Safety Innovation Teams-A Scheme to Encourage and Maintain Employees' Interest in Safety

摘要

Top managements commitment in safety and health is critical in accident prevention. However, it is also crucial to maintain employees' interest in safety. This is because accident prevention basically depends on everyone working safely. There are many ways to encourage employees' participation and maintaining their interest in safety, such as forming safety committees, encourage safety suggestions, organise safety contests and safety campaigns. In the late eighties, Singapore started the 'Safety Innovation Teams' (SITs) movement in Factories. The SIT scheme was adapted from 'Quality Control Circles' (QCC) from Japan where employees formed small groups to discuss and improve quality of the products. The SITs use the same methodology of QCC to solve safety and health problems. In 1995, we had our first national SIT Convention. To date, many factories have formed SITs. Such SITs have completed many projects contributing to improvements in the safety of operations and processes. These also resulted in significant savings to the companies. This paper sets out the key concepts and the implementation of SIT movement in Singapore.