The safe management of contractors

At Yokogawa, when we say, ‘all workers go home safe at the end of the day’, we mean everyone. Your workforce and your contractors. That’s why having a safe and robust contractor competence management element built into RAP4 is key to our commitment to safety for all. All industries, all scales, all risks.

At Yokogawa, when we say, ‘all workers go home safe at the end of the day’, we mean everyone. Your workforce and your contractors. That’s why having a safe and robust contractor competence management element built into RAP4 is key to our commitment to safety for all. All industries, all scales, all risks.

The importance of safe contractor management

In many industries, including high hazard, contractors play an indispensable element to a business. E.g., for day-to-day on-site maintenance or specialised activities. However, contract workers are a susceptible group of workers and statistically, are more than three times as likely to have an incident relating to safety. In 2017, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that, out of 5,147 fatal work injuries. 800 were contracted workers, a 50% increase over 6 years. The UK Health and Safety Executive, states that “businesses… using temporary workers must provide the same level of health and safety protection for them as they do for employees. Providers of temporary workers, and employers using them need to co-operate and communicate clearly with each other. To ensure any risks to those workers are managed effectively.”

Ongoing challenge

However, despite the widespread provision of health and safety guidelines and stringent regulations, incidents continue to happen. And managing contractor EHS performance is an ongoing challenge among businesses across all industries. Taking this into account, and with contractors often performing high-risk jobs in unfamiliar surroundings and with unfamiliar hazards, it is best practice for businesses to have a formal contractor management program in place.  Helping create better and safer workplaces for all.

How does the RAP4 system facilitate this?

Contractor Management is a key part of the RAP4 system and is dealt with in the administration function. Here contractors are assigned competence. And they can be limited in their working capability, as required. To ensure that only those with appropriate competence can carry out certain work, so avoiding potential incidents.
In addition to this, individuals can upload certification to the system. So these can be readily referenced by the plant as part of competence auditing and setting of individual user capabilities. The system will also monitor expiry dates and will warn and then remove competence capabilities if not renewed.

Further, Contractors can be directly involved in the process of risk assessment and the creation of the overall permitted work requirement, so we encourage all our clients to involve them with direct access to relevant parts of the RAP4 digital safe control of work software. There are no “per seat” charges, meaning it’s easy to allow contractors to have controlled access, so enabling their participation, such as to define the tools and equipment they will use for certain tasks and any special PPE required. By involving everyone directly in this way it is possible to, not only speed up the permit creation process, but also to significantly improve overall site safety beyond direct employees.

RAP4 system allows safety and work management

From an overview site management perspective, the mapping and dashboard functionality within the RAP4 system allows safety and work management teams to search where work is taking place, by what contract company, and by which of their workers, ensuring contractor safety is managed just as robustly as would be the case for site direct staff. From planning to completion, RAP4 keeps your entire workforce safer 24 hours a day through robust competence management including contracted workers, so ensuring greater efficiency through smarter, safer working.


https://www.yokogawa-blog.de/en/sushi-sensors-the-smart-health-gadgets-for-the-process-industry/

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