Industrial safety refers to the management of all operations and events within an industry in order to protect its employees and assets by minimizing hazards, risks, accidents, and near misses. Industrial safety is overseen by federal, state, and local laws and regulations.
The main objective of the
Directorate of Industrial Safety and Health is to
ensure Safety,
Health and Welfare of the workers in the factory, by effective enforcement of
the provisions of the Factories Act and Rules made there under.
Industrial safety is important as
it safeguards human life, especially in high risk areas such as nuclear,
aircraft, chemical, oil and gases, and mining industries, where a fatal mistake
can be catastrophic. ... Maintaining a safe and healthy working environment is
not only an important human resources issue, it's the law.
The importance of industrial safety was realized
because of the fact that every year millions occupational/ industrial accidents
occur which result in loss of production time equivalent to millions of man
hours, machine hours etc.
Of
these about one-fifth production time is lost by those actually injured due to
temporary and permanent disablement and the remaining production time is lost
by fellow operators/ people in helping the injured, in taking care of the
damage caused by accident etc. the loss to the industrial unit would appear much more alarming when death cases
due to accidents are considered.
It is therefore essential to identify/examine the causes of industrial accidents and take steps to control them. Many disciplines are concerned with this safety approach. Industrial engineering is one field which deals with design of efficient work place, equipment and industrial layout design. Other disciplines which can contribute to safe working environment are psychology, sociology and Medicare science.