Introduction
Maintaining a satellite dish on the roof of a client can be divided into two categories as seen from the case study, the first section of the activities can be categorized as the planning process which involves the setting up of the equipment needed for the work and the second section can be categorized as the main part which involves conducting the actual maintenance. For the report to be more effective, it is important to address both categories separately. This ensure that all the activities involved are exhaustively covered. Satellite maintenance is one of the most sensitive activities personnel carry out but little attention is given to the risks associated with the professionals carrying out these maintenances. The job entails climbing on top of roofs which vary depending on the number of floors of an apartment, apart from the heights, other risk factors are introduced such as the condition of the building the personnel is going to climb, the state of the equipment’s they are going to use and the duration its going to take them on top of that roof (Arcury et al., 2014). Climatic conditions also add up to the risks the employees or the personnel are exposed to, some weather conditions such as a windy day increases the chances of a person to fall with such a significant percentage among other matters.
The report takes a number of approaches towards the matter, these includes, explaining, this will entail the explanation of how the different risks will come around, analyzing, then an analysis of how these risks are likely to happen and finally the report will cover on an extensive recommendation of what the management will have to incorporate within the company’s risk assessment and solution plan for the workers. It is important also to introduce the different skills that will be used together the information for the findings relevant to the case study, different approaches will be taken so as to gather sufficient information relevant for the case, these will include interviews, observations as well as literature review of the past cases within the same filed that have been covered before (Arcury et al., 2014). This will provide sufficient information that will help clearly analyze and propose feasible solutions towards the identified risks within the case study. The report is organized in to different sections in line with the flow of the case analysis.
Risk Assessment
There are a number of risks that are eminent with the case study provided, one of the main risks being the risk of falling down. This risk involves the personnel falling down from the roof, or the ladder in the process of going to the roof. As covered in the introduction, the risks are broadly separated into two categories which are those risks eminent while carrying out the satellite maintenance and those risks before one gets to the roof or while done the maintenance. Falling is a risk that falls in both categories, the personnel may fall off while climbing the ladder, they may fall off the roof while carrying out the normal routine maintenance activities (Arcury et al., 2014). It is important to address each risk so as to create a clear picture of the level of harm associated with it. Falling off a ladder happens in several cases. The likelihood of this to occur is usually more than twice within a span of 5 satellite maintenance practices, this give it a probability of 10 – 25%. Falling off a ladder has been one of the many cases reported within the industry, during this time, different things lead to one falling off the ladder such as destructions in the process of climbing the ladder. Different cases in relation to these destructions have been reported. When this happens, most of the reported case and recorded, the workers tend to miss their step on there way up the ladder (Braun, 2018). This leads to them falling off the ladder and in most cases the impact usually affects them a lot. Research shows that other interruptions such as animals living on the roofs of most of the houses tend to be a major destruction for the experts as the reach the roof top. These falls have different outcomes on the personnel but this is normally dependent on height of the fall. The falls normally lead to catastrophic results to the extent of death while others lead to serious body injuries such as bones shattering among other meanwhile the falls which are not that high lead to minor injuries and in some cases the personnel are up on their feet and back to work. These falls are the main challenges in the case study. They are hard to predict and their out comes are also un controllable.
The other category of fall are the roof falls where the personnel normally trip off the roof and fall, these falls are not as rampant as the ladder falls. This is because the personnel have their safety belts on when. There are is a likelihood of a 5 – 10% of the incidences occurring. These incidences are usually the most dangerous cases since the falls usually result to death. There are a number of causes that lead to these falls, the personnel fail to properly attach their safety belts and with the slightest slip of the leg, they end up falling leading to death or other serious injuries, the other cause of this accidents includes faulty safety belt, these belts are meant to hold firmly the personnel but a fault with the cables ends up causing major damage (Cohen, & McCarthy 2016). The other leading cause is the state of the roof. Some roofs are old and the materials tend to fall off at some point, this makes the roof weak and without the knowledge t puts the personnel at a high risk of falling. This has been the case in a number of reported incidences the likely hood of this to be the main cause of the fall has been seen to rage between 25 to 50% of the roof related falls. The other main cause is the architecture of the houses. Some house architectures are slightly too complicated or not well designed hence increasing the chances of leading to a fall by the technician or the personnel while carrying out the satellite repairs.
Equipment failure and related injuries
These are other forms of risks that can be identified in the case study includes the equipment related failures. The process of removing the ladder being the first step. With single personnel this can be lightly challenging. To make the matter worse, the personnel being of the age of 45 as seen from the case study. Carrying around the ladder can be tasking. As seen from the case study which is 15meteres from the vehicle. The repeated process leas to physical injuries of the personnel such as back pains as well as other muscle pains especially around the arms (Webster & Graves, 2017). The process of also setting the ladder in place and ensuring its in a stable condition presents a whole new list of risks, the process of setting the ladder may lead to accidents such as the ladder falling on the employee, in case this happens which has a likelihood of 5 to 10% the personnel may be badly injured or hurt by the ladder. This also brings around another significant subject. Stabilizing the ladder is key in ensuring it does not trip while the employee is climbing or dropping down from the roof (Braun, 2018). In most cases when the personnel have no second hand to help stabilize the ladder the probability of an accident increases and this shows that the probability of an accident happening increases from 10 to 25% which is double the likely hood of an accident happening. Other injuries arise from the maintenance process where the satellite dish may accidentally fall of during the maintenance, this has a small likelihood of happening but also prone to happening when the maintenance process I carried out by single personnel. This may incur the company a lot of money while they try and replace the damaged dish. Such incidences have also been reported in several cases (Braun, 2018). All these risks have serious out comes to the personnel with death being one of the leading outcomes. The other leading out comes has been the rise in the cases of crippling cases after the accidents.
One of a slightly overlooked but happens under rare cases has been animal attacks. In a few cases, personnel have been attacked by hostile animals such as snakes on the roofs of the customers. There have also been cases of bee attacks which have been catastrophic as well. These cases happen since the roofs of these building in the course of time become the habitats of some animals such a as snakes and bees. This is because these places have either been designed poorly hence making their accessibility more complicated (Davis Jr, 2014). Due to this the roofs can remain for long with no access hence becoming a welcoming shelter for some dangerous animals. Under the risk metrics these cases are not often seen but their existence cannot be over looked. From an interview carried out by (Braun, 2018) it indicates that the cases that are highly ignored or over looked happen to cause more harm. The research covered employees prone to such incidences and the fact that close to no training on how to react to such situations leads to the magnified impact associated to the case.
Other worth mentioning risks include climatic conditions while at work, the weather affects different conditions for the workers up on the roof, the stability of the employee for instance is greatly affected by a windy weather. This has lead to a number of accidents where employees accidentally trip off the roof due to the weather (O'donnell, 2015). From the analyses different climatic conditions acts as risk accelerators or increase the chances of risks in occurring.
Conclusion
From the discussion multiple things in relation to risks associated with the case study can be identified. It is important for the management to acknowledge the possibility of all the scenarios happening. The management should also be in a position of accepting the nature of the work their employees work on. Falls have been categorized as the leading forms of risks in the case study. Other forms of risks have also been identified, the case study helps identify a sensitive area within the work force that clearly needs the attention of the service providers for the satellite maintenance activities. The organizations involved in the industry also, on their end need to have a well laid out response strategy incase of these incidences since from the gathered information, most of these accidents end up in death. During the research process, there were a few limitations which included the process of retrieving the information. For some of the reported accidents, it was sad that most of the victims of the accidents had died from the accidents injury. It became impossible to retrieve the actual information regarding what happened or the flow of events that led to the accident. This added to how dangerous these accidents elated to the case study were. Also, other companies failed to disclose information regarding such incidences with different claims arising such as the level of clearance needed to access much data would not be available. The other limiting was also the limited research carried out on the area. This means the attained resource that would shed more light on the matter was limited since little research had been carried out on the matter. But despite the limitations the research regarding the report was successful since most of the needed information was attained. My overall opinion is that in relation to the provided case study there are multiple risks associated with the profession as well as the case study. The responsible management body has a lot of work to do so as to reduce as well as provide measures to avoid these incidences from occurring since the impact of these cases has already been established. The likelihood of the cases has also been highlighted which makes these accidents more catastrophic. The safety of the employee is greatly the responsibility of both the management and the professional.
Recommendations
From the study, there are multiple recommendations that needs to be addressed. These recommendations affect both the company or the organization as well as the employee carrying out the satellite maintenance. For the management of the company one of the most important recommendation I the number of employees to work on a single site. From the study, the chances of having accidents within the site tend to increase with as the number of workers on site reduce. Having tow workers on site for instance reduces the chances of some accidents from happening, some falls could be avoided such accidents related to the ladder (Grisso et al., 2017). With two employees, one can give a helping hand to the other and they can carry around the ladder comfortably, the reduces the chances of muscle strain while carrying the ladder incase a single person to carry it (Choudhry, Fang, & Mohamed, 2007). For example, in our case where we have single employee age 45 carrying the ladder alone a number of meters. On the other hand, cases such as ladder falls can be controlled where one helps the other plant the ladder stable on the ground while climbing as well as when climbing down the ladder. The management is tasked with this operation and ensuring that the employees are arranged in teams of two. Also, the management is tasked with the responsibility of carrying out continuous inspection on the tools the employees are working with. These inspections ensure that the equipment of the workers are in good shape and will not likely break while at work (Choudhry, Fang, & Mohamed, 2007). We have already addressed some instances where the failure of the tools has lead to major accidents. The inspection team should conduct routine checks to ensure that the equipment that need repairs or replacement are carried out by the company. As this happens the management should also provide training to the employees on how to respond in different cases so as to enlighten them more on their safety. With such training the accident cases are likely to reduce. In the process the company can formulate risk and control measure to integrate with it (Grisso et al., 2017). The employees also are responsible of their own safety, they should e able to asses the conditions of the houses they are to work and ensue that the house is in a position of safely holding firm their weight without any risks of falling, the are also expected to where their safety equipment such as belts to avoid any falls that would have been avoided in case they had their safety tools on.
References
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Braun, J. (2018). Rooftop Hazards. Professional Safety, 63(3), 30-31.
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