Working Safely at Height

Course details

Construction, shipping and manufacturing industries are the most prone to the hazards of working at height, and have attracted the most attention in Singapore’s quest for improved workplace safety.

Working at height is the biggest single cause of accidents, and falling from height the biggest cause of fatalities. Not only Singapore but the entire world suffers from this common source of accidents and injuries, to the point that there is a lot of information available on this topic.

However, there is also considerable misunderstanding of both the causes of the accidents and proper ways to prevent or reduce the risks.

The persisting problems with working at height in Singapore demand that professionals serious about controlling the risks of working at height should know more than the basics of the activity, beyond the “Do”s and “Don’t”s.

The recent “Code of Practice for Safely Working at Height” should be thoroughly understood and applied to minimize the accidents in this regard.

This course will provide the extra background required to understand the complexities of the problem. The presentation will be mainly keyed to the Code of Practice.

FOR WHOM

The course will be useful to site supervisors (REs & RTOs), engineers, contractors, and other occupational health and safety professionals who wish to learn or review the safety considerations of working at heights, with particular relevance to construction and ship-building and repair industries. It will be useful to fresh engineering graduates as an introduction to the real world of safety in the workplace. 

Management cadre may also do well to understand the implications of working at heights, because it may help in reducing the consequent costs to the company and improve the safety culture in their organizations. It will help clarify and explain many of the new concepts and methodologies introduced in the recent Code of Practice for Working Safely at Heights. 

Participants completing the course will have a clear understanding of:

• Basic hazards of working from height,
• Risks arising from them, and,
• Logical ways of addressing these problems in a pro-active fashion.
• Why the falling from height dangers are so harmful,
• How the hazards evolve into risks,
• How to decide whether to go for fall prevention or fall protection, and,
• How to develop a fall protection plan.

COURSE CONTENT

• Working at height – characteristics, hazards
• Basics of risks of working at height
• Fall prevention versus fall protection
• Edge protection – work restraint – work positioning – fall arrest
• Waist belt versus body harness
• Body harness versus safety net
• Advantages of body harness
• Requirements for use of body harness
• Disadvantages and dangers of body harness
• Risk assessment and control of working at height
• Importance of training and supervision
• Quantification of work at height hazards and consequences – fall distance
• Use, misuse, and abuse of fall protection devices
• Code of Practice for Working Safely at Height
• Design for safe work zone for working at height
• Design of anchors for lifelines and lanyards\
• Design against pendulum effect of work restraints
• Design for safety nets
• Case Studies and applications