Operational Safety Specialist Activities management

One cannot always easily comprehend the concept of Operational Safety Specialist Activities if one never heard about the term before. We at 3ECO have been in business operating in the railway and electrical industries for quite some time. Still whilst the notions of design, construction, testing & commissioning or maintenance are usually well apprehended, the notion of “Operational Safety” remains ambiguous.

Hazard Mitigation Principles

Be that as it may Operational Safety Specialist Activities are everywhere in our railway and electrical industries and in many other industries where hazards are inherently presents and must be mitigated in order for people to remain safe.

At least the concept of Operational Safety is certainly present in the UK and in any other country where the safety of the workforce is a top priority. Here and there it is thankfully enshrined in government policies, health & safety regulations and robust laws. Unfortunately this is not the case everywhere.

Meaning of Operational Safety

So what do we mean by ‘Operational Safety’ and what does it entail ? It probably is nothing other than what some of you have already encountered many times before on a construction site for instance. To make it more relevant to 3ECO business let’s take the example of a construction site subject to Engineer’s Trains and Test Trains operations and temporary or permanent live power supplies.

In the above context Operational Safety represents an umbrella under which a whole suite of rules and protocols are to be established consistently and managed carefully and continuously in order to keep workers from getting hurt, or worse, by trains movement or by live Low and High Voltage apparatus or both.

In most cases the notion of Operational Safety emerges with the first temporary distribution board or panel being energised on site, increases dramatically during the testing & commissioning phases of a project and basically ends after the installation has reached the end of its life after decades of continuous running and maintenance works.

Operational Safety Management

Although it is not unusual for various groups to manage and comply with the protocols established under the Operations Safety banner for each of the stages mentioned above, the principles remain exactly the same. And these are to keep people from being harmed from inherent dangers due to the nature of the works and/or the installation and to allow for the necessary construction, commissioning and maintenance works to take place in a safe and effective manner.