Importance of EMS Training and Strategies to Minimize Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs) in a Wareho

EMS Related Training Importance for Employees

Answer all questions.
Question 1
i.) Environmental Management System (EMS) requires an organisation to establish and implement a procedure to identify training needs in the organisation. Explain the importance of training and describe the types of EMS related training that can be provided to the employees.

ii.) To accomplish the OHSMS's desired goals, the organisation must search for improvement opportunities and take the necessary actions. Incident investigation, non-conformity reviews, and corrective actions are examples of these opportunities. Could you provide some examples of workplace incidents, nonconformities, and corrective actions? In this situation, what actions might be termed continuous improvement?

 

Question 2
Company C is a warehousing, distribution, and logistics centre that has been in business for 20 years. The activities involved are receiving, storage, order-picking, accumulation, sorting and shipping. There are many material handling devices used, such as forklifts, carts, pallets, conveyors, conveyance robots, sorters, picking systems, and automated warehouses. Over the years, business volume has increased. There was an increase in the number of accidents as well, especially the use of forklifts. Despite having a well-established accident reporting and resolution process, the situation has not improved.

 

You are assigned to look into the accident trend in the company. During your visit, everything was in order, the process was running smoothly. However, when you look into the accident report, you found that accidents become more frequent at a certain time in a year. There were many cases involving forklift drivers. Here are two cases that you extracted:

 

Case 1:
A forklift driven by a newly hired driver spun out of control and knocked down a quality control officer. The investigation concluded that the forklift brake needed replacement, and the driver was not well trained. The brake has been fixed and the driver was sent for further training.

Case 2:
An experienced forklift driver drove a forklift into a rack causing boxes to fall onto another worker. The worker was injured, and goods were damaged. The investigation concluded that the driver had not focused his attention on his work, and he has been given a warning letter You have carried out interviews with the people involved. The information you gathered included:

Most of the accident cases occurred during certain peak seasons.
During the peak seasons, there were shortages of forklift drivers.
Many forklift drivers were workers from other functions or part time drivers
temporarily recruited to meet the demands.

The new driver in case 1 was a temporary worker assigned to work without going through proper test after a short training.

The driver in case 2 had been working for 12 hours continuously for a few days as there were not enough forklift drivers.

The corridors in the warehouse were congested during the peak seasons, making it hard for forklifts to maneuver.

The supervisor was so overwhelmed by the production demand that he did not have time to do proper investigations to the accident cases

 

1. Suggest THREE (3) reasons to conduct accident investigation.

2. Performance shaping factors (PSFs) are the aspects of human behavior and the context (or environment) that can impact on human performance. Based on the two cases that you extracted, explain the PSFs contributed to the accidents. 

 

3. You are required to suggest solutions the situation. Propose FOUR (4) strategies to minimize negative effects of PSFs.

4. Create a complete risk assessment (with 3 types of hazards) for warehousing, distribution, and logistics centre, including risk matrix and complete RA form.