What’s hidden under the slogan ‘Anzen Ichi Ban’ (Safety First) part 2 – Overview on accident prevention

To me, the message of the slogan ‘Safety First’ is simply aimed at making safety as the top priority in what ever act that we are about to take or execute; whether the act is going to be diving or answer a call on cell phone while driving or slicing a cucumber with a sharp knife for a dish; it can be anything. Since all of our actions (conscious or unconscious) originated from the brain it would be most effective to have a mental picture (visualization) of the outcome of the acts that are about to be executed. Will the action that I’m going to take produce the result as expected, that is, without injury to me or to others? If the answer is yes; it’d better for me to rewind and play back the mental image and start identify the imminent dangers thinking of how to eliminate them. It’s like when a gymnast perfecting a new difficult and dangerous routine; he/she would take a brief moment to visualize the routine before executing it. However, to most people this preparatory step of executing an acted is seen as a wasted moment and argued that if accidents were to happen they will regardless whether we like it or not. I believe that all accidents can surely be prevented.
Safety management has 3 main goals and in order to be effective safety managers have to perform tremendously difficult task in ensuring that all accidents are prevented from occurring. They are responsible to ensure that;
1. zero loss of life
2. zero injuries
3. zero property damage
Imagine that you are the safety manager of a shipbuilding company where hundreds or may be thousands of people are working with sharp metal edges, welding torches, heavy overhead loads and working in confined spaces. Keeping it an accident free place requires more that asking all workers to wear their safety gears or personal protective equipment. The safety manager is just like a musical orchestra conductor; ensuring every little musical note is just played but played with feeling and affection.
In Japan, the notion that in every one fatal accident there were 29 minor injuries cases and 300 near accidents cases is wide spread. Every body is aware of such notion. So, it’s a duty of the safety manager to capture all near misses case in order to prevent injuries from happening. All near misses are analyzed, tagged and kept respective databases. Their counter measures were documented and actions were immediately implemented to prevent recurrence. It is the process that the safety manager must adhere strictly in order to eliminate entirely the possibility of having a fatal case. This can only be effective carried out in organizations where communication is efficient where everybody in the organization knows that the information could be used to prevent a serious accident. It would be near to impossible task in organizations where the ‘infrastructure’ of effective communication is not been developed and the people are unaware about such notion as described earlier.
Can an isolated case of near accident experienced by a welder working alone in one end of the shipbuilding yard be reported to his safety manager? The answer is yes, if the welder were to realize that his experience would one day prevent himself or his co-worker from getting killed. Many of us have the tendency to brush away our near misses experiences or somewhat ashamed to make them public or just don’t think that they are important. Well, we need to be otherwise in order for the organization or the community that we belong to live in an accident free environment.
Have you ever seen in real life on in tv the routine of an airline pilot confirming and verify his/her act before getting the plane to fly? For every switch or button that he/she pushes he/she would confirm by pointing and uttering the word “checked” simultaneously. This act is important to ensure that the pilot is on tract of getting the plane ready for take off. It’s one way to remind our brain through the eyes and ears that the action was successfully taken and it’s ok to execute the next step of the process. If this routine is effective for pilots, it would also have the same effect for us to copy like, before crossing a street or before preparing coffee in a pantry. Others who are ignorant of its effectiveness to prevent accidents would regard the act as silly and would find it’s an awkward act to imitate. Think it this way, is it silly for us the copy if we could avoid ourselves or friends from getting killed or paralyzed? I’m sure you have a good answer for that.