Health and Safety Feature Library

Operations Engineer's library catalogues editorial features going back five years.

Access to all archive material is free to all, including non-members of IPlantE (the Institution of Operations Engineers) or BES (Bureau of Engineer Surveyors), under the umbrella of SOE (Society of Operations Engineers). However, to discover the many benefits of becoming an SOE member, please click here.

01/10/2008 Fluid thinking According to the Carbon Trust, UK industry spends around £9.5 billion on energy, with at least 40% of that consumed by process heating. 'Using straightforward techniques, between 5% and 10% of this could be saved, reducing spending on ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Sellafield special seal Novel wet pipeline sealing and deployment techniques, successfully trialled for the now redundant first-generation nuclear waste treatment and storage plant at Sellafield, will not only prevent hazardous conditions arising on plant, but ... » Read More

01/08/2008 PiperAlpha: 20 Years on On 6 July 1988, at about 10.00pm, Occidental's Piper Alpha platform, operating 120 miles off the north east coast of Scotland, exploded in a ball of flames 120m high. 167 people died and many others were horrifically injured as they jumped ... » Read More

01/08/2008 Good vibrations Now that both noise and vibration are being seen as less acceptable - thanks to legislation limiting exposure (the Control of Noise (April 2006) and Control of Vibration (July 2005) at Work Regulations) - technology is emerging not only to ... » Read More

01/06/2008 Heightened awareness Last year alone, 45 workers died following falls from height, while 3,409 were seriously injured. And while recent years have shown a downward trend, falls from height remain the most common cause of fatal injury in the workplace. ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Up and away Bad news travels fast, as the saying goes - but not so with rules and regulations. Apparently, somewhere in the region of one third of small businesses in the UK have still not heard of the PUWER (Provision and Use of Work Equipment ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Overall benefits The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide (Scotland) Act 2007 will enter the statute books in June this year. Under its provisions, it will be easier for companies of all sizes to be successfully prosecuted for causing the death of ... » Read More

01/04/2008 Field of dreams Ever thought about EMFs - electromagnetic fields caused by everything from power lines to mobile phones and arc welding gear? If not, you should, because a little-reported European directive that seeks to restrict exposure of workers to ... » Read More

01/03/2008 State of the nation Health and safety in the workplace is not only about PUWER (Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations) and LOLER (Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations), important though both are. It's also not just about precautions ... » Read More

01/03/2008 Law in your own hands You could be forgiven for thinking that on 6 April the eyes of the legal profession will be firmly on the Corporate Manslaughter (Corporate Homicide in Scotland) Act, as it comes into force. But you would be wrong. Why? Because for the ... » Read More

01/03/2008 Friends in high places Falls from height are the single biggest cause of workplace deaths and one of the predominant causes of major injury in the UK. According to HSE statistics, 2006/07 falls from height accounted for 45 fatal accidents at work and 3,350 major ... » Read More

01/03/2008 A process of elimination Mercifully, serious incidents in the process industries are few and far between. Sadly, however, when they do happen, they're devastating. Consider Flixborough back in 1974, Piper Alpha in the North Sea in 1988 and, much more recently, ... » Read More

01/02/2008 Working order This year's Maintec exhibition seems set to do rather more than what it says on the tin - with a focus that extends from predictive maintenance to wireless systems for plant data gathering. As well as around 150 exhibitors - including ... » Read More

01/02/2008 Dusting off better control practices It is one thing to extract and trap dust and fumes, but quite another to do so efficiently and at minimum cost. But that's what we have to do: it is important to minimise energy and consumables usage, as well as complying with health and ... » Read More

01/12/2007 Fire hazard Fire in an engineering environment is likely to have far more serious consequences than in almost any other industrial premises. » Read More

01/08/2007 Machine safety Following the ISO 13849-1:2006 debacle, and now its harmonisation to the Machinery Directive, machinery safety standards are under the spotlight again. ISO 13849-1 (Safety of machinery, Safety-related parts of control systems, Part 1: ... » Read More

01/08/2007 Control freak Let's talk about drives, motors and controls - no, not just the technologies for linear or rotational motion control, important though those are, but also control engineering in, for example, transportation, the process sector and the ... » Read More

01/08/2007 Bellows baloney Contrary to popular misconception, metal bellows expansion joints are as useful as any other of the tools in the plant engineer's armoury - provided good mechanical engineering practice is followed. So says bellows manufacturer Teddington ... » Read More

01/08/2007 Bad vibrations Now that both the Control of Noise and Control of Vibration at Work Regulations are well and truly in force (April 2006 and July 2005 respectively), plant engineers that haven't yet done so, need to ensure that their areas of ... » Read More

01/06/2007 Safe passage UK employees suffered 10,835 major injuries as a result of slipping and tripping in 2005/06, according to the HSE, so such accidents remain serious problems - accounting for 38% of all major injuries. » Read More

01/06/2007 Pit and the Pendolino Two years ago, Leighton Buzzard-based Harmill Systems won an unusual project - a rail-mounted seat for the London Underground Waterloo and City depot inspection pit. Within months, that turned into a plant lifting and manipulator project ... » Read More

01/04/2007 Getting the personal touch Nothing can be more important than employee safety: turnover and profit are meaningless in comparison with the well-being and security of staff. If a serious accident, or worse a fatality, occurs as a result of poor safety practice, the ... » Read More

01/02/2007 Risks unmasked There has been a succession of advances in dust and fume control in recent times, resulting from better equipment, improved modelling packages - to ensure that the dust and fumes actually go where they are supposed to go and smart systems ... » Read More

01/10/2006 Alarm ringing for new regulations The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister announced earlier this year that the new fire safety rules affecting all non-domestic premises in England and Wales would come into force on 1 October 2006. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, ... » Read More

01/08/2006 Don't stand for pain The position of standing is one many of us take for granted in our daily lives. It is not until we start to feel the odd ache and pain that we become more aware of how much pressure the standing posture creates on our bodies. Although it ... » Read More