Improving the CSMS
Reviewing Your Program
Any good CSMS requires a periodic review, analysis, and performance evaluation to ensure that the system is operating as intended.
You should take a careful look at each element in your safety and health program to determine what is working and what changes are needed. Identifying needed improvements provides the basis for new safety and health objectives for the coming year. Developing and implementing new action plans for those improvements will ensure continued progress towards an effective safety and health program. That, in turn, will reduce safety and health risks and increase efficiency and profit.
Continuous Improvement
Think of safety as an important aspect of the quality of production and service. Product quality is elusive. The only way you know you have it is by asking those who define it: the customer. All the company can do is try hard to produce a product that fits the customer's definition of quality. When the product is designed to prevent injury or illness, the customer will define the product as safe. Unfortunately, some companies do not consider safety when designing products. Consequently, they may unintentionally design unsafe or unhealthful features into their products.
Quality and safety are very closely related. Both may be considered error-free performance. When an injury occurs, the "event" increases the number of unnecessary and wasted steps in the production process. So, how does safety fit into a philosophy of continuous improvement?
Every CSMS requires periodic review, analysis, and evaluation to make sure the system is efficiently and effectively operating as intended. Take a careful look at each element in the CSMS to see what is working and what changes are needed. Identify needed improvements and design, develop, and deploy them into the CSMS.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
10-1. Quality and safety in the workplace may be thought of as _____.
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