The article under consideration “Safety Assurance Network – How Toyota makes sure safety is everyone’s job” (2009) is taken from the journal Professional Safety and discusses the problem of people’s safety in the workplace. The Safety Assurance Network (SAN) is the main consideration of the article, the tools, and other facilities are analyzed to involve the workers of the Toyota Company to care about their safety.
The article is devoted to the research on the Toyota plant, reviews the steps which were provided by Toyota’s managerial staff in the reference to workers’ safety in the workplace and identifying and eliminating the health hazards. The article provides the methods according to which workers should care about their safety, and these methods are also considered as the methods to join the workers and to teach them to work in a team.
The Safety Assurance Network procedure is based on teamwork, which teaches workers to care about their safety and work in a team. The very procedure is as follows, the hazards are analyzed and the list of the most dangerous objects and of the objects which need solution is provided. The other team works under the development of the list where the solutions to the future possible hazards are provided. After the data is collected the checklist is created to combine the work of two teams and to see the results.
The main disadvantage in the methodology is that the whole data is collected by the workers and does not check by the specialists and in some cases, the hazard objects may be incorrectly considered or some things may be missed. The beginning of the teamwork with such disputable subjects may lead to the opposite effect, videlicet the problems in the communication among the employees after the experiment.
The Toyota plant was taken as the basis for the Safety Assurance Network procedure. The aspects which were analyzed from the point of view of being dangerous are caught in machinery, contact with heavy objects, contact with moving vehicles, falling, electrocution, and contact with heated objects. These aspects were taken as the basis for the research. The data was analyzed from two points of view, (1) the possibility of mentioned danger to occur in the manufacturing process and (2) the seriousness of consequences in the case of the accident occurring. Considering the dangers, the method contains the four levels of assurance, S1, S2, S3, and S4. Every level contains a more complex type of analysis.
In conclusion, the Safety Assurance Network procedure is the procedure that lasts not for a week, if the managerial staff wants to create reliable results. The experiment which was offered in the article was finished successfully as employees of the Toyota plant managed to identify the sources of dangers, the ways to get rid of them, and the ways to cope with them in the case of an accident. Moreover, the morale of the workers and their teamwork were placed on a higher level.
Reference List
Colazo, J.A. & Talpone, C. (2009) “Safety Assurance Network – How Toyota makes sure safety is everyone’s job.” Professional Safety.