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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
To compete internationally, electrical installations and equipment must demonstrably comply with modern electrical safety structures required by international legislation governing the supply chain, as well as observing local regulations. The purpose of this book is both to describe the management of electrical safety, i.e. the chief responsible electrical specialist's role including its various aspects and implications, and to provide guidance for creation of an adequate structure. It does not make reference to individual standards or to laws, which are typically national.
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Table of contents
Introduction
Employees and their functions in electrical engineering
Obligations and liability
Avoidance of corporate fault
Accident analysis
Risk assessment
Implementing measures
Safety instruction
Work areas and work associated with higher hazard levels
Personal protective equipment
Cooperation between multiple companies and with international teams
Consequences of non-compliance with regulations
Electrical safety as a “project”
Working with methods: your goal
The organizational chart: a blueprint for the structure
Setting and observing priorities during work
Selecting, appointing and managing suitable employees
Importance of national and international laws, regulations and standards
Boundaries of competence and responsibility
To conclude
Introduction
Electrical safety is an area in its own right within mandatory occupational safety and health. It is increasingly attracting the attention of company management, especially in medium-sized and large companies, and around the world. And rightly so.
In the interests of supply chain sustainability, it is crucially important not only to consider the environment and fair treatment, but also to demonstrate adequate occupational safety and thus also the safety of electrical installations and equipment. Any organization wishing to survive in the face of international competition is increasingly obliged to act transparently and sustainably, whether it supplies customers throughout the global market or has production facilities of its own at various sites around the world.
Observance of supply chain sustainability does not end at the factory gate. You must also demand from others what you implement yourself: a comprehensive electrical safety structure. It corresponds in principle, but not conclusively, to the duties of supervision, inspection, organization, welfare, implementation of safety precautions, selection and documentation.
This book describes the structures of electrical safety and their implementation in companies as a part of the duties of an operator as referred to above. It is not a scientific paper, but takes the form of a practical guide for professionals assuming this task or assigning it to others.
In this role, which in your skilled function is described in this book as that of a chief responsible electrical specialist, the apparent responsibilities of your work are just the tip of the iceberg. The part below the surface should not be underestimated.
Implementing these tasks requires you to be familiar with up-to-date good technical practice, safety and the legal situation. The detailed rules of electrical engineering are not set in stone. Ongoing development of safety and the regulations governing it are a consequence not just of technical innovation – but also, and in particular, of cumulative experience. Moreover, electrical safety does not exist in isolation; it is an important element of a company.
For this purpose, good communication with company management and all other organs of authority is essential. Like quality management and administration, safety must not become an end in itself. Even when all parties involved are pulling together, you must ask uncomfortable questions from the perspective of your own responsibility, and state requirements early and clearly. And you must do so not only in interdepartmental committees, but also and in particular within your area of authority.
As the person with responsibility for electrical safety, your task involves technical supervision of the specialists working in this area. You must also communicate with these specialists and set up a structure of your own, which in turn must be a part of the corporate structure. Your structure must enable you to keep track of everything and prevent you drowning in paperwork.
Creating and approving work instructions, procedure documentation and operating standards for electrical safety is just as much a part of your area of responsibility as developing a qualification matrix and appointing and assigning suitable specialists. As ever, this results in numerous documents, analogue and digital, being produced. Here too, a structure is needed if these documents are not all to be stuffed at random into a single filing cabinet.
The purpose of this book is both to describe the management of electrical safety, i.e. the chief responsible electrical specialist’s role including its various aspects and implications, and to provide guidance for creation of an adequate structure. Reference will not be made here to individual standards or to laws, which are typically national.
The book will refer to you, the person responsible for electrical safety, as the chief responsible electrical specialist, based on the author’s assumption that this is the role fulfilled by you, the reader. It is therefore intended primarily for persons who are either commercial operators or managers and therefore by definition responsible for safety, or to whom this task and responsibility has been or is to be assigned, or who are at least addressing this topic in their own company.
Should your company already possess an electrical safety structure, you will observe that in its detailed implementation it has been adapted to your company’s requirements, and does not therefore slavishly follow a predefined template.
This is also immensely important. As the author of this book, I encourage you to create your own structure. Ultimately, you are familiar with your own operation. I don’t propose to tell you exactly how to go about this task. This book merely offers suggestions, pointers and professional support for you in your work.
Should you not hold a high level of responsibility personally, perhaps because you’re merely an electrical specialist at the operational level who is interested in the topic of structural electrical safety, you will nevertheless find this book useful. You will learn more about basic coherences and structural requirements as they’re specified, required and recognized worldwide.
However helpful and useful you may find this book and its contents, bear in mind that it is not a substitute for adequate, professional legal advice concerning specific cases, nor for compliance with local laws and regulations in force and, of course, with the specifications of your company. Addressing these is beyond the scope of this book.
However, it meets the needs of a safety strategy, at global as well as national level. For the person responsible for electrical safety, who as already mentioned is referred to in the book as the “chief responsible electrical specialist”, it will provide guidance in his or her tasks, both new and existing, not least for projects and site requirements that are not limited to one country.
Employees and their functions in electrical engineering
As the person responsible for electrical safety in your role as the chief responsible electrical specialist, you are a key player in the field of electrical engineering, which is why I’ll begin by considering this role. Your task in a nutshell is to prevent occupational accidents involving electrical systems, equipment or work. It’s the commercial operator’s task first and foremost to ensure that a structure is in place to prevent such accidents. The operator is obliged to take the measures required to ensure effective occupational safety and health.
In this context, all circumstances must be taken into account that influence not only the safety of employees at work, but also their health. In addition, each operator must put an organizational structure suitable for this purpose in place. This includes making the resources required for this purpose available, providing materials and equipment and, where necessary, procuring them in good time. This requirement, though formulated in different ways, can be found in a similar form, explicitly or by implication and with different levels of detail, in legal texts and regulations throughout the world.
Where, for technical reasons or owing to work priorities, the company management is not able or willing to assume these electrical safety tasks itself, it can transfer them to a suitable person. The “person responsible for electrical safety” is referred to in this book as the “chief responsible electrical specialist”, or CRES. The term is however not restricted to the electrical specialist designated explicitly in writing as the holder of this position, even though this formal assignment is highly recommended, not least for the purpose of documentation and thereby for assurance of legal certainty. In the sense used in this book, “chief responsible electrical specialist” applies to any other person with de facto responsibility for electrical safety, such as a plant manager or the foreman of the electrical workshop, in cases where a separate chief responsible electrical specialist explicitly denoted as such does not exist.
The operator’s duties assumed by the chief responsible electrical specialist always include but are not limited to those of supervision, inspection, organization, care, implementation of safety precautions, selection and documentation. In other words, the chief responsible electrical specialist acts on his or her own responsibility and has the final authority in matters of electrical safety. This follows from the fact that this individual also bears the corresponding responsibility. This is of course set out in a contract governing such a transfer of duties. At the same time, it’s a prerequisite for a proper transfer of duties, deriving from the understanding of responsibility: responsibility cannot be transferred to a person unless the corresponding authority to take decisions is transferred along with it. Where responsibility is transferred without the corresponding authority, the recipient is not a responsible person, but in layman’s terms a “fall guy”. It follows that any attempt by an operator to absolve himself of his responsibility in this way would generally be considered void.
Sole responsibility reverts to company management as soon as you have drawn its attention to deficits that you are unable rectify yourself and management has taken no action. Indeed, unless and until a person is designated as being responsible for electrical safety, the relevant duties lie fully and solely with company management. Depending on the company’s circumstances, it may be advantageous for company management to retain responsibility for electrical safety. The biggest advantage is obviously that company management remains in control. By assuming the associated task itself, it naturally has greater means to intervene. This is also in line with the advantage of greater flexibility in decision-making at the topmost management level. This arrangement is particularly effective with respect to budgeting for electrical occupational safety and health resources. The workforce may also find the clearer hierarchy more amenable. Combining the strategic, technical and personnel management roles means having only one senior manager, thereby avoiding conflicts in responsibility.
This presupposes of course that company management also meets the technical and personal requirements for a person responsible for electrical safety. Despite all these benefits, which should not be dismissed out of hand, it may still be advantageous to assign the tasks of electrical safety to another party. One particular advantage is that this leaves company management with more time to devote to its core tasks and focus upon them. Company management already has a plethora of additional tasks. Delegating electrical safety frees up resources needed to run the company.
At the same time, the division of tasks enables everyone to focus more closely on their core areas of activity. A person explicitly in charge of electrical safety can focus on this function better than a senior manager who is running everything. Delegation also avoids the impression of a conflict of interest when business interests are weighed against the cost of safety.
Furthermore, the scale of the duties entailed by responsibility for electrical safety should not be underestimated. As a general rule, the larger the company, the more appropriate it is for responsibility for electrical safety to be assumed by someone other than the plant manager, even though the decision to delegate or transfer this responsibility is generally taken by the plant manager him or herself.
Keep in mind at all times what duties are associated with what roles in your company. This is as important in organized electrical safety as in other areas. The three most important roles are those of specialist, middle management and company management.
A specialist has a task and seeks to perform it as effectively, competently and directly as possible. He or she is essentially focused on results.
In its pure form, company management operates exclusively at the strategic level. It takes the major decisions and sets the course for the ship as a whole.
If you are responsible for electrical safety and must take decisions relating to it, it can be concluded that you’re essentially in the level in between, i.e. in middle management. Middle management has the task of defining processes and structures and ensuring their implementation. The structures you create should ideally be consistent across all areas, easily understood and as helpful as possible.
The rules you lay down often conflict with the nature of a specialist. The latter is required to follow your rules, and where dictated by the structure, to interrupt his or her own work to meet them instead of completing this work or even making any progress with it.
The purpose of a structure isn’t always to deliver the shortest route from A to B, even when an employee at the specialist level naturally wishes to complete his or her own work as efficiently, unbureaucratically and simply as possible. Owing to issues of safety or strategy, or demands by management and legal constraints, the shortest route may not always be possible.
The factors referred to here extend far beyond such things as the perception that personal protective equipment is uncomfortable or obstructs work.
The structures themselves are often the issue. An installation that in all probability is in order must nevertheless first be inspected. Live working is not permissible until the need for it has been confirmed; authorization for many things, such as to direct the performance of certain tasks, rests with certain individuals – which in the view of senior management may safeguard working procedures, but in the view of the specialist may at times obstruct them.
Rules can be immensely annoying to employees, even when the specialist who is annoyed fully understands the purpose of the structure, but simply wishes to get on with his or her work.
Despite the difference explained here between the management and specialist levels, in the context of electrical safety we speak of the “chief responsible electrical specialist” and not of the “responsible electrical safety manager”. This point is important to note, as it shows that as a person responsible for electrical safety, you are not simply a “manager”. Management itself constitutes a level of its own on which an individual may, ideally, be qualified in the technical field being managed, but need not necessarily be so. This is not the case in the field of electrical safety: there, if you assume responsibility, you must be skilled in the trade. To make the right decisions, you must be familiar with the technical issues of your field of work. You are therefore both familiar with the technical aspects of your area of responsibility, and a particular form of manager by virtue of your position, and must create structures and lay down rules.
Your job should also not be equated with that of a project manager, since electrical safety is not project management, at least not in principle; although the use of project management methods may be beneficial at some points during creation of an electrical safety structure, it doesn’t constitute project management in the strict sense. We’ll return to this issue later.
Your job therefore also comprises ensuring that your rules are not just appropriate, but are actually accepted. To this end, it’s important that you engage with the company’s employees. Your most important functions in operational work will therefore be considered first in the discussion below.
The electrical specialist: the backbone of electrical work
The terms “skilled electrician” or “electrically skilled person” are often used in standards. This book uses the term electrical specialist. In this context, an electrical specialist is a person who, by virtue of his or her professional training, professional knowledge, professional experience and adequate familiarity with the relevant provisions such as standards, regulations and also good working practice, is able not only to perform the work assigned to him or her, but also to assess it and recognize the hazards arising from it or during its performance.
This definition seems on the one hand sound, and on the other very general. This is neither coincidence nor sloppiness, but intended. Specialist training in electrical engineering is only a part of the requirements.
An employee with vocational training in electrical engineering or a relevant degree is not automatically an electrical specialist; rather, in accordance with the definition provided above, he or she is actively appointed to this position by the employer. In this context, lawyers speak of the employer’s intent being implied in fact. Consequently, the term “electrical specialist” as used here refers less to a formal qualification, and more to a level of competence that relates primarily to the electrical safety of people and equipment such as installations.
A graduate in electrical engineering is not necessarily closer to the status of an electrical specialist than a person who has just completed their vocational training; often, the reverse is the case.
By the same token, it’s not ideal for new employees in a company to be assigned to work as electrical specialists from day one. Although new employees may not lack sufficient work experience in general, they lack experience in working at the new company. This can also lead to errors.
Everyone needs a period of induction in order to familiarize themselves with a company’s processes and culture. Electrical engineering, and electrical engineering safety in particular, are no exception. The expertise and experience required also includes knowledge of the company, i.e. of the installations in or on which employees work.
Accordingly, the general consensus is that specialized vocational training or a degree is as it were merely a licence to continue learning. It’s therefore advisable to establish an induction programme for new electrical specialists, for example in the form of mentoring.
A modern assessment for definition of an electrical specialist leans more strongly towards practical vocational experience than pure vocational training, which is better regarded as a good foundation.
To ensure safety, the option exists in many areas for a company’s well trained employees to undergo further qualification. In some areas, such training may be mandatory at regional, national or even international level. Nevertheless, even where further training is sufficient, the practical aspect must not be overlooked.
