: “If a physician makes an error, he

might harm one person, but an engineer who errs might harm
hundreds.”
• Engineers can make a significant contribution to safety.

• Correspondingly, they can cause, inadvertently or through

incompetence, accidents that result in serious injury and property
damage.

• The engineer has more potential to affect safety in the workplace than
any other person does.
• With a poorly designed seatbelt installed in 10,000 automobiles, the
engineer has inadvertently endangered the lives of as many as 40,000
people (estimating four passengers per automobile).

6. Explain how the design process can affect safety.

• The engineer’s opportunity for both good and bad comes during the
design process.
• The process is basically the same regardless of whether the product is
being designed in a small toy or an industrial machine.
• Safety and health professionals should be familiar with the design
process so that they can understand the role of engineers concerning
workplace safety.

7. What specific strengths might industrial engineers bring to bear as

safety engineers?
• Industrial engineers are most likely to work as safety engineers.
• Their knowledge of industrial systems can make them valuable
members of a design team, particularly one that designs industrial
systems and technologies.
• They can also contribute to the company’s safety team by helping
design job and plant layouts for both efficiency and safety
8. Why is the title safety engineer sometimes a misnomer?
• The title safety engineer is sometimes a misnomer because it implies
that the person is a degreed engineer. This may not be the case, as
typically the title is given to the person who has overall responsibility
for the company’s safety program.
• This person is responsible for the traditional aspects of the safety
program such as preventing mechanical injuries; falls, impact and
acceleration injuries; heat and temperature injuries; electrical
accidents; fire related accidents and so on.

9. What types of engineers are most likely to work as design engineers?

Engineers involved in design are usually in the aerospace, electrical,
mechanical, and nuclear fields.
10.Describe the job of an industrial hygienist.
An industrial hygienist has the abilities to: recognize the environmental
factors and to understand their effect on humans and their well being;
to evaluate on the basis of their experience and with the aid of
quantitative measurement techniques, the magnitude of these
stresses in terms of ability to impair human health and well being; and
to prescribe methods to eliminate, control, or reduce such stresses
when necessary to alleviate their effects.

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