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National safety conference to address the four Cs

A Pilz Automation Technology product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 22, 2006

A new national safety conference is being organised by Pilz Automation Technology to take place at the UK National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull, on 23rd January 2007.

A new national safety conference is being organised by Pilz Automation Technology to take place at the UK National Motorcycle Museum, Solihull, on 23rd January 2007.

The main topics covered will be: influencing health and safety culture change; the basic principles of safety awareness for employees; standards and regulations relating to machinery and work equipment safety; and the safe control of contractors.

Senior managers and executives who influence the attitudes and behaviour of employees will benefit from the session devoted to culture change.

A positive culture is essential if a health and safety policy is to be successful, and this requires an understanding of the "four Cs" (control, communication, co-operation and competency).

The session therefore looks at the "four Cs", as well as the way in which human factors can influence the success or failure of a health and safety policy.

It also covers man management skills, teamwork, harmonisation and behavioural science, plus it highlights some of the official guidance, reports and strategy documents that have been published recently.

It is often said that health and safety is everyone's responsibility, so it is vital that employees on the shop floor understand the basics of health and safety in order that they can take ownership and be accountable for their own actions and those of others.

For that reason, another session in the National Safety Conference will address subjects such as human factors, accident reporting, identifying the causes of accidents, accident prevention, the main provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act, the concepts of hazards and risks, and the legal requirements for risk assessments.

One session during the conference will focus on regulations and standards relating to the safety of machinery and work equipment.

In particular, the following will be explained: CE marking; the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER 98); BS EN60204-1:2006 (Safety of machinery - Electrical equipment of machines - General requirements); BS EN62061:2005 (Safety of machinery - Functional safety of safety-related electrical, electronic and programmable electronic control systems); and the newly ratified EN13849-1 (Safety of machinery - Safety-related parts of control systems - Part 1: General principles for design).

This session will be useful for anyone with responsibility for machinery and work equipment within a workplace, as well as those designing or modifying machines.

Contractors are playing an increasing role in almost all workplaces today, yet the management of contractors' health and safety is, generally, not well understood.

However, another of the sessions during the national safety conference will identify a methodology for the appropriate selection of contractors, outline actions to take prior to commencement of work, and explain how to conduct a suitable monitoring process and the benefits of evaluation and feedback.