Safety Advisory Council Activity Report

Since the last board meeting there have been no changes in the SAC membership. The full current membership of SAC is detailed in this table (for members only, please login first):

At the end of this calendar year, having completed 2 years as SAC chair, the responsibility will transition to Lorenzo Beretta who is currently the vice chair.

A key development in 2019/20 continues to be the expansion of the focus areas on the web site were members can access and find all documents related to a subject. Currently there have been focussed areas created for:

• Asphyxiation

• Oxygen Enrichment

• Good Homecare Practice

• Safe Transport of Gases or Dry Ice in ‘Non-Dedicated’ Vehicles

• Load Security

• Abuse of Gases

During 2019/20 a significant number of documents and other publications have been published or revised by SAC or by the WGs and AHGs under the supervision of SAC. These total an impressive 29 publications for 2019 (far in excess of the previous year). In 2020 a significant number of publications have already been issued, 25 in total. The published documents from 2019 and 2020 to date are summarised as follows:

Published in 2019:

Documents:

· Doc 85/19: Noise management (WG-5)

· Doc 102/19: Audit Guidelines (WG-16)

· Doc 113/19: Environmental Impacts of Transportation of Gases (WG-5)

· Doc 117/19: Environmental Impacts of Customer Installations (WG-5)

· Doc 135/19: Environmental Auditing Guide (WG-5)

· Doc 220/19: Environmental Guidelines for Permitting Hydrogen Plants (WG-5)

· Doc 223/19: Monitoring of Process Safety Performance (AHG-S.2)

· Doc 101/20: The Carbon Dioxide Industry and the Environment (WG-5)

· Doc 102.01/20: Listing of Safety Audit Assessment Tools (SAC)

· Doc 102.06/20: Safety Audit / Assessment Tool – Acetylene Plants (WG-16)

· Doc 112/20: Environmental Impacts of Nitrous Oxide Plants (WG-5)

· Doc 137/20: Environmental Aspects of Decommissioning (WG-5)

· Doc 137.01/20: Spreadsheet Decommissioning Checklist (WG-5)

· Doc 167/20: Methodology to Establish a Product Carbon Footprint (WG-5)

· Doc 169/20: Classification and Labelling Guide in Accordance with CLP (WG-9)

· Doc 178/20: Environmental Aspects of Standardisation (WG-5)

· Doc 226/20: Best Available Techniques for Acetylene (WG-5)

· Doc 229/20: Guidance for Manual Handling Activities of Cylinders (AHG S.7)

· Doc 903/20: EIGA Safety and Environmental Award Schemes (SAC)

· Doc 919/20: Guidelines for Preparation of Safety Data Sheets (WG-9)

Safety Alerts:

· SA 42/19: Fork-Lift Truck Incidents (SAC)

· SA 18/20: Theft of Metal and Diesel from Gas Industry Sites (WG-13)

· SA 19/20: Theft of Nitrous Oxide from Medical premises (WG-13)

· SA 43/20: Accidental Removal of Valve Stem (SAC)

Safety Information:

· SI 37/19: Controls on Filling CO2 Cylinder Packages (WG-2)

· SI TS 09/19: Vehicle Specification and Maintenance (WG-17)

· SI TS 10/19: Recognition Programmes (WG-17)

· SI TS 11/19: Vehicle Data Management (WG-17)

· SI HF 09/19: Human Factors – ’Fatigue from Working Patterns’ (WG-16)

· SI 38/20: Abuse of Nitrous Oxide for Recreational Inhalation (SAC)

· SI-HF 10/20: Organisation – Managing Organisational Change (WG-16)

· SI-HF 11/20: Organisation – Safety Culture (WG-16)

· SI-HF 12/20: Task – Human Factors in Ergonomic Design (WG-16)

· SI-HF 13/20: Organisation – Human Reliability (WG-16)

· SI-TS 12/20: In Vehicle Distraction Management (WG-17)

Briefing Notes:

· BN 24: Asphyxiating Atmosphere Symbol – Use of ISO Symbol (SAC)

Position Papers:

· PP 4/19: Odorization of Atmospheric Gases (SAC)

· PP18/19: Transfilling Industrial, Medical and Food Grade Gas Cylinders (SAC)

· PP24/19: Abuse of Gases (SAC)

Training Packages

· TP 5/19: Distribution Environmental Issues (WG-5)

· TP 20/19: Customer Installations Environmental Issues (WG-5)

· TP 36/19: Electronics Specialty Gases Near Miss Incidents (SAC)

· TP 21/20: Nitrous Oxide Plant – Environmental Issues (WG-5)

Environmental Newsletters

· EN 33/19: Transport and Environmental Issues in the Gases Industry (WG-5)

· EN 34/19: Employee Involvement in Environmental Activities (WG-5)

Safety Leaflets

· SL 10/19: Safe Handling of Cylinders: (SAC)

Learning from Incidents

One of the core activities of SAC is to capture the incidents of interest in the EIGA database to enable lessons learned to be discussed and to identify themes and work activities to make the industry safer. The training packages EIGA generates and shares from this activity is fundamental to what SAC is attempting to achieve.

In 2019/20 SAC were able to publish 7 of these incident training packages:

· TP INC 32/19 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 156)

· TP INC 33/19 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 157)

· TP INC 34/19 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 158)

· TP INC 35/19 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 159)

· TP INC 36/19 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 160)

· TP INC 37/20 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 161)

· TP INC 38/20 Recent Incidents in the Industrial and Medical Gases Industry (SAC 162)

Industry Impact: roadmap for EIGA activities, direct information on actual accidents to the gas industry (learning lessons, communication with EIGA). Note that during 2019 SAC has acted on requests from the National Associations to provide more detail regarding root causes. The packages now include pertinent discussion points to consider in addition to the facts as agreed at the last board meeting.

Two new ad-hoc Groups (AHG) were created :

• AHG S.12 Perlite Management: Following incidents in the area of Perlite management this ad hoc group has been created to review current documentation and safety alerts and update advice to the industry in this critical area. AHG now in progress.

• AHG S.13 on e-Learning created (see section 2.4).

The full list of working groups is detailed in this table (for members only, please login first).

Work is progressing on the replacement for the existing databases of WIST, RAST and the SACdb. Progress with the supplier started in June 2019.

Details as follows:

· Road Vehicle Accident Statistics (RAST):

The new system is live and the results for Q12020 have been entered by the members. Reporting is mandatory with the new system and there will be separate reporting of own fleet incidents and contractor fleet incidents. RAST reporting level is increased from €3000 to €5000 and will have a limited impact.

· Work Injury Statistics (WIST):

The new system is live and the results for Q12020 have been entered by the members. There will be a new category to define employees and contractors separately.

SAC Incident Database (SACdb): New category of lone working will be included, and the functionality will be enhanced to include life-saving rules and key lessons learnt with the intent to have an automated awareness package reducing workload. Delayed and is now planned for Q2/Q3 2020.

An adhoc group S.13 has now been created to work on e-Learning on Oxygen. The group has used the 2012 O2 training material as a basis to create a webinar to reach a wide audience from the general public to technical specialists. The target completion remains June 2020. There are 6 modules as follows:

1 – Intro

2 – Fire Triangle

3 – Oxygen

4 – Fuel (metals / non-metals)

5 – Fuel (contaminants)

6 – Ignition sources

There is a need to challenge traditional approaches towards Safety I vs Safety II. Consider what is going right despite all changes that occur daily that can impact on Safety.

SAC has completed its first dedicated publication in this area: ‘Safety II - Actions that Prevent Accidents’ This publication can be viewed or downloaded on the EIGA Website (restricted to EIGA Members only, please log in first) by clicking here.