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Feature Article 3

TSDS as an Educational Tool for Non-S&H Majors

By Magdy Akladios, Ph.D., P.E., CPE, CSHM, CSP

Author Biography

Magdy Akladios, Ph.D., P.E., CPE, CSHM, CSP
Assistant Professor
University of Houston-Clear Lake
Houston, TX

Dr. Akladios is an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (2005-present), before which he was an Associate Professor at West Virginia University (1996-2005). Dr. Akladios’ education includes a PhD in Industrial Engineering, a Master’s degree in Occupational Health & Safety, a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering, an MBA, and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering. In addition, he is also a Certified Safety Professional (CSP), a Professional Engineer (PE), a Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE), a Certified Safety & Health Manager (CSHM), and a Certified Member of the Egyptian Syndicate for Mechanical Engineers. He is also a member in the Industrial Engineers' Honorary Society (Alpha-Pi-Mu).

He is an experienced and capable researcher and educator with specific knowledge concerning a wide variety of occupational safety and health programs in general, and in ergonomics in specific. He has acted as PI and Co-PI for a number of grants and projects. He has also been involved in curriculum development, authoring book chapters and professional journal articles, and website development and maintenance. Dr. Akladios is also involved with non-credit and continuing-ed centers such has (Texas Engineering Extension (TEEX), and the College of the Mainland (COM).

Abstract

Chemical hazards and methods to relate these hazards to workers, managers, and designers have puzzled safety scientists for decades. In 1984, a major catastrophic event in Bhopal, India, caused a strong push for what is now known as the “Right-to-know” move. In that incident, a Union Carbide unit was a source for a significant release of a Methyl-Iso-Cyanate (MIC) cloud that resulted in around 3,000 fatalities, and over 80,000 mild to severe reactions due to the exposure. As a result, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) introduced the Hazard Communication (HAZCOM) as an emergency standard. Under that, then, new standard (29 CFR 1910.1200) OSHA mandated that all users of chemicals should maintain what is now called the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS). OSHA defines MSDS as a tool to “… provide comprehensive technical information, and serve as a reference document for exposed workers as well as health professionals providing services to those workers.” MSDSs are produced by chemical manufacturers and importers. Information provided by a typical MSDS includes manufacturer information, hazardous ingredients, physical data, fire and explosion hazard data, health hazard data, reactivity (instability) data, spill or leak procedures, special protection information, and special precautions. MSDSs gave workers and safety managers’ valuable information to deal with chemicals. Hence, MSDS became a valuable tool to a variety of personnel.

Like chemicals, man-machine interaction tools have become complex due to technological advances. Even with training aimed at satisfying compliance requirements, this complexity has increased the level of risk to which workers are being exposed. Furthermore, while it is important to maintain accuracy, completeness, and the latest information, other aspects such as training, emergency response, and better readability, are also significant. As a result, identification and assessment of associated hazards has also been increasing in complexity. In an attempt to manage these safety concerns, information sheets simulating MSDS for chemicals, were first introduced. These are called Technology Safety Data Sheets (TSDS). Their aim is to capture and relate a concise abstract of technical information and provides it in a user-friendly format to workers, technology, equipment, or processes designers, as well as safety manager. TSDS utilizes information concluded from existing hazard analysis techniques such as What-If, Checklist, What-If/Checklist, Hazard and Operability Study (HAZOP), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), and Job Safety Analysis (JSA). Other origins of TSDS include Process Safety Management (PSM).

Just as MSDSs provide chemical hazard information to different audiences in one format, a standardized TSDS has a similar role as a communication tool to be used by a variety of audience such as visualization and description of the technology, process or task, and incorporation of hazard assessment in which the worker is going to be involved in; and description of a variety of situations arising throughout a system life cycle, from cradle-to-grave.

If mandated, TSDS development can be taught at engineering schools to familiarize and educate non-safety professionals on safety issues at an early stage of their careers. These non-safety majors typically graduate without any knowledge or formal training in safety and health issues. If trained on the development of TSDS, these new engineers can set the stage for the understanding of safety and health concerns as they take on bigger and more important responsibilities.

Introduction

The manner by which we view technologies have changed dramatically in the past centuries. From the invention of the wheel to airplanes and space flights, engineers have been a crucial and integral part of these technologies. These inventions, while advanced the human race, it came at a price that has been paid in blood.

Speed of travel have changed from mere walking to horse pulled carts then to cars, and finally to the space shuttle that can travel at a speed of up to 17,500 miles per hour (NASA Archive, 2004). Weight limits of transportation have changed from a fraction of a ton pulled by a horse to thousands of tons being flown over large bodies of water. Transfer of information increased from a few words sent by pigeons to extended messages sent in an instant across email. Most of our day-to-day activities have now become more and more automated. People can now live 50 miles away from work and still make it on time every morning.

These technologies gave us time, speed, convenience, an enormous mass of production, and a lot of information. The past few decades, especially, saw technologies improve in leaps and bounds (Brauer, 2006). Computers have made our inventions much more useful, and a lot more frequent. This, however, took away our patience. People no longer have the patience to wait for a file to download at a speed of 56 KB/s, we want our downloaded material at the speed of light. This gave way for the invention of fiber optics. Other inventions came as a result of our impatience.

Inventions, while advanced the human race, it came at a price that has been paid in blood. This is partially because engineers and designers are being taught and trained to focus on the vision of a final outcome or approach, but not the process. It is not because of lack of ethics on behalf of engineers or designers, but because of lack on knowledge of essential safety and health information.

Causes of accidents are divided into three major categories: (a) unsafe acts of people;
(b) unsafe physical or mechanical conditions; and (c) acts of God (floods, hurricanes, etc.). While accidents caused by unsafe acts of people are considered the majority of all accidents, 10% of all accidents are caused by unsafe conditions, while only 2% are considered acts of God (Heinrich, 1980). Unsafe conditions include:

1. Defective, inferior, or unsuitable tools, machinery, equipment, or materials.
2. Hazards of surroundings (poor housekeeping).
3. Hazardous methods or procedures.
4. Placement hazards (person not mentally or physically compatible with job requirements).
5. Inadequate guarding of machinery, equipment, work areas, etc.

Accidents caused by unsafe conditions are considered preventable if processes or equipment were designed and implemented probably. This falls on the designing engineer. In addition, failure to recognize these unsafe conditions also falls on engineers who lack the safety knowledge. Currently, there are a few people practicing safety in this country, only a small portion of them have an engineering background. Furthermore, a smaller group of engineers have any formal education in safety (Talty, 1985).

While this problem was widely recognized, there were few attempts by efforts by organizations such as the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH). NIOSH, in 1980, developed a project called SHAPE for Safety and Health Awareness for Preventive Engineering (NIOSH). Other attempts were carried out by Universities around the country such as Ohio State University, Tufts University, Purdue University, Georgia Institute of Technology, however, these attempts were lacking due to the lack of interest of faculty and the already over crowding of engineering curricula. NIOSH has also attempted to contract with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology (ABET). Furthermore, they also attempted to contract authors of engineering books to add some safety material into their books, and engineering faculty to provide them with some level of safety backgrounds (Talty, 1985). While these efforts are commendable, their fruits are yet to be reaped.

We live in a civilized society where almost everything is governed by rules. To function in society, one must abide by these sets of rules. Where rules lack, codes and society expectations take over. However, we still fail to recognize root causes of certain problems. We continue to attempt to fix a given problem by promulgating and implementing more rules. However, in a profession such as engineering, providing safety should be an ethical issue. According to the fundamental canons of the code of ethics of professional engineers, engineers should “…hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public…” (NSPE). While engineers strongly believe in this, they fall short of complying with safety rules due to lack of knowledge.
It wasn’t until 1984 that OSHA focused its attention on chemical hazards. It took a major catastrophic event in Bhopal, India to start the push for the “Right-to-know” move. In this incident, a Union Carbide unit was a source for a significant release of a Methyl-Iso-Cyanate (MIC) cloud that resulted in around 3,000 fatalities, and over 80,000 mild to severe reactions due to the exposure. OSHA’s resolve was to introduce the Hazard Communication (HAZCOM) standard (29 CFR 1910.1200). According to this standard, OSHA mandated that all users of chemicals should maintain what is now called the Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) (Akladios, et al, 2007).

OSHA defines MSDS as a tool to “… provide comprehensive technical information, and serve as a reference document for exposed workers as well as health professionals providing services to those workers...” (OSHA). These documents are produced by chemical manufacturers and importers to give workers and safety managers valuable information while handling these chemicals. Hence, MSDS became a valuable tool to a variety of personnel.

Information provided by a typical MSDS includes manufacturer information, hazardous ingredients, physical data, fire and explosion hazard data, health hazard data, reactivity (instability) data, spill or leak procedures, special protection information, and special precautions. Therefore, in order for MSDS users to understand the document, they would have had to have some training or education on other safety and health terms and limitations such as TLV’s (Threshold Values that are provided by the American Conference for Governmental Industrial Hygienists-ACGIH), PEL’s (Permissible Exposure Levels that are mandated by OSHA), LC50/LD50 (Lethal Dose/Lethal Concentrations that killed 50% of the animals tested in the lab), etc. Other terms and safety-related expressions such as Carcinogenic, Routes of Entry, Inhalation, Chemical Reactivity, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment and clothing), EPA regulations (Environmental Protection Agency as they relate to disposal procedures), Flammability, Flash Point, etc.
Likewise, a tool that teaches engineers and users about safety during the design phase is a must. But first, one must gauge the amount of knowledge and safety information that is being taught to undergraduate engineering students in our schools.

Method

To gauge the amount of safety information that engineers need to learn, we need to better understand what these engineers are being taught exactly. Therefore, curriculum from around the country is collected. Due to practicality reasons, a representative sample of curriculum from the top three colleges in the US offering the top five most popular (highly demanded) programs graduating the most number of students in these disciplines were considered using the following assumptions:

1. Demand for a particular type of engineers is indicated by the number of programs offering this type of education
2. Supply of engineers in a particular field is indicated by the number of students graduating with a BS degree in that field
3. Curriculum at top demanded and top supplied disciplines are representative to all other disciplines
4. The curriculum that is being taught at engineering schools in the US is an indication of what’s being taught around the world
5. Curriculum from the top 3-5 colleges in the US offering a particular program of engineering is representative to all other programs within the same discipline around the country
6. Curriculum from the top 5 most popular disciplines of engineering is representative to all other programs within the same discipline around the country
7. Curriculum available online is a true representation of the actual topics discussed in these courses. In other words, if the curriculum of a particular course doesn’t specifically indicate “Safety” or “Health”, it is not assumed that these topics are handled or discussed
8. If curriculum from the above mentioned colleges indicates discussions of “Safety” or “Health” in a particular course, that these topics are not discussed anywhere else in other courses.
9. The top 5 colleges offering an undergraduate program in engineering (not specified by a particular field) in the county is also a true representation of the rest of the country. These colleges were picked based on the highest peer assessment score.
10. Computer engineering has low or no relationship to safety and health issues, hence, is not considered in this study

Findings and Results

The United States alone graduates a large number of engineers in close to 300 disciplines. Some of which are closely related to each other. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in 2004, there were 1.4 million graduates in all fields, out of which 64,680 were engineers (4.6%) graduating with a BS degree (Table 1). There were seven disciplines that were most prominent (highest number of BS graduates). For the purpose of this study, only the top five disciplines will be considered. These are I. Electrical Engineering, II. Mechanical Engineering, III. Civil Engineering, IV. Chemical Engineering, and V. Industrial Engineering. These disciplines are responsible for graduating 84% of all engineers in the US.

Table 1: Number of Graduating Engineers in 2004

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

Other statistics showing the number of engineers graduating with a doctorate degree, Master’s degree, Associates degree, or professional certification roughly showed the same percentage (3.4%) of engineers (108,332) to the total graduating population in the US (3,200,812).

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) data showed that there is a total of 1,624 engineering programs in the US. The top five of these disciplines were I. Electrical Engineering, II. Mechanical Engineering, III. Civil Engineering, IV. Chemical Engineering, and V. Industrial Engineering (Table 2). These five had 985 programs, or 61% of all the engineering programs in the US.

Table 2: Number of Engineering Programs by Discipline