Tutorial 3 - Societal, Safety and Health, Legal, and Cultural issues in Engineering

Practice

Learning Outcomes
CLO2 - Apply engineering principles in handling societal , safety, health, legal and cultural issues in
engineering practices. (cognitive, applying, level 3)

Programme Outcomes
PO7 - Demonstrate awareness of societal, safety and health, legal, and cultural issues relevant to
professional engineering practice and solutions to complex engineering problems (WK7).

Question 1
a) Define the term safety, hazard and risk.
 Safety- the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk,
or injury.
 Hazard - A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health
effects on something or someone
 Risk- the potential for uncontrolled loss of something of value

b) Health and safety law requires the employers carry out risk assessments for all the
hazards associated with the work they carry out in conducting their undertaking. Why
are risk assessments needed?

Risk assessments are very important as they form an integral part of an

occupational health and safety management plan. They help to:

 Create awareness of hazards and risk.

 Identify who may be at risk (e.g., employees, cleaners, visitors, contractors, the
public, etc.).
 Determine whether a control program is required for a particular hazard.
 Determine if existing control measures are adequate or if more should be done.
 Prevent injuries or illnesses, especially when done at the design or planning
stage.
 Prioritize hazards and control measures.
 Meet legal requirements where applicable.

Question 2 (chp 3-4)

a) Explain you understanding of Factories and Machinery Act 1967 (Act 139).

 An Act to provide for the control of factories with respect to matters relating to
the safety, health and welfare or persons therein, the registration and inspection
of machinery and for matters connected therewith
b) Define the objective of the OSH Act. (chp 3-4).

 To make further provisions for securing that safety, health and welfare of
persons at work, for protecting others against risks to safety or health in
connection with the activities of persons at work,
 To establish the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, and for
matters connected with it.
c) By referring OSH Act 1994, identify the general duties of Employers and Self-
Employed Persons.
 To provide and maintain a safe plant and working system;
 To put in place procedures so as to ensure safety and health in the usage,
handling, storage and transportation of the plant and supplies;
 To provide information, instruction, training and supervision for new and old
employees;
 To provide and maintain a working environment that is safe and free from health
hazards;
 To provide the necessary amenities for the welfare of those who are working.

Question 3 (chp 3-2)

a)What are the Four underlying principles of sustainable design.
 Efficient design - keep the material and resource inputs to a minimum. Do
more with less.
 Cyclic design - design to enable materials to be continuously cycled through
natural or industrial systems, OR the use of recycle material
 Safe design - avoid toxic and hazardous substances and processes. Keep
human health in mind as well as ecological impacts
 Social design – clear communication to consumer, good for workers and
consumers.
b) What are the First 5 principles of green engineering that are associated with green
roof, and how they are adopted:
 Principle 1: Designers need to strive to ensure that all material and energy
inputs and outputs are as inherently non-hazardous as possible.
 Principle 2: It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it is
formed.
 Principle 3: Separation and purification operations should be designed to
minimize energy and material consumption.
 Principle 4: System components should be designed to maximize mass, energy
and temporal efficiency.
 Principle 5: System components should be output pulled rather than input
pushed through the use of energy and materials. (e.g.: JIT system)
c) Describe the steps necessary to perform a cost-driven design optimization using
parametric modelling:
 Identify the design variables that are the primary cost drivers.
 Express the cost model in terms of the design variables. Verify the model
 For continuous cost functions, differentiate to find the optimal value. For
discrete functions, calculate cost over a range of values of the design variable.
  Solve the equation in step 3 for a continuous function. For discrete, the
optimum value has the minimum cost value found in step 3.
d) Why is the Importance of Upfront Work in Design for Cost?
 To develop cost effective product, maximum resources should be allocated
during the architectural/conceptual design phase, where a thorough upfront
work of evaluating different architectures using resources, lessons learned,
benchmarking and feasibility studies is performed.
e) What is Cost of Quality and 3 ways to reduce it.
 Any cost that are incurred due to failure of the product
 Ways to reduce :
i) observe quality and reliability
ii) Understand past quality problems
iii) Anticipate, raise and resolve issues early
iv) Utilize Quality Function Deployment to define products to capture the
voice of the customer
v) Simplify the design
vi) minimize the exponential cumulative effect by specifying high quality
parts

Question 4 (chp 3-5)

a) What are the societal issues in the context of incompetence in handling safety and
health?
 Economic consequences due to workplace incidents
 Increase in incapacities, chronic diseases
 A greater loss of health and degrading environment
 Escalating accountability due to government and society
b) What are the 4 major elements in effective occupational safety and health program?
 Safety and health training to all workers
 Ensure competent persons in handling critical operations
 Identify potential hazards in processes
 Developed disciplined workforce
 Management commitment and employee involvement
 Worksite analysis
 Hazard prevention and control