Preventing SIFs with Above-the-Line Work Planning and Execution

Are the things that hurt people the same as the things that kill people? Should safety focus on preventing serious injuries and fatalities (SIFs)? In this article, I’m not going to attempt to answer either of those questions. Instead, I’m going to do two other things. First, I’ll provide you with insights and resources that will help you answer the questions for yourself, and second, I’ll define above-the-line work planning and execution.

Let’s start with Herbert William Heinrich’s injury pyramid from the 1931 publication “Industrial Accident Prevention: A Scientific Approach.” Heinrich proposed a 1:29:300 ratio, often called Heinrich’s Law, which states that for a group of 330 similar accidents, 300 will produce no injury, 29 will cause minor injuries, and one will result in a major injury. In 1966, Frank Bird’s research expanded the triangle to include near misses, with a ratio of one SIF to 10 minor injury accidents, 30 damage-causing accidents and 600 near misses.

It may be helpful to use practical examples to help us critique the pyramids. If I climb a ladder and stand on the top rung to do my work 330 times, what will happen to me each time? What if I stand underneath a suspended load 641 times? My point is this: Any unsafe act or exposure to an unsafe condition puts you somewhere on the pyramid. Your most likely outcome is a near miss or minor injury, but please understand the first or next occurrence could be a serious injury or fatality.

The most important question I’ll ask is this: Do you think your frontline workers – the people who need safety most – are more concerned with pyramids, triangles, research and theories or with protecting themselves, staying safe and being well? Assuming the answer gravitates toward the latter, let’s look at some of the fantastic work being done by Dr. Matthew Hallowell and his TEAM* at the University of Colorado.

Their research found a direct correlation between the amount of energy associated with a hazard and the severity of injury. That is, more energy causes more harm, and at a certain level – approximately 1,500 joules – a SIF becomes the most likely outcome. They also highlight key contributing factors to SIFs, including poor hazard recognition, absent or unfollowed work plans, and lack of direct controls for high-energy exposures. To learn more, check out the Construction Safety Research Alliance’s Knowledge Center at www.csra.colorado.edu/knowledge-center.

Tools for Work Planning and Execution
To discuss above-the-line work planning and execution, we need tools. The Construction Safety Research Alliance gave us the energy wheel, a tool that improves hazard recognition, as well as high-energy control assessments, tools that ensure direct controls – targeted at specific hazards – effectively mitigate those hazards when they are installed, verified and used correctly. We’ll use these tools along with the hierarchy of controls we use in Incident Prevention Institute training to facilitate above-the-line work planning and execution.

The hierarchy of controls includes levels of protective measures. Ranked from most effective to least effective, the levels are hazard elimination, risk elimination, lessening energy and exposure through substitution and reduction, engineering controls and safety devices (direct controls), administrative controls, warning devices and PPE. The line differentiating above-the-line and below-the-line work planning and execution is after direct controls and before administrative controls.

Below are the steps to follow in above-the-line work planning and execution. They are built on the premise that hazards and risks are quantifiable and predictable, and if we can predict them, we can prevent them.

Hazard and Risk Assessment

• Use the energy wheel to identify hazards as energy sources.
• Quantify risk as the amount of energy there is or could be coupled with duration of exposure.
• Create a brief task-specific exposure statement.

Hazard and Risk Mitigation

• Safety by design: Reduce energy and exposure as much as possible and establish direct controls.
• Defense in depth: Create multiple layers of protection.

Look what happens when we identify hazards, quantify risk and create exposure statements. Nick is observing Curtis operating a jackhammer at 115 dBA for 30 minutes. Kate is backing a vehicle an average of 10 times a day at 6 mph for a total of 200 feet. Lower the numbers! Nick can stand farther away from Curtis, still observe and reduce 115 dBA to 75 dBA. Or they could rotate the task and cut their exposure from 30 minutes to 15 minutes. Kate could utilize pull-through parking, back three times a day instead of 10 (but hopefully zero times), and reduce 200 total feet backed to 60, or back at 3 mph instead of 6 mph.

It’s almost always possible to reduce energy and exposure, and the goal should be to reduce them below the high-energy threshold. Many tasks can’t be reduced below that threshold and require exposure to high-energy hazards. In those situations, direct controls must be in place to qualify as above-the-line work planning and execution. When working in an excavation, that’s a trench box. If you’re driving, it’s collision avoidance systems, seat belts and air bags. Other examples include insulating cover-up for electricity, crash barriers for work zones, 100% fall protection and machine guards.

Conclusion
While it’s often with good intentions, I think we fall victim to focusing more on programs than people. Hopefully this article inspires you to learn more about principles and theories you can incorporate into your programs. More importantly, my hope is that you will train your frontline workers in above-the-line work planning and execution using the energy wheel and the hierarchy of controls.

Learn More
You can learn more about this article by reading my book “Frontline Incident Prevention – The Hurdle: Innovative and Practical Insights on the Art of Safety,” and I hope you’ll join me for the free September 11 webinar on this topic.

There will also be a workshop on preventing SIFs with above-the-line work planning and execution October 21 from 1-5 p.m., just before the next iP Utility Safety Conference & Expo in Texas. It will cover how to build capacity to fail safely using direct controls for high-energy hazards to prevent SIFs. For more information and to register, visit https://community.utilitybusinessmedia.com/nc__event?id=a0lUq000001NoYDIA0.

Thank you for reading, stay safe and be well.

*TEAM stands for Together Everyone Accomplishes More and is capitalized in anything I write to honor the late Bob McCall.

About the Author: David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM, is the director of professional development for Utility Business Media’s Incident Prevention Institute (https://ip-institute.com) and the author of “Frontline Leadership – The Hurdle” and “Frontline Incident Prevention – The Hurdle.” He has extensive experience and expertise in leadership, human performance, safety and operations. McPeak is passionate about personal and professional development and believes that intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are key to success. He also is an advanced certified practitioner in DISC, emotional intelligence, the Hartman Value Profile, learning styles and motivators.

About Frontline Fundamentals: Frontline Fundamentals topics are derived from the Incident Prevention Institute’s popular Frontline training program (https://frontlineutilityleader.com). Frontline covers critical knowledge, skills and abilities for utility leaders and aligns with the Certified Utility Safety Professional exam blueprint.

Webinar: Preventing SIFs
September 11, 2024, at 11 a.m. Eastern
Visit https://ip-institute.com/frontline-webinars/ for more information.