Occupational Safety

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The union steward had just recounted an incident where a supervisor asked one of his workers to step into standing water to work on corroded gauges near the coker. The work needed to be done immediately as it would delay ongoing maintenance on the fractionator to take on different stock feed.

According to OSHA, businesses spend almost $1 billion per week on costs related to occupational injuries and illnesses. “In today's business environment,” according to OSHA, “these costs can be the difference between operating in the black and running in the red.”

TLVs® and BEIs® are often recognized as “safe levels” for worker exposures to chemical substances and physical agents. Proper application of TLVs® and BEIs® are essential to today’s practice of industrial hygiene.

Boilers, dryers, process ovens, thermal oxidizers or other fuel-fired industrial equipment are essential to manufacturing productivity. Regulating the flow and pressure of fuel delivery to this equipment requires a multi-component, highly-engineered device called a “valve safety train”.

At the start of September, the number of open jobs exceeded the number of active jobseekers for the 17th consecutive month—a record for the United States economy.

An unplanned event that did not result in injury, illness, or damage, but had the potential to do so — are common but generally underreported. Knowledge is power, and information provided by near-misses is a tool to evaluate and improve safety.