ROLES OF ENGINEERS TO SAFETY AND HEALTH

OSHA standards, onsite inspections, and penalties have encouraged a

greater commitment to safety and health. Engineers can make a significant
contribution to safety and health. Respectively, they can cause accidents
unintentionally or through incompetence that cause in serious injury and
property damage. The engineer has more potential to affect safety in the
workplace than any other person does. For example, a poorly designed
seatbelt fitted in 1,000 automobiles will accidentally threaten the lives of as
many as 4,000 people if there are four passengers per automobile. The
engineers chance for both good and bad comes during the design process.
The process is basically the same either the product is being designed in a
small toy or an industrial machine. Safety and health professionals should be
familiar with the design process so that they can understand the role of
engineers concerning workplace safety. Engineers involved in design are
usually in the aerospace, electrical, mechanical, and nuclear fields.

Safety and health are the most important to be well managed in industries to
reduce indirect cost. The job scope can be referred as Safety engineer or
Environmental engineer. Safety engineers ensure the well-being of people
and property. These professionals combine knowledge of an engineering
discipline, as well as health or safety regulations related to their discipline to
keep work environments, building and people safe from harm. The work of
safety engineer helps their employers lower costs of insurance and comply
with laws and regulations related to health and safety. This person is
responsible for the traditional aspects of the safety program such as
preventing mechanical injuries, falls, impact and acceleration injuries, heat
and temperature injuries, electrical accidents and fire related accidents. In
the industrial field they ensure manufacturing equipment and facilities are
safe while those who work in the occupational safety discipline ensure work
environments are safe for employees. Product safety engineers help with the
design of products and investigate problems with products to ensure they
are safe to use.

Those who work in the environmental safety discipline inspect and improve
things such as air and water quality. Safety engineers develop policies to

ensure safety of an environment, its customers and employees. They inspect

equipment, environments and buildings to identify areas that can potentially
cause health and safety hazards. Safety engineers stay up to date to new
laws and regulations regarding health and safety, and make the appropriate
changes for their employer. They also investigate accidents and injuries, and
then endorse enhancements to safety policies and programs. Environmental
engineering science is a relatively new field in which the application of
scientific and engineering principles is used to protect and preserve human
health and well-being of the environment.
It embraces the broad field of the general environment including air and
water quality, solid and hazardous wastes, water resources and
management, radiological health, environmental biology and chemistry,
systems ecology, and water and waste water treatment.

As conclusion, health and safety engineers develop procedures and design

systems to avoid people from getting sick or injured and to keep property
from being damaged. They combine knowledge of systems engineering and
of health and safety to make sure that chemicals, machinery, software,
furniture, and other consumer products will not cause harm to people or
buildings.

Reference
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_engineer
2. https://attachment.fbsbx.com/file_download.php?
id=1379910782315861&eid=AStAAqSlYeXv9ZAi40YY_XwNTR65Mqf5UHvAPcKtwKFeB17gBIoN14JLagybQEkaY&inline=1&ext=1431788294&hash=ASt
O_sN6X_A2X7LV
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v0JKkwsOmM&feature=youtu.be
4. http://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/health-andsafety-engineers.htm