In order to understand what danger is, we must first understand the definition of the system. The GB/T 28001-201system standard issued this year is defined as "Hazard: the source, state or behavior that may lead to personal injury and/or health damage, or their combination".
First of all, the definition no longer involves "property loss" and "work environment damage"; Although the 2000 version of the system requires hazard identification to include "property loss" and "work environment damage", property loss and work environment damage are not the focus of occupational health and safety management. In fact, in the management practice of most enterprises, especially large enterprises, the safety authorities generally do not have this function. China's current effective laws and regulations never emphasize and require enterprises to do these things in safety management. The implementation of the 2000 version of the system specification has caused some negative effects on the safety management of some enterprises to a certain extent (such as affecting their normal function and reducing the investment in occupational health and safety risk control). By comparison, we find that the definition given in the new version of the standard is more scientific and reasonable, and more emphasis is placed on the people-oriented concept.
However, we must pay attention. If the damage to the working environment and property losses affect the personal safety and health of employees, it is still necessary to identify them, but this identification needs to be identified in the subsequent risk assessment.
Secondly, on the basis of the 2000 edition, the new version of the standard further expands and clarifies its object, so the definition is more accurate and comprehensive. The original definition of the 2000 version of the system standard is "the root or state of …". The so-called "root cause" is the most fundamental factor (or material, etc. ) led to these consequences. For example, without the existence and use of gasoline, there would be no fire and explosion accidents of gasoline. If there were no harmful substances such as silica dust and asbestos dust, this type of pneumoconiosis would not occur. That is to say, if the hazard source does not exist, no matter whether corresponding protective measures (such as electrical explosion-proof measures and ventilation measures) or individual protective measures (such as wearing dust masks, earplugs and insulating gloves) are taken, the hazards will not occur. From this point of view, gasoline, silica dust, asbestos
Harmful substances or factors such as dust are the root causes of personal injury or health damage, which need to be identified and analyzed in hazard identification.
It should be pointed out that there are many theories about the cause of accidents at present. According to these theoretical analysis, the factors leading to the accident also include social and cultural reasons, social system reasons, economic structure reasons and so on. Are these the so-called "roots" that we want to analyze? I think these factors are the deep-seated causes of the accident, the social background, and it is difficult for a specific enterprise to control. We should not understand the root cause as the deep-seated cause of injury here. It may not be appropriate to analyze these reasons from the perspective of a specific enterprise management, but it may be appropriate to analyze these reasons from the perspective of society or industry.
The so-called "state" mainly refers to the state of matter or system. At every different moment, its state is different. The state of matter mainly refers to the different states of matter. Generally speaking, there are three possibilities for matter: liquid, solid and gas. When the state changes, the danger and harmfulness may also change. If air is compressed, it will become a dangerous chemical. For another example, the main risk of liquid gasoline is combustion risk (extremely flammable), and the main risk of gaseous gasoline is explosion. The state of the system is related to the changes of various parameters. When various parameters of the system change, such as temperature, pressure, volume, material state, material and energy, the state of the system also changes. At this time, the risk of the system may change. For example, when the boiler is overhauled, its main hazards are mechanical injury, falling from a height, electric shock and other risks, while in operation, its hazards become the forms of boiler explosion, scald and other hazards. When people work at high altitude, due to the increase of height and potential energy, falling from a height becomes the main form of its harm. A system, its normal state, abnormal state and emergency state, its dangerous and harmful factors are different, its harm and risk are also different. Theoretically, whether it is a dangerous substance, a system or a person (who can also be regarded as a system), its state may be different at any different time (for example, liquid water in summer and ice in winter). Hazard sources may cause great harm in a certain state, but they may become relatively safe in a certain state. We should look at this problem dynamically.
The new standard adds "or behavior, or their combination" on the original basis. Obviously, "or behavior" should emphasize human factors. GB/T 13869-2009 clearly requires that some unsafe behaviors of people must be identified when identifying dangerous and harmful factors. At present, the authoritative teaching materials in the safety industry also clearly define the unit containing people's unsafe behavior as the hazard source. We know that the purpose of system construction is to protect people, and people are also the key factor leading to accidents. This is what we often call "ten accidents and nine violations". People are the most active factor, so safety management must learn from people, and those who study safety engineering or related disciplines must learn professional knowledge in ergonomics, safety psychology, behavior and so on. In addition, there are special safety technologies for human body research and control, such as biological rhythm research and ergonomics. In addition, many accident cause theories include human factors.
"Or its combination" should emphasize the concept of a system, because from many theoretical studies on the cause of accidents, it can be seen that the hazards leading to accidents are sometimes not individual and isolated dangers, and even we sometimes cannot distinguish the categories of hazards, and sometimes it is meaningless to distinguish them (such as boiler explosion, human factors, material factors, management factors, process layout and many other factors must be caused by the same * * *). For example, the working environment (or harmful working environment) in a certain area or region is also an inevitable factor leading to accidents (many studies of modern safety management have proved that different working environments of employees are one of the important factors leading to accidents). When I was working in a factory, I also made a statistical analysis of more than 300 industrial accidents in the factory in the past 70 years, and found that the probability of accidents in different seasons is obviously different, and accidents often occur in cold seasons and hot seasons. Sometimes we can't identify it as an independent hazard. So we need to take a certain system as a hazard, such as "boiler" as a hazard, which is obviously possible. If it is further expanded, there is nothing wrong with identifying the whole boiler room as a hazard source. To understand the concept of "or its combination", I think it is necessary to have the concept of system security.
The standard formally answers what is a hazard source, but the standard terminology is difficult to understand. Some people who have not engaged in safety management are difficult to understand. Especially in the actual safety management, or in the industry, concepts such as "danger, harmful factors" and "accident hidden danger" are often mentioned, but these concepts are not defined in standard terms. What do they have to do with dangerous sources? How to understand it?
The authoritative explanation of the above terms is given in the relevant laws, regulations and standards in force in China or in the training materials for registered safety engineers and safety raters. Risk factors: refers to factors that can cause casualties or sudden damage to things. Harmful factors: refers to factors that can affect people's health, cause diseases (occupational diseases) or cause chronic damage to things. According to these explanations and the definitions of GB/T 28001-2011,it can be seen from their explanations that risk factors mainly refer to factors that cause personal injury, while harmful factors are factors that cause "health damage". This is consistent with the requirements and interpretation of our standard. In daily safety management,
Usually, the two are collectively referred to as dangerous and harmful factors without distinction.
What is the relationship between hazard sources and "dangerous and harmful factors" and how to describe it specifically? The explanation given in the version of Safety Assessment 1 is that "dangerous and harmful factors mainly refer to the equipment, facilities and places with objectively existing dangerous and harmful substances or energy exceeding a certain limit", and the second edition of Safety Assessment further explains this definition, explaining that "dangerous and harmful factors in the production process are divided into human factors, material factors, environmental factors and management factors. Devices, equipment, facilities and places with dangerous and harmful factors are called hazards. " In addition, the textbook of the National Certified Safety Engineer Examination also gives a similar explanation. In addition, the Law on Work Safety (Article 96) also points out that "major hazard sources refer to units (including places and facilities) that produce, transport, use and store dangerous goods for a long time or temporarily, and the quantity of dangerous goods is equal to or exceeds the critical quantity".
According to the above-mentioned relevant regulations and explanations given by authoritative materials, combined with the understanding of system standards, from the perspective of system security, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. The concepts of danger, harmful factors and hazard sources are not the same, but the relationship between inclusion and inclusion;
2. Hazard sources and dangerous and harmful factors exist objectively;
3. The dangerous and harmful factors in the production process can be analyzed from four aspects: human factors, material factors, environmental factors and management factors;
4. Hazard sources can refer to devices, equipment, facilities and places;
5. The difference between hazard sources and major hazard sources is mainly the difference in the quantity of hazardous substances.
From the above explanation, relevant laws and standards have clearly stipulated that devices, equipment, facilities and places can be dangerous sources. For example, in the actual audit, many auditors think that boilers and hazardous chemicals warehouses are not dangerous sources, but "safety valve failure", "pressure gauge failure" and "electrical explosion protection" are dangerous sources. In my opinion, this statement is incorrect, even wrong, because of safety valves, pressure gauges and so on. It is not a harmful substance (it may become a harmful substance under certain conditions), which obviously does not meet the requirements of China's current laws and regulations. Even if it is correct, it will not be able to see the problem systematically, only see the trees, but not the forest, and can not grasp the key and crux of the problem, and can not achieve the purpose of hazard identification.
In my analysis, many units take "safety valve failure", "pressure gauge failure", "electrical explosion protection" and "misoperation during power failure" as the hazard sources, which is to worry about this phenomenon. In safety management, these phenomena are usually called hidden dangers of accidents and are not allowed to appear. But these phenomena do not exist in enterprises in actual work. In fact, these phenomena need attention, mainly found and eliminated in risk assessment. There used to be a company whose industry safety management was very good, but its hazard identification identified more than 1200 hazards, and there were more than 700 unacceptable risks. The conclusion is obviously inconsistent with its management practice, which is surprising. These phenomena obviously confuse the concepts of hazard source, hazardous characteristics and risk. If we have studied FMEA (failure mode analysis), we can clearly know that these phenomena such as "safety valve failure", "pressure gauge failure" and "electrical explosion protection" are sometimes what we call some failure modes of the system. In my opinion, we should pay attention to these problems in the specific certification audit and guide enterprises correctly.
Many people simply infer that the so-called "hazard" must be "noun" or "verb (or adjective)+noun" according to the noun attribute of the English word "hazard", which is suspected of playing word games.
It should be further pointed out that the hazards mentioned in the system include not only these devices, equipment, facilities and places with toxic and harmful factors, but also other meaning, and its meaning should be broader than the definition of these laws and regulations (because the requirements of current laws and regulations need to consider operability and need to be targeted at specific management objects). As mentioned above, the "… root, state or behavior, or their combination" that may lead to personal injury and/or health damage are all factors that we need to consider in hazard identification. Explaining the definition of laws and regulations and the requirements of the industry here is only to further explain and elaborate the meaning of hazards in standards and deepen the understanding of hazards.
Through analysis, we distinguish the concepts of hazard source and dangerous and harmful factors. What is the concept of "accident hidden danger"? Can the unit be allowed to use the concept of "accident hidden danger"? First of all, all the current laws and regulations in China refer to "hidden dangers of accidents". For example, Article 17 of the Law on Safety in Production clearly points out that the main purpose of safety management is to "eliminate hidden dangers of production safety accidents in time", and it is not appropriate to allow certification units to use this word and concept. In addition, by consulting relevant laws and materials, we can know that the meaning of accident hidden danger is an idiom in traditional safety management, which refers to the unsafe state of people's activity places, equipment and facilities, or the potential danger that may lead to personal injury or economic loss due to unsafe behavior and management defects. Accident hidden danger usually refers to the direct cause of the accident. The hidden danger of accidents gives a broad concept. If it is understood as "refers to the unsafe state of people's activity places, equipment and facilities, or the potential danger of personal injury or economic loss caused by people's unsafe behavior and management defects", he is.
Refers to the hazards mentioned in our GB/T2800 1 standard. In a narrow sense, according to "hidden danger of accidents usually refers to the direct cause of accidents", combined with some laws, regulations and relevant requirements of accident treatment, it can be further understood that hidden danger of accidents is the direct cause of accidents due to the failure to effectively control dangerous and harmful factors in hazard sources. According to the requirements of relevant national laws and regulations, such as "Safety Production Law" and "Fire Prevention Law", hidden accidents need to be eliminated and are not allowed to exist. However, the existing relevant laws and regulations in China have never required that dangerous sources are not allowed. Only when the risk is controlled, if essential safety is required, it is required to eliminate the hazard source.
Therefore, on the basis of this understanding, from the perspective of system security, we can draw the logical relationship among hazards, dangerous and harmful factors, hidden dangers and accidents. The chart is as follows:
It can be seen from the above discussion and diagram that no matter how to understand the hidden dangers of accidents, they should be considered in clause 4.3. 1 of the system standard. If the auditee is required to talk about "hazard sources" in the specific audit, the concepts such as "danger, harmful factors" and "hidden danger of accidents" cannot be mentioned, and it is considered as something done in traditional safety management, which is backward and out of date. Obviously, some doctrines are divorced from reality and do not meet the requirements of the system.
Finally, it is necessary to further clarify that the hazard source is the carrier of dangerous and harmful factors. The standard requires hazard identification, and the key is to include dangerous factors and harmful factors. In other words, its dangerous and harmful factors are what we need to pay attention to. When auditing, we always ask the auditee to provide a detailed list of hazards, but we must realize that sometimes dangerous and harmful factors exist in specific management practices, but sometimes it is difficult for us to find that carrier. For example, the revision of the Law on the Prevention and Control of Occupational Diseases changed the definition of occupational diseases from "exposure to toxic and harmful substances" to "exposure to toxic and harmful factors", which is the reason. In addition, from the system point of view, hazard is sometimes a relative concept. For example, we can take the hazardous chemicals warehouse as the hazard source, but we can also take its internal oil depot, drama medicine warehouse and gas cylinder warehouse as the hazard source alone, and there is nothing wrong with it. It is of little practical significance to talk only about dangerous sources and not about dangerous and harmful factors. It is more appropriate to pay attention to the number and name of hazard sources in the specific audit, but it is best to pay attention to dangerous and harmful factors, their harmfulness and destruction methods.