DSS107: CSB Dust Hazard Learning Review - Challenges and Actions

This episode is the second part of our overview of the Chemical Safety Board Dust Hazard Learning Review. During this series, we go through the challenges identified in the report and the actions that we’re taking at Dust Safety Science to tackle those challenges moving forward.

In last week’s episode, we reviewed why the Call to Action was completed and how that process was carried out. We also talked about how the assessments were done, the main categories and findings from the report, and three of the challenges that were identified which are normalization of risk, safety defined as an absence of explosions, and having a safe place to share information. In this episode, we’re going to go through the last three challenges that we pulled out and some of the actions that we’re going to take moving forward.

Language and Communication

The words we use can actually impact how we perceive combustible dust as a hazard. The first one is the word dust itself. In the report, they say that by referring simplistically to dust on a daily basis, we may be conditioning the workforce to underestimate the importance of this hazard. This may also explain why fires frequently go unreported in facilities.

The report goes on to say that although dust may not always explode, the use of a more assertive term such as explosive dust may help workers stay alert to this hazard and communicate more effectively.

We talked about this in last week’s podcast episode: maintaining a sense of vulnerability with combustible dust. When you see it as simply ‘dust,’ the threat is more difficult to appreciate. Unfortunately, in industrial facilities it’s also very normal to see dust, both combustible and non-combustible, kicking around, so there are psychological issues with not seeing it as evidence of an upset condition until the dust is allowed to accumulate to a level where it can become quite dangerous.

Another word that was brought up quite a bit was the word housekeeping. One of the respondents said, “Why do we use the same term to clean the bathroom as we do for major risk mitigation?” ‘Housekeeping’ does not share any sort of sense of risk or hazard associated with it. It’s even worse than dust. At least combustible dust and explosive dust have some threatening connotations. We need a new word: maybe dust control or dust control program but this is something that we’ll need to work towards.

The word ‘reporting’ also raises questions. Respondents asked if it is the same thing as communicating and whether the term inhibits communicating incidents and learning from them. If you’re seen as whistle blowing, it can discourage you from communicating about a hazard. In the report, they suggested replacing the word ‘reporting’ with ‘open environment’ or ‘making information freely available’ in order to encourage dialogue about crucial safety issues.

Moving From Training to Learning

There’s an interesting distinction between safety culture and learning culture. Learning is really a key component of having a safety culture, and you’re never done. You know what you know today and the goal is to know more or to be better or to do things in a better way.

This thought process combats challenge number one, which is normalization of risk. Videos, PowerPoint accident reviews, testing and procedures are all effective ways to educate workers and create a greater awareness of combustible dust hazards. One respondent recommended having training sessions that address daily activities that could potentially be hazardous.

In the Dust Safety Academy, we’ll actually have learning modules with learning outcomes. We’ll have short, simple tests based on that learning to prove that the information was retained and then provide things like certificates, just to move training to learning.

The other side of the coin here is to avoid forgetting. Learning is great, but are we forgetting faster than we learn? In the Dust Safety Academy, we have a downloadable resource library and video library where previous training sessions and older reports and standards can be accessed and reviewed.

Breaking Goal Conflicts

The sixth and final challenge is breaking goal conflicts. One report respondent commented, “Some customers fear that when they start understanding the issue, they’ll need to comply fully, and the cost will be too high to sustain a competitive position in the industry.”

Another response says, “Balancing the cost of doing everything they can do to reduce risk and reducing risk as much as their budget will allow is being a challenge.” According to a third respondent, “Safety choices are based on fear of efficiency, not fear of the danger of the incidents.”

The report acknowledges that goal conflicts are not easily resolved. Companies are not endowed with limitless resources and economic considerations that are very real concerns.

The two most common goal conflicts identified in the report were between safety and costs and safety and production. Other goal conflicts are known to exist in more complex work environments and further research is needed to fully map and understand these goal conflicts.

Actions We’re Taking at Dust Safety Science

The report emphasized that sharing and learning are challenges, which is why we have gone to great lengths to reconfigure the Dust Safety Academy over the last couple of months. We have public sharing that includes access to:

The community forum
The community help desk
The ‘find professionals’ portal
The downloadable resource library
The video library
Our live training sessions

We also have private sharing, where you can ask us questions. We’ll do our best to provide the answer but if we don’t know it, we’ll find somebody who does. We’re going to develop into a great place to do things like safety shares and anonymous incident sharing.

We also have the live training portal. We’ve done a lot of training from experts here, but we’re going to move to having much more, such as success stories, getting helpful information out there and sharing what’s going on in different industries handling combustible dust so that they can learn from each other.

Another thing we want to focus on is multiple modalities. In other words, not just talking over slides during webinars. We have videos, audio and interviews with people who have been involved with previous incidents and integrate all of them into a more interactive learning system for combustible dust safety.

This will all be available inside the premium membership for the Dust Safety Academy. We’ll have these course modules go out and replays of all the training that we’ve done will be available for one annual price inside the Dust Safety Academy.

The second action item that we’re going to take is global working groups and global focus sessions. What we mean by working group is a group of people who are tackling some of the bigger challenges that we’re seeing, such as firefighter response to combustible dust incidents. We’re also working towards a global incident sharing system and having a representative in each country for the incident sharing.

The final action item is for the global summit. For us, that is the Digital Dust Safety Conference. This is where we bring together experts from around the world and people who are interested in handling combustible dust to talk about what’s happened in the previous year as well as lessons learned, success stories and more.

Conclusion

Of all these initiatives, sharing success stories is one of the most important. We hear a lot about failures. Something happened, a mistake was made and now we have a large loss incident. But sharing success stories is equally and probably more important. By knowing what we’re doing right, we can prevent ourselves from being wrong, and where combustible dust is concerned, knowledge is power.

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.