DSS217: Understanding Audit Processes for Combustible Dust With Bill Laturnus

In today’s episode of the Dust Safety Science podcast, we’re speaking with Bill Laturnus, Manufacturing Senior Safety Advisor with BC Forest Safety Council. In Episode #213, we talked about the Wood Pellet Association of Canada’s audit tool for managing wood dust mitigation and control. Today, Bill discusses why the WPAC Audit Tool was created and how it’s evolved over time.

Bill, who has over 30 years of experience in forest product operations, explained that the audit tool precedes the two major sawmill explosions that occurred in BC in 2012 (Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake and Lakeland Mills in Prince George).

“It actually started in 2009 when the pellet industry recognized that they wanted to take a closer look at their safety management system for combustible dust. It was what was called the Pellet Addendum that was attached to what we call the Base 2 Audit. And so it was part of a larger program where companies can get safety management systems audited and be recognized for that by WorkSafe BC. We added the appellate addendum to that audit. It can be a stand-alone audit or done in conjunction with the base audit.”

What Are the Benefits of Using the WPAC Audit Tool?

Bill explained that the BC Forest Safety Council is the health and safety association supported by both the sawmills and wood pellet producers in BC. Its activities are funded by these industries. If a company performs a core certificate of recognition audit, WorkSafe BC will recognize them for meeting a minimum threshold for safety management systems. As a result, they receive a rebate on their assessment each year.

“The pellet addendum that was added on to the base audit at the beginning in 2009 is a stand-alone audit and the regulator does not give them a certificate of recognition for the pellet addendum- just for the larger-based audit,” Bill added.

How Did the WPAC Addendum Come About?

This pellet addendum was developed due to the industry’s desire for a better way to address combustible dust issues.

“When you’re developing this kind of thing, you need to get input from the industry so you can fulfill their needs,” BIll says. “The audit tool is really one of the ways to identify the gaps in your system. So back in 2009, when they started to develop it, there was a lot of effort put into getting industry input into it. The people at the BC Forest Safety Council had already developed audits for safety management systems for the sectors they support and used the same format.”

He added that the audit was prescriptive and includes not only audit questions but guidelines for each audit.

“When you’re working with external auditors and helping them to understand how to perform the audit, you’re always focused on what the guideline says. The audit question might be one sentence, but the guideline is going to have additional information to help steer them in the right direction.”

How Did the Pellet Addendum Make a Difference?

The pellet addendum was part of a typical safety management system audit heavily focused on documentation like policies, procedures, and records. Documentation, however, does not necessarily change frequently.

“Some companies were doing the audit annually and some were doing it on a three-year cycle. Some were doing it just once and then continuing on,” Bill recalled. “This was a non-regulated audit, so companies got to decide their own frequency. When I was approached to do the audit on an annual basis with companies, they said, “Well, I need more than just the focus on the paper.” And that’s when the evolution changed to the focus on records, observations and interviews.”

For instance, instead of spending a lot of time looking at their policy and procedures and how frequently they review things, an auditor would spend more time looking at the inspection records for combustible dust. If the company is doing combustible dust inspections every week, the auditor would then focus on the interviews and look around see if:

The company appears to be doing what it’s supposed to do and;
Whether the observations match the inspection records from the previous year

Bill recalled one instance when he checked a company’s records and found that they didn’t match what he saw during an inspection.

“There are accumulations of combustible dust. Some of them are reaching a critical point where they need to be addressed immediately. When I questioned the personnel on the site, they said, “Well, we do the inspections on Monday, but they also do all their combustible dust cleanup on the weekend.” Doing an inspection for combustible dust after you’ve done all your cleanup is not providing you any value. Maybe you should be doing that later in the week [so you can] identify where your large accumulations are happening.

“So it’s just a simple thing of changing the frequency and doing the inspections at a different date. You’ve addressed what potentially could be accumulation issues with a better focus on what’s really happening.”

Conclusion

Bill concluded the discussion by stressing the importance of making safety resources a team effort.

“If you’re getting input from different people when creating an audit tool, you can miss making mistakes or putting a bias on a situation. We’re all in this to reduce worker injuries. So if you’ve got people out there willing to help you, why would you not get help?”

If you would like to discuss further, leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach Bill Laturnus directly:

Email: [email protected]
Tel: 1-877-741-1060

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.