Is your brain keeping up with Technology?

The General Administrative Regulations passed the Minister of Labour's office in 2003. A year later cellphones came into being and we all had a Nokia 1610 or Siemens S3+ or a Motorola a few months later.
Today we have smartphones and tablets, and soon we will wear sunglasses with GPS and within the next 10 years we will be able to drive to work in a car that steers itself.

Yet, when it comes to the enforcement of legal requirements we still apply the same rules written 70 million years ago by Dinosaurus Healthansafetycus Erectus. An extinct cultivar of homo erectus with a passion for H&S.

Do you need a copy of the Act on site? simply go to your smartphone, open your browser and point it to http://www.acts.co.za/occupational-health-and-safety-act-1993/index.html

You can even print it at your local postnet remotely, and go fetch the hardcopy during tea time.

Yet, all of this high tech is useless in the minds of the Safety officer whose brain is tied to a ticksheet with an ambilical cord strong enough to keep the moon suspended. And it is as environmentally friendly as Chernoble itself.
On a project with 45 contractors, a total of 126 kg of paper is wasted to print an extract of the relevant regulations, the OSHAct and the COID act, registers and inspection forms, just to avoid using technology, - the average SHE file is around a ream of paper at 2.8kg.

Mobile applications are available for most of it. Even schools, where grade 5 pupils learn to become the future Dinosaurus Healthansafetycus Erectii, has introduced paperless solutions.

Yet we all love to stand on the rooftops and scream at the top of our lungs - "We are ISO14000 Certified, We love the environment!!!"

Do you feel like crying? Or as the '84 Boney M song goes We kill the world!!

 

OHSAS 18001&ISO 14001
States that:
3.5 document
information and its supporting medium
NOTE The medium can be paper, magnetic, electronic or optical
computer disc, photograph or master sample, or a combination thereof.
[ISO 14001:2004, 3.4]

The key thing is can you gain access to it, is there suitable backup and has it been tested that the backup works.
The question arises, are the relevant parties (DoL, PC, Client, Client Agent) aware and satisfied with electronic copy?

 

And the courts? A few years ago, the SAPS CSI units had major issues with digital photographs as evidence, as the courts accepted that images can be digitally altered.
Today, this is totally acceptable practice to use digital media.

There is only one requirement for digital media. It has to be signed by the person who creates it.
Some mobile inspection apps, allows you to make your signature on a "paint" page, and automatically crops it into the generated report.
Others even extract the GPS location, date and time to prove "you are here".

Yet, when the FAS officer arrives on site, it all means nothing.

Sadly, Vincent, ISO is an international standard, and not applicable to Africa. My word, some of us can hardly use spell-check, let alone digital apps.

We invent words so we can create a piece of paper for it. Then we call it a some fancy PLAN required by law.
Some FAS practitioners cannot even get grip on the terminology used in HSE, but they are experts in "Rejecting" your SHE file.

And how many times have you heard the excuse, "I misplaced the document"? Paper gets lost too. Where's your back up now?
Oh, don't mention that to the FAS practitioners. They will insist you have a copy of your training certificate for each and every hazard you have on site, just in case it gets lost.

 

What is FAS?

 

I was waiting for that!
File Approval Syndrome
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
delete which is not applicable