Success Achieved on My Projects and How L Achieved Them

COMPLETEED PROJECTS

Names of Projects 1 Gautrain Project 2 Medupi power Station 3 Absa Tower/Standard Bank Head office 4 Impumelelo Mine (Sasol Mining): Current

Success achieved on my projects and how l achieved them.

 Construction Health and Safety - Procurement Management

During one of many projects that l has completed. I saw the need for good quality PPE (personal protective equipment) to be used, which will be SABS approved and compatible with other personal Protective equipment that are worn by the workforce.

I conducted a research on most of the international best PPE in the market in South Africa. With the permission of my site management l visited those suppliers, and after a long discussion with them, they agree that any requisition for PPE from my Organization they will supply few of those PPE as trial test with the employees. After which the employees will give a feedback. Once the employees are happy with the the PPE the site will then make an order for a bulk purchase.

The site management since then has review the procurement procedure for Purchasing of PPE which includes that, a trial test should be conducted with the Employees before purchasing any PPE and it must be an SABS approved.

 Construction Health and Safety - Cost Management

On my last project l saw the need to manage the cost and fund allocated for safety training. I create a spread sheet detailing the name of the every business Units within the project, and ask various safety personals on those business units to send me the list of every training request they have made with the names of the individual and the service providers. I recorded this information’s on the spread sheet according to each business unit with the name of each individual under a specific training they are registered for, and created a central data base of all our business units and record the individuals that has been training and the service provider used.

Henceforth, any business unit that wants to send their employees for safety training should send their request through to the safety administrator, who will verify on the central database if any of the individuals has attended the training previously or if an in house training should be conducted. Henceforth, l was able to reduce the cost for safety training and the allocated fund for training could last for the entire project.

 Construction Health and Safety - Hazard Identification Management

The key steps in managing health and safety in any organization are to identify hazards, control and manage them. After reading much of the international best practices of hazard identification management, I decided to implement what l learnt. I have to consult with the workforce and involve them, and gather information on the hazards they face while performing their every day task. Due to their extensive experience, they give suggestions on the control measures to be implemented. Once every week, the supervisor and his team members with their safety representative will first conduct “Hunt for Hazards” in their various work environments before commencement of work, this will help the employees identify any additional hazards onsite, give suggestion on the control measure and also be aware of these hazards. With the consultation and involvement of workforce on this safety activity they have taken the ownership of health and safety of their teams and work area. And actively ensuring the safety of their fellow team member’s onsite. This initiative has help reduce incident/accident rate tremendously onsite.

 Construction Health and Safety - Risk Management

I see risk management as a process meaning “a doing word” designed to reduce or eliminate the risk .During my employment in one of the building projects at Sandton Johannesburg. I wanted to do something different from my daily site inspections onsite. I wanted to involve site management and employees in managing risk onsite. I developed a four safety truth plan.

Safety Truth #1: involvement of site management, safety representatives and the foreman in weekly site inspection.

Safety Truth#2: involvement of inspectors outside safety profession such as the office clerk, surveyor, security manager, and It is also said that when you bring in people that are not familiar with your work environment, they come with new per of eye and will see thing differently,

Safety Truth #3: Closeout all deviations from inspection with a given time frame.

Safety Truth #4: Site management commite time and resources to fix any unsafe condition or Act onsite. The activity has change management attitude on safety.

 Construction Health and Safety - Accident or Incident Investigation Management

It is a legal requirement that accident or incidents are reported before the end of the shift. And investigated with four days, when the picture is still fresh in the mind of the eye witness. Seeing that we are in the technology age, where everybody has a mobile smart phone. I saw it as an avenue to create an SMS system with the help of the IT technician which will enable anybody onsite to SMS a brief description of an accident or incident that happen at his work area, which will be received by all site management immediately. I also conducted an in house training with appointed employees from each team on how to secure an accident scene. This will help them secure any accident scene within their work area before its disturbed.

 Construction Health and Safety - Legislations and Regulations

It is mandatory that every safety personnel and management are conversant with the legislations and regulations within his or her discipline. I believe that if everybody onsite including the safety personnel, site management, workforce and the supervisor should have knowledge of the legislation and regulation that associate with the environment they work. It will help minimise accident and incidents onsite and create awareness of what is expected of them.

I decided to start printing different sections of the regulation that has to do with our activities on site, I distributed it as a flyer on site to the workforce and the supervisor to read at their spare time. I also forward the electronic version of it to the site management. I take turns every second night to distribute different section of Regulations. This was a huge success, l can see employees discussing how safely the regulations require them to perform their task, and the responsibilities both the employer and employee have in ensuring that work environment is safe and people are trained. Safety becomes part of everyday discussion at tea time and during lunch time.

 Construction Health and Safety - Health, Hygiene and Environmental Management

I have not been fully involved in the above elements in most of the projects l was employed. . Specialized personnel have always been employees to run the above departments, and l act as a supporting structure giving my contribution here and there when required

 Construction Health and Safety - Communication Management

For communication to be effective it has to be a two ways system, the sender giving a clear message to the receiver and the receiver communicating back to the sender indicating his understanding of the message. In health and safety, one need to ensure that the workforce understand what is expected of them regarding to health and safety onsite. I came up with the use of pictogram for our plant and equipment checklist. In every plant or equipment checklist that needs to be inspected. I took a picture of the parts that need to be inspected and arrange it in a checklist format, with a smiley face and a sad face, and they will tick. Not every employee is literate to know what the part is called, but with the help of the pictures they could be able to understand what is expected for them to inspect. I also introduce a system where, after management site inspection a feedback session will be giving to the workforce. This interaction between site management and the workforce also creates an avenue for consultation and involvement of workforce in health and safety issues.

 Construction Health and Safety - Emergency Preparedness Management

It is the responsibility of every employer to train and inform the employees on the action to be taken in case of any emergency situations onsite. During one of the projects l was involved in 2009. We were working 27m about the ground on the balance cantilever bridge, we use 40m height tower crane to hoist materials to the cantilever bridge. Tower scaffolding was used as access to the cantilever bridge. I was worried about in case of any medical emergency how to lower the crane operator to the ground level. I have to liaise with the chief of fire station near the site, the ER24 emergency paramedic, and the Gauteng emergency service, on the challenges the site is facing and how best to tackle it. I schedule meetings where the entire stake hold brain storm on how to conduct an emergency drill on how to lower the crane operator from the cabin in the case of any medical emergency. At the end of the meeting all agreed on a plan and a date was schedule for the drill. Everything when according to plan, the crane operator was successfully lowered to the ground with ropes and stretcher. It took approximately 1hr 15min to complete the drill. More drills were schedules to perfect the techniques and reduced the time.