Contents:

• Customers want more than satisfaction

• Working at Height
• UK industry fails to meet safety targets
• Workplace transport
• Company Director jailed for safety offence

• Government position on environmental standards
• New regulations

• 35 ways to kill ideas

Many of our clients who have implemented quality management systems have done so to achieve ISO9001 certification. But this is only one step on the quality journey. While the latest (2000) issue of ISO9001 includes requirements for continual improvement, many companies see the purpose of the standard as maintaining standards. In fact, no company can afford to stand still. Even if the company is maintaining standards, its competitors may be overtaking it, but improving service or efficiency. You may be aiming for customer satisfaction, but perhaps you should be thinking about customer delight.

Customer delight is when your product or service exceeds the customer's expectations, because of longer life, faster delivery, lower cost or added features. The benefits of customer delight are improved customer loyalty, better communication and potentially increased business. If you want to improve your business, have a look at our tail piece at the end of this news letter. How many of these phrases seem familiar? If they do, then maybe you are stifling your business from becoming better.

Managers therefore need to think about improvement as part of their quality programme. Very often their own staff have good ideas about how to improve matters that could be implemented if they were given help. The quality consultant's toolkit includes many tools for helping with improving processes. These include statistical techniques to analyse process data as well as brainstorming and process mapping tools to identify improvement opportunities. While you may think your quality management system is doing its job, it is not delivering all it could if it is not helping your business to improve.

If you want help on the road from Customer Satisfaction to Customer Delight, talk to QES Connect..

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 came into force in April last year, so we thought it would be interesting to see how the Health & Safety Executive has responded to the new regulations. In the first seven months of the regulations being in force (data is not yet available for notices issued later than early November), it has issued 16 Improvement or Prohibition Notices relating to work at height. Six of these related to work on road tankers or bulk storage tanks where arrangements were not considered adequate, two related to unguarded platforms or mezzanines, and two related to guardrails not meeting specified requirements. Other notices related to lack of inspection of ladders, a tank roof not securely fixed to the tank shell, and lack of training for maintenance staff.

The regulations have been well-publicised, and so it is surprising that so many companies have failed to get the message.

As well as information from safety advisers such as ourselves, there is much free information and guidance issued by HSE Books. One recent example is a free leaflet (CIS10) in the Construction Information series which covers the use of tower scaffolds. This is particularly timely, as it may be tempting to see a tower scaffold as a "safer" alternative to the use of a ladder for work at height.

Towers that have been erected incorrectly or are misused cause numerous accidents every year. Aluminium and thin-wall steel towers can easily be overturned if used incorrectly. To ensure adequate strength, all parts of the tower must be in place; if sections are left out they can collapse. The information sheet describes how to erect a tower, noting that the manufacturer or supplier has a duty to provide an instruction manual explaining the erection sequence, including any bracing requirements. If the tower has been hired, the hirer must provide this information.

When using the tower, access to and from the work platform must be safe - it should be on the inside of the tower via an appropriately designed built-in ladder. Falls must be prevented where there is a risk that a fall could result in personal injury. The working platform must have suitable edge protection and toe boards. Guard rails should be at least 950 mm high and an intermediate guard rail should be provided so that the unprotected gap does not exceed 470 mm.

There are other warnings about the way that the tower should be used, and this leaflet should be considered compulsory reading for anyone considering using a tower scaffold. Copies can be down-loaded free from the HSE Books website, or ordered from their order line (01787 881165).

If you need help and advice about avoiding unpleasant encounters with HSE, contact QES Connect Ltd.

In June 2000, the government issued a strategy statement entitle Revitalising Health & Safety that set targets for improvements in national health and safety performance over a 10 year period. The targets were to;

• reduce the incidence rates of fatalities and major injuries by 10%
• reduce the incidence rate of cases of work-related ill-health by 20%
• reduce the incidence rates of working days lost per worker from work-related injury and ill health by 30%.

There was an additional objective to reach half these targets by 2004.

A recent report by National Statistics entitled Health & Safety Statistics for 2004/5 concludes that the evidence to date is that only the second target has definitely been met. There has been no clear change in the rate of fatal and major injury. The rate of fatal and major injury has varied and is approximately 1% higher in 2004/05 compared with 1999/2000. Ill-health includes work-related stress and musculo-skeletal injuries. While there has been no reduction in stress, the report says that figures for musculoskeletal disorders and most other kinds of work-related illness are lower, and so this target has been met.

Taking injuries and ill health together, the estimated number of working days lost per worker has shown a statistically significant reduction, from 1.8 days in 2000-02 to 1.5 days in 2004/05. The base-line data is for two different periods (2000/1 for workplace injuries, and 2001/2 for work-related ill-heath, so the reduction (based on 95% confidence interval) is somewhere between 3% and 23% so the target may have been met.

Do you want to avoid appearing in the statistics? Do you want to meet your health & safety target? Talk to QES Connect for advice on setting and achieving health and safety objectives, and strategies to meet them.

HSE has also published a revised version of Workplace Transport: An Overview. This is a free booklet that provides employers with a brief summary of the main issues that should be considered when planning workplace transport operations. This booklet can be downloaded free from www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/tranindx.htm.

We publish this item to draw attention to the fact that the responsibility for health and safety issues resides with the directors of a business, and so they need to pay attention to ensuring that safe work practices are planned and operated.

In a recent case, a company director received a twelve month custodial sentence following the death of an employee at his paper recycling business. His company was also fined £30,000 with costs of £55,000.

The sentencing followed an investigation into the death of an employee who climbed into a paper-shredding machine to clear blockages when the machine started, fatally injuring him. The machine contained a series of hammers projecting 15cm from a shaft, which revolved at high speed.

The investigation revealed that the machine was not securely isolated whilst the unblocking work was being carried out (there was no local electrical isolator provided for the machinery), there was no safe system for such work and the electrical controls for the machine were contaminated with dust.

The HSE investigating Principal Inspector said "This was a horrific incident that was entirely foreseeable. Isolating the machinery, a safe system of work for clearing blockages, together with adequate instruction, training and supervision of staff would have prevented this incident. Evidence showed that (the accused) chose not to follow the advice of his health and safety consultant and instead adopted a complacent attitude allowing the standards in his paper recycling business to fall."

We hope that our clients realise the value of the advice we give them, but as this case shows, ignoring advice can be expensive.

DEFRA has published a statement which sets out how Environmental Management Systems such as ISO14001 and EMAS (the EU Eco Management and Audit Scheme) (EMSs) can help business and the public sector reduce their environmental impacts.

The Government takes the view that a robust, effective and externally certified EMS should produce positive environmental outcomes. EMSs should not merely document procedures and administrative processes, but should concentrate on continuous improvements in environmental performance and compliance with relevant legislation. Formal EMSs can be used as a practical tool to organisations to understand and evaluate their impacts on the environment, to manage those effects in a believable way, and to assess and improve their performance in a manner which can be verified. By implementing an EMS, organisations can increase their resource efficiency and reduce costs.

Commitment at top level is necessary in order for senior management to understand their role in ensuring the success of an EMS. The statement emphasises five key messages about EMSs:

• organisations should use an appropriate, robust and credible EMS
• organisations implementing an EMS should use national or international standards or schemes
• EMSs should be audited by an independent certifier, accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS)
• EMSs should help improve environmental and financial performance through the supply chain
• EMSs that demonstrate good management of compliance with legislation should be used to help obtain regulatory benefits, such as reduced fees and charges.

Do you want to implement an EMS. Contact QES Connect for help and advice.

One of the areas covered by an EMS is compliance with legislation. In setting up the EMS, the company needs to understand what environmental legislation it needs to comply with. One example of such legislation is the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations. Many companies have been fined for failing to register under these regulations, apparently because they were unaware that the regulations applied to them.

DEFRA recently announced planned changes to the rules associated with the recycling and recovery of packaging waste. The changes are intended to ensure sure that more packaging waste is recycled and recovered. For example, leased packaging, such as pallets and crates will be subject to the regulations (subject to Parliamentary approval). A number of technical changes will also be made, including removal of the phrase 'reasonable steps' from the wording of the regulations. The Regulations apply to businesses having an annual turnover in excess of £2 million who handle over 50 tonnes of packaging a year.

Do you know what environmental regulations apply to you business? Keep abreast of changes with QES Connect.

How may of these are you guilty of using?

1. Don't be ridiculous
2. We tried that before
3. It costs to much
4. It can't be done
5. That's beyond our responsibility
6. It's too radical a change
7. We don't have the time
8. That will make our other equipment obsolete
9. We're too small for it
10. That's not our problem
11. We never done it before
12. Let's get back to reality
13. Why change it if it's still working OK?
14. You're two years ahead of your time
15. We're not ready for that
16. It isn't in the budget
17. You can't teach an old dog new tricks
18. Do the best you can with what we've got
19. It's too hard to sell
20. Top management would never go for this
21. We'll be the laughing stock
22. Let's shelve it for the time being
23. We did all right without it
24. Has anyone else ever tried it?
25. It won't work in our industry
26. Will you guarantee it will work?
27. That's the way we've always done it
28. What we have is good enough
29. But we would also have to change the …..
30. It's in our future plans
31. We'll have someone study the problem
32. It's against our policy.
33. The supplier would never do that
34. The customer won't accept that
35. When did you become an expert?

(With acknowledgements to an unknown author)

Produced by QES Connect Ltd. Except where stated, the material included in the newsletter is taken from freely available public sources. It may be reproduced without permission for non-commercial purposes.