Answer all the questions.

Case Study

You are the newly hired Safety Manager, who joined Z-Chem (SEA) Pte Ltd, a wastewater treatment plant located in Changi South. The treatment processes are as follows:

(1) Preliminary treatment, where all materials can be easily collected from the raw sewage before they damage or clog the pumps and sewage lines of primary treatment.

(2) Primary treatment, which is the primary sedimentation stage, where sewage flows through large tanks which are used to settle sludge while grease and oils rise to the surface and are skimmed off. Primary settling tanks are usually equipped with mechanically driven scrapers that continually drive the collected sludge towards a hopper at the base of the tank where it is pumped to sludge treatment facilities.

(3) Secondary treatment, which is designed to substantially degrade the biological content of the sewage which are derived from human waste, food waste, soaps and detergent. The majority of municipal plants treat the settled sewage liquor using aerobic biological processes.

(4) Disinfection, where the number of microorganisms in the water are reduced prior to discharge back into the environment for later use for drinking, bathing, irrigation, etc.

Your responsibilities are to manage the plant’s Safety Management System and address all Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) aspects of the plant during the waste water treatment processes.

In the primary treatment process, controlled chemicals(Sodium Hydroxide, NaOH and Sulfuric acid, H2SO4) are used to control the wastewater pH content.

Tankers are equipped with secondary containment to contain spillages or leakages that could occur during the whole treatment processes.

Residual sludge generated during the secondary process are collected and disposed by approved National Environmental Agency (NEA) hazardous waste licensed vendor. Tankers are equipped with secondary containment to contain spillages or leakages that could occur during storage processes.

Z-Chem (SEA) Pte Ltd is certified to ISO45001:2018 and the plant operates for 24 hours 7 days a week. During normal shift (8.00 am to 6.00 pm) 5 days a week; the company employs 20 inhouse contractors providing the maintenance and servicing of machinery and equipment. 30 Z-Chem employees are in the main office, such as in the finance, human resource, quality, facility and environment, health and safety departments.

During one of the walk down safety inspection, you noticed that several of the in-house contractors were not wearing hearing protectors while performing maintenance on machinery and equipment in the primary treatment area, which is classified as “Excessive workplace noise area”. During interviews with the contractors, it was highlighted that they felt that the ear muffs add on to the weight to the safety helmet which they were wearing. Moreover, it was observed  that the contractors were wearing disposable surgical masks. Further discussion revealed that the contractors have not undergone any fit-test for respiratory protection.

You visited a different work area and evidence of chemical spillage stains were found at several locations in the plant (warehouse, chemical lab, primary treatment and disinfection area). However, there is no evidence of records of investigation of the chemical spillage of nonconformity, identifying its causes or taking any corrective or preventive actions to mitigate these chemical spillages.

You inspected the chemical storage area and found that the chemicals were not labeled. The chemicals were kept in the approved flammables cabinet. However, the flammables cabinet was not grounded. The Safety Data Sheets (SDS) of certain chemicals were found to be dated the Year 2009 or earlier. Moreover, it was found that the fire extinguishers in the chemical storage area were obstructed by wooden pallets and the site supervisor indicated that this had been a temporary storage area for empty wooden pallets.

You have visited the service and repair workshop and found that oil and lubricant were stored in water bottles. Packed food and water bottles were found placed in the workshop cabinets. During interviews with the workers, they highlighted that the company does not provide employee lockers, as such, they kept their packed foods in the workshop cabinets.

Further interviews with several workshop technicians revealed that the scissor lift and several slings were not inspected for the last 12 months. The last inspection of forklift was done in March 2018. Since then, there was no preventive maintenance carried out on the forklift. The workshop supervisor indicated that he had obtained his forklift driving license more than ten years ago, but he has not undergone any refresher forklift training course.

Further validation on documents revealed that preventive maintenance of equipment and machinery were not performed according to the scheduled plan. Scheduled maintenance for many equipment was found to be overdue by more than six months. Sample size inspection of electrical equipment revealed that preventive maintenance of electrical tools was not performed. For example, the machine guarding for one of the grinding tools was missing and two of the electrical grinding tools were last inspected by a Licensed Electrical Worker (LEW) in January 2018. You randomly inspected fire extinguishers in the service and repair workshop and found that two extinguishers had ZERO pressure. Moreover, it was found that the rubber stoppers on the base of three A-frame ladders were missing and there were no documents associated with checklist for A-frame ladders.

There were several lagging indicators that contributed to unsafe conditions or unsafe acts in the plant, not limited to:
a) Inadequate training of the employees
b) Insufficient preventive maintenance of equipment
c) Behaviours of the supervisor and contractors
d) Not all hazards were identified and documented in the Risk Assessment
e) Lack of ownership on the usage and storage of chemicals, tools and equipment

Annual surveillance audit by the certification body for ISO45001:2018 is due in four months’ time. You are tasked by Z-Chem (SEA) Pte Ltd management team to lead a team of internal auditors to perform management system audit on the entire plant.

Question 1
Z-Chem (SEA) Pte Ltd management team tasked you to form an audit team to audit the ISO 45001:2018 management system.
Discuss how you would formulate an audit team. The summary plan must include the reasons for:
(a) The roles and responsibilities of the elected representatives.
(b) The type of training that the representatives are required to attend.
(c) The knowledge and skills the members must have prior to the internal audit.
(d) Selecting the internal audit team representatives to ensure objectivity and impartiality of the audit process.

Question 2
You are assigned to lead the audit team to conduct a 2-day audit. Describe the schedule for the internal audit. Present the schedule in a table format, identifying the activities to be audited, members of the audit teams to be involved, etc.
(15 marks)

Question 3
The internal audit team would be conducting a 2-day audit in two weeks. As the lead auditor, you are required to conduct the opening meeting with Z-Chem (SEA) Pte Ltd management team. Present in a table format and describe the following elements, not limited to:
(a) Define the audit objective and approach
(b) Define the audit requirement
(c) Define auditee involvement
(d) Corrective Action and Preventive Action (CAPA) form
(e) Classification of Audit findings
(f) etc.

Question 4
Examine the scenario given, develop and present the audit checklist in a table format. Describe TEN (10) findings and propose preventive actions to address the ISO45001:2018 Clause 9.2.2 of Internal audit programme, which is to “take action to address nonconformities and continually improve its OHS performance.”

Question 5
The internal audit team had completed the 2-day audit. As the lead auditor, you are required to conduct a closing meeting with Z-Chem (SEA) Pte Ltd management team. Present in a table format and describe the following elements, not limited to:
(a) Define the audit criteria and scope of the audit
(b) Results of the audit findings
(c) Acknowledgement of the auditee’s management representative
(d) Audit report
(e) etc.