KOC seeks to provide the best working environment that secures comfort, safety and security for its staff while protecting its facilities and assets from any potential damage.
It is from here that comes the continuous search for the best ways to ward off any hazards that could affect the safety of its workers and assets alike. The company effectively succeeded in defining and neutralizing the hazards that could be detected through an array of various initiatives, projects, mechanisms and programmes.
One of these initiatives was recently launched by Al-Ahmadi Services Group, through which the company strived to enhance the performance of the workers across teams in the field of risk detection, eradication and mitigation within the framework of a programme called Hazard Hunt, which will be tackled in the following article.
Overview of the initiative
“Hazard Hunt" is an initiative launched by Ahmadi Services Group, by virtue of which the hazards are defined and counted through the critical scrutinization of the working environment in order to mitigate those hazards.
Defining and highlighting potential hazards could help the responsible parties in the Group to take the relevant preventive measures and therefore eliminate or extremely mitigate accidents, including human injuries and damage incurred by the assets.
It should be pointed out that this initiative was prepared in stages. It started in 2021 when the schedule was set and launched in 2022. The unit in charge of the initiative was prepared for the analysis of gaps in the field of HSSE within all the work teams related to the group.
Methods of Implementation
As per the programme, the person in charge of Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) in each enterprise holds a virtual session about the selected electronic training units for operation and maintenance (engineers, overseers, work supervisors and employers) on condition that each unit should include three persons from the maintenance and operations of the enterprise. One of them will be in charge of taking pictures while the other one will do the writing. The third person will be in charge of implementation.
The unit visits the project or the enterprise and takes pictures for the risks there. After that, the photos are uploaded to a computer and then analyzed.
After that, the team members explain the hazards to the workers to generalize correction procedures and commit by potential controls. The workers could either accept or reject the defined hazard. In consequence, a discussion takes place about the way to eradicate the risk or mitigate it.
Finally, after the discussion, the pictures are displayed for improving the site and distribution on the relevant team of group as a lesson learnt.
Task Division
In this programme, tasks are divided between the various group teams based on their specialty, knowing that each team shall have sites and related teams they will be responsible for.
The first team is the Utilities Team who is responsible for the Cooled Water Plant (B) and the secondary plant in addition to the construction sites given that each site is prepared according to the plan of implementation. Two units related to the team; The Electrical Power Unit and the team of Moving Plant Unit.
The Community Services Team is responsible for the central kitchen and “Balsam Court", including the Slip, Trip and Fall Team whereas the office administration team is responsible for the furniture shop. The unit of falling objects is related to it.
Ahmadi Hospital Maintenance Team is responsible for the roads and car parking in Ahmadi General Hospital and Al Ahmadi Specialized Hospital. It includes the roads unit. It is in charge of the construction sites defined later and has two related units; the Welding and Cutting Unit, and the Working at Heights Unit.
In its turn, the Building Maintenance Team is in charge of definite building sites. There are three units related to it; the Drilling work unit, the Scaffolding Unit and the Removal & Towing Unit.
Way of implementation
In terms of implementation, the programme includes many procedures, including preparatory work, like the analysis of health and environmental security gap, defining 10 hazards, the preparation of the electronic training on hazards and defining a utility to implement the search for hazards. There are four tasks taken in charge by the Health Security and the Environment (administrative affairs) team in collaboration with each team implementing a project or initiative.
The programme also includes electronic training courses for the staff of the enterprise, which are given by the HSE Team (Admin). Then a team is formed for the search for hazards by the people in charge of the utility. It organizes visits to the utility, taking pictures and suggesting possible corrective measures. It also works for reaching agreement with the staff of the enterprise to approve the relevant procedures and implement them. Finally, it circulates the pictures of corrective measures between the workers as a learnt lesson.
Functions of the units
As for the units formed within each group, they are required to define what is a hazard hunt, give basic information, prepare a video, a simulation (video of the accident/basic information video), circulate accident statistics and also give technical information.
It is also in charge of defining the hazards, taking precaution measures, necessary personal protection equipment, training requirements (if any), learnt lessons, approval of the way of using and benefiting from the taken pictures.
Future Plans
The staff of the Health, Security and Environment Team (Administrative Affairs) assert that they intend to generalize this initiative in the future at all levels of the directorates of the company. This will be in keeping with the efforts to adopt the concept of 'hazard hunt' at the regional and international level.
They stressed that the ideas summarized focus the attention on HSE and general awareness among all the staff members, not among only HSE staff.
Workshops
The HSE Team (Admin) held workshops to search for hazards in the different locations related to Al Ahmadi Services Group in order to enhance hazard hunt skills among workers in the company and those working with the contractor so as to limit accidents and losses in the company.
Workshops have been organized for recently hired engineers, which is a new idea because it includes encouraging the employees themselves to detect hazards instead of detecting them by HSE staff, which is in keeping with the great efforts exerted by the company which gives absolute priority to HSE standards in its operations. It also gives evidence of the company's continuous search for innovation in all its activities.
