How to Develop an Effective Shutdown Schedule
Creating an effective safety audit schedule is essential for managing high-risk tasks and improving safety processes during production shutdowns.
An annual production shutdown or outage is a period for major equipment repairs, reconstruction and testing. One fire safety specialist discovered the beginning of a fire and extinguished it during his safety audits at least twice throughout his career. But those not skilled enough to find the right place for the safety audit certainly need a good safety audit schedule. An effective schedule of safety audits is the key to the successful completion of the shutdown and improvement of safety processes.
Developing a schedule of safety audits is a task that requires planning and coordination. If the shutdown is carried out nearby, then first of all identify the key work activities that are planned as part of the production shutdown. As a rule, such activities include high-risk work, such as work done up high, work in confined spaces, lockout/tagout (LOTO) procedure, and working with welding or electricity. The head of the safety department should request the engineering department to provide a list of work planned during the shutdown with remarks, whether or not it belongs to one or more categories of high-risk work. Also, the requested information should contain the start and end dates of each project.
Equally important is the establishment of a clear communication system between all participants in the process, which minimizes the risks of misunderstanding and loss of time. For example, in most companies, the start and end time of equipment repair work cannot be clearly estimated, especially if the work is carried out by third-party organizations. One contractor had to wait for 12 hours for work to start, because they didn’t have the proper work permit.
In this case, a schedule that strictly specifies the start and end dates for each audit will not be effective. The auditor will either not get to the right job on time or will be forced to deviate from the schedule. In this case, the environment, health and safety (EHS) coordinator must either make immediate changes to the schedule or use another common method. Or create schedules based on dividing the work area into zones.
Site owners or general contractors can move freely throughout the project area. Instead of auditing individual tasks, the auditors can check on all of the projects performed in the zone.
The methods can be combined when drawing up a schedule for the zones. The coordinator will schedule an audit of a zone on those days when the most dangerous work is planned.
