Safety Audit Guideline Annex 1

 

ELEMENT TO BE AUDITED UNDER THE SAFETY AUDIT SCHEME 

SAFETY POLICY

The audit shall ascertain whether the installation has a written safety policy endorsed by top management in which safe management of hazardous chemicals are adequately covered.

SAFETY INFORMATION

The audit shall ascertain whether the management of the company has set up and maintained a comprehensive set of written safety information to enable all its staff to handle and store chemicals safely. The information shall cover those items normally reflected in the material safety data sheets of the chemicals, which include identification and understanding the potential hazards of chemicals, safe working procedures and emergency actions to take in case of emergency.

SAFE WORK PRACTICES

The audit shall ascertain whether safe work procedures have been established to ensure the safe handling, including transportation, loading and unloading, storage and use of hazardous chemicals by plant employees as well as contract workers. Identification of all hazardous chemicals and their hazards used in the plant, a work authorisation system and compliance of standards and regulatory requirements should be part of the safe work procedures.

MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE

The audit shall ascertain whether the installation has developed and instituted a system including use of proper written procedures to manage changes to handling of hazardous chemicals. It shall also ascertain whether the plant staff have been informed of and adequately trained to safely manage such changes.

MAINTENANCE OF FACILITIES

The audit shall ascertain whether a maintenance system to ensure that all facilities used for the handling and storage of hazardous chemicals, including storage containers, are maintained in sound and good working order at all times.

TRAINING

The audit shall ascertain whether training provided to staff responsible for the handling and storage of hazardous chemicals is effective and that such training adequately covers the safety information and safe work practices. The training shall ensure staff are kept up to date on changes to the types and work procedures in the handling of the hazardous chemicals.

INCIDENT INVESTIGATIONS

The audit shall ascertain whether the installation has established a system to investigate every incident in the workplace involving the handling and storage of hazardous chemicals, and to promptly address the investigation's findings and to implement the recommendations.

GENERAL PLANT INSPECTION/REVIEWS

The audit shall ascertain whether regular inspections and reviews on handling and storage of hazardous substances have been conducted, and procedures for reporting potential hazardous conditions and monitoring the remedial actions established.

HAZARD ANALYSIS

The audit shall check on whether the company has an established programme to carry out hazard analysis on the handling of hazardous chemicals so as to identify, assess and evaluate potential hazards, especially when new hazardous chemicals or a significant increase in the quantities of hazardous chemicals are handled. The audit shall also ascertained whether the company has an established procedure to record these hazards and develop and implement means to eliminate the hazards or reduce the hazards to an acceptable level of risk.

EMERGENCY PLANNING AND RESPONSE

The audit shall ascertain whether the on-site emergency action plan established by the installation can deal with all accidental releases and/or fires of hazardous chemicals and whether there are adequate emergency equipment stored on standby and maintained in good working order.

The audit shall also ascertain whether regular rehearsals of all or part of the emergency action plan were carried out and documented. It shall also ascertain whether the lessons learnt from these rehearsals were recorded and used during updates of the plan.

CONTRACTOR SAFETY

The audit shall ascertain whether contractors engaged to handle hazardous chemicals, including transportation, have been carefully selected, informed of their safety responsibilities and adequately trained to handle hazardous chemicals safely and to respond to emergency.

ADDITIONAL ITEMS

The audit shall ascertain if the site conforms generally to guidelines pertaining to the safe management of hazardous chemicals stated in the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) international standards/specifications or Factory Mutual (FM) loss prevention engineering guidelines or equivalent (only for wafer fabrication plants)
The audit shall ascertain if the maintenance of fire alarm and protection systems and other fire safety works conform to the requirements stated in the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) code or Uniform Fire Code (UFC) or Uniform Building Code (UBC) or any code of practice established by PSB and FSB. (for sites storing or handling flammable or combustible substances)