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        Quality Nook                                                                                                           Fire Mock Drill at WorkEZ, Chennai




        FIRE & SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE


        Safety comes from Quality – Quality comes from Compliance –

        Compliance comes from Discipline – Discipline comes from Great Culture


        Safety in Quality and Management
        Safety is an integral part of and an attribute in Quality Management even as per ISO

        9001:2015 in an indirect manner. Some of the ISO clauses which are more relevant to
        Safety are as follows:

        •  Clause 4.1 – Context of the organisation: Internal and external issues affect the
          quality of outputs. Identification of issues and risks associated with issues will take place                        Conclusion
          in this.
        •  Clause 5.2.1b (under Quality Policy): The organisation’s commitment to satisfy                                      In ITES zone, electrical fires are more possible than other types of fires. Hence, we have air con to
          regulatory and statutory requirements, which includes a safe environment, must be                                    reduce room temperature (heat) and CO  and dry powder extinguishers are kept in fire-prone areas.
                                                                                                                                                                          2
          included in their policy.                                                                                            Applying simple common sense, within workplaces, can avoid such electrical fires:
        •  Clause 6.1 – Address risks and opportunities: Risks associated with issues captured
          as per Clause 4.1 must be addressed by the stakeholders.                                                             •  Avoid connecting too many plugs in junction box sockets.
        •  Clause 7.1.4c (under Environment for Operations): The organisation’s support to                                     •  Turn off switches and disconnect the power cable once the battery is full for laptops.
          maintain a suitable physical environment from factors such as temperature, humidity,                                 •  In case of desktop/monitor usage, shutdown and switch-off before leaving the workplace.
          noise, etc.                                                                                                          •  Alert and escalate — when you sense electrical burn smokes, flickering lights, electrical circuit
        Fire as a Hazard                                                                                                          broken, etc.

        Fire is one of the uncontrollable incidents that will lead to massive                                                  Hope the article is useful. Thanks for reading the content. You may look forward to reading more
        destruction when it becomes a hazard. Fire becomes a hazard                                                            quality-related information under this section in the next edition.
        upon:
        (a)   the quantity of combusting materials (fuel, solid materials                                                                                                      - G Alageswaran (Team Quality, VLS Content)
             [electrical and non-electrical], etc.),
        (b)  degree of room temperature, and                                                                                   Quality Terminologies (in Alphabetical Order)
        (c)   the amount of air ventilation (which leads to more O  to increase
                                                                        2
             the chain reaction of fire - see Image 1).                                   Image 1: Fire Tetrahedron             A    Audit                          B    Benchmark                     C    Continuous improvement

        Hence, by separating the factors (a) to (c), we can block the chain reaction of the fire.                               D    Defect                         E    Efficacy                      F    Five whys (5-whys)
        Some common fire extinguishers are:                                                                                     G    Gap analysis                   H    Histogram                      I   ISO

        1.  Water  –  extinguishes  fire  by  removing  Heat  from  the                                                         J    Juran                          K    Kaizen                        L    Lean
            Tetrahedron
        2.  CO  – extinguishes fire by removing Oxygen (O )                                                                     M    Metrics                        N    Non-conformance               O    Objective
                2
                                                                  2
        3.   Powder – extinguishes fire by blocking chemical Chain
            reaction from O –Heat–Combustible materials                                                                         P    Pareto                         Q    Quality                       R    Random sampling
                              2
        4.  Foam  –  extinguishes  fire  by  separating  O   and                                                                S    Safety                         T    Typos                         U    Units of measurement
                                                                    2
            combustible materials + cooling down Heat

        Moreover, depending on the sources/types of fires, the                                                      SOURCE: ISTOCK.COM/SARAWUTK  V  Value Stream Mapping  W  Wastes                    X    X-bar chart
        selection and usage of extinguishers (see Image 2) will vary.                                                           Y    Yellow belt                    Z    Zero defect

                                                                                       Image 2: Different Types of
                                                                                          Fire Extinguishers                   Babu M & Manasa P (Team Quality)

    32           Back to TOC         Veranda Learning Solutions | Employee Newsletter Vol.1, Issue 2, October 2021                                          Veranda Learning Solutions | Employee Newsletter Vol.1, Issue 2, October 2021  Back to TOC  33
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