Diploma in Industrial Safety and Fire Management

Safety Terminology

1. Access Permit : Written authority issued to a person, or group of persons, that states
that they may gain access to specified area(s) of property. The Permit does not
authorise work to commence.
2. Accident : Unplanned, uncontrolled event giving rise to death, injury, ill-health,
damage, or other loss.
3. Assault : An occurrence in which a person is abused or threatened, whether or not
physical injury occurs.
4. Code of Practice : Statement of best practice whose use is not mandated by issuing
authority.
5. Competence : The ability to work in an appropriate way to deliver the required
performance standards.
6. Competent Person : A person who has the qualifications or certification, experience
and ability necessary to perform a particular task.
7. Consequence : The measure of the severity of the outcome resulting from an accident
or occurrence.
8. Contractor : A person, persons or organisation contracted to undertake specified
items of work or to provide specified services or products.
9. Danger : Circumstances or conditions that are perilous and have the potential to cause
an accident. It is also called as visual Hazard.
10. Emergency : Current unforeseen or unplanned event which has life threatening or
extreme loss implications and requires immediate attention.
11. Ergonomics : The application of scientific information concerning the relationship
between person(s) with the equipment they use, their environment and their systems
of work.
12. Hazard : The potential to cause harm, including ill health and injury; damage to
property, plant, products or the environment; production losses or increased liabilities.
13. Hazardous Substance : A substance which by its nature or properties constitutes a
hazard.
14. Health and Safety policy Statement : A legally required document in three sections:
Declaration of intent, Organisation and Arrangements.
15. Incident (Near miss) : Unplanned, uncontrolled event, which under different
circumstances could have resulted in an accident.
16. Loss Control/Prevention : A systematic approach to preventing accidents or
minimising their effects. The activities may be associated with financial loss or safety
issues.
17. Occupational Ill Health : Ill health which is suspected or known to have resulted from
the affected person’s work activity or work environment, other than ill health caused
by personal accident or assault. Occupational ill health includes cases of reportable
disease.
18. Safe : Secure from risk. Free from Hazard
19. Safe System of Work : Formal method of work devised from taking account of all
likely sources of danger to provide for the safety of those involved, affected, or in the
vicinity of the work.

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 Diploma in Industrial Safety and Fire Management
20. Safety : The avoidance of death, injury or poor health to customers, employees,
contractors and the general public also the avoidance of damage to property and the
environment.
21. Safety Case : A document by which an organisation sets out to demonstrate its ability
to conduct a particular operation or activity in an acceptably safe and proper manner.
22. Safety Induction : A process whereby a new or transferred employee is instructed in
basic safety knowledge of working within an organisation or at a specific location.
23. Safety Management System : A systematic approach to the control of risks using
amongst others organisation, planning, implementation, monitoring, review and
auditing processes.
24. Safety Plan : A foundation document on which safety management is based. It will in
general terms give the approach to the key elements: Safety Policies, measuring
performance against standards, auditing, identifying hazards, etc.
25. Standard : An authorised document, including specification, procedure, instruction,
directive, rule or regulation, which sets mandatory requirements for use in service.
26. Unsafe Act : A human act or omission with the potential to cause damage, ill-health,
injury, death or other detriment.
27. Unsafe Condition : Environmental or physical condition with the potential to cause
damage, ill-health, injury, death or other detriment.
28. Acceptable Risk : A term which implies that a risk, although present is generally
regarded as trivial and which is not considered to require effort or expenditure to
reduce further.
29. ALARP (As low as Reasonably Practicable) : Risk reduction to as low a level as possible,
given the time, effort and cost of the control measures required.
30. Cost Benefit Analysis : Identification and quantification, in common (and hence usually
monetary) units of all the desirable and undesirable consequences of a particular
measure.
31. Event Tree Analysis : A method of illustrating the intermediate and final outcomes
which may arise after the occurrence of a selected initial event.
32. F-N Curve : A graph that shows the relationship between the severity of the
consequence of accidents and the frequency with which they occur, for a hazard,
activity, business or industry. It is generally a cumulative graph using log scales.
33. Fault Tree Analysis : A systematic, graphical description of the combination of possible
occurrences in a system which can result in failure or an undesired event.
34. FMEA (Failure Mode & Effects Analysis) : A process for hazard identification where all
known failure modes of components or features of a system are considered in turn
and undesired outcomes are noted.
35. Frequency : The number of times an event occurs in a given period.
36. HAZOP (Hazard and Operability Study) : A structured study to identify all deviations
from design intent with undesirable effects for safety or operability.
37. Individual Risk : The frequency at which an individual may be expected to sustain a
given level of harm from the realisation of specified hazards.
38. Management Oversight and Risk Tree (MORT): A logic diagram which forms a
comprehensive analytical procedure for determining the causes and contributing
factors of accidents or the quality of an existing system.
39. Likelihood : Probability that an event will occur or that one event will succeed another.
Normally expressed in the numeric scale from 0 to 1.

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 Diploma in Industrial Safety and Fire Management
40. Reliability : The likelihood that during a certain period of time a system performs the
functions described in the specification of requirements under the stated conditions
(environment, costs, inputs and hardware, time constraints).
41. Risk : The combination of the severity of the hazard with the likelihood of its
occurrence,
or: RISK=HAZARD SEVERITY X LIKELIHOOD OF OCCURRENCE
42. Risk Analysis : A structured process which identifies both the likelihood and extent of
adverse consequences arising from a given activity or facility.
43. Risk Assessment : The integrated analysis of risks inherent to a product, system or
plant and their significance in an appropriate context.
44. Risk Evaluation : The appraisal of the significance of a given quantitative (or, where
applicable, qualitative) measure of risk.
45. Risk Management : The process whereby decisions are made to accept a known or
assessed risk and/or the implementation of actions to reduce the consequences or
likelihood of occurrence.
46. Severity : A measure of detrimental effects from the realisation of specific hazards.
47. Societal Risk : The relationship between frequency and the number of people suffering
from a specified level of harm in a given population from the realisation of specified
hazards.
48. Task Analysis : A systematic method of analysing a task into its goals and the actions
and plans needed to achieve them. It requires each operation to be described as a
series of subordinate operations, which may in turn be separately described in greater
detail. The task is broken down in this way until the individual steps are described in
sufficient details to isolate elements which could be susceptible to error. Having
identified these steps, possible improvements can be assessed.
49. Tolerable Risk : A term used to indicate the point of maximum tolerability that society
is prepared to live with. Risks above this level must be reduced or the activity/project
abandoned.
50. (ACOP) Approved Code of Practice : A code of practice approved by the Health and
Safety Commission as one means of achieving a minimum standard.
51. Accident Book : Book held at locations in which all accidents to staff must be
recorded.
52. C.O.S.H.H. : Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, (1988).
53. Dangerous Occurrence : Unplanned, uncontrolled event, which under different
circumstances could have resulted in an major / fatal accident. An incident or accident
which has to be reported in accordance with Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and
Dangerous Occurrence Regulations (1985).
54. Due Diligence : Legal obligation to persistently work for the safety of the work force
and for members of the public.
55. Enforcing Authority : A body constituted by an Act of Parliament and responsible for
the enforcement of the relevant statutory provisions, e.g. Health and Safety Executive,
Local Authority or Fire Authority.
56. Environment : The surroundings and conditions in which an organisation operates,
including living systems (human and other) therein. As the environmental effects of
the organisation may reach all parts of the world, the environment in this context
extends from the workplace to the global system.

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 Diploma in Industrial Safety and Fire Management
57. Improvement Notice : A notice issued by an Enforcing Authority Inspector/Officer, for
contravention of one or more statutory provisions, requiring remedial action to be
taken within a period of time specified in the notice.
58. Notifiable Injury : Any case of Fatal, Major or Statutory Reportable Minor injury. There
is a statutory duty to report such injury to the appropriate Enforcing Authority. This
will be done by the relevant Statutory Reporting Point.
59. Audit : A systematic and independent examination to determine whether activities
and related results comply with planned arrangements and whether these
arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve these
objectives.
60. Auditee : An organisation (e.g. company, business, department, project team or other
party) that is the subject of an audit.
61. Auditor : A suitably trained and qualified person who is authorised to perform all or
any portion of an audit.
62. Compliance : An indication or judgement that the product or service meets the
requirements of the relevant specification or regulation; also the degree of meeting
the requirement.
63. Corrective Action : Action taken to remedy a problem and/or to investigate, identify
and resolve the root cause of the problem to prevent recurrence.
64. Independent : Not representing one’s own interest or organisation/grouping.
65. Inspection : Activities such as measuring, examining, testing or gauging one or more
characteristics of a product, site or service and comparing these with specified
requirements to determine conformity.
66. Internal Audit : Carried out by an organisation on its own system using trained staff
from outside the system being audited.
67. Management Check : A line management control function to ensure compliance with a
standard or a specification.
68. Reviewing : Activities involving judgements about performance and decisions about
improving performance. Reviewing is based on information from “measuring” and
“auditing” activities.
69. Safety Tour : A planned walkabout conducted by managers to identify unsafe acts,
unsafe practices, unsafe conditions and hazards.
70. Verification : Establish the correctness of a statement or claim by examination or
demonstration.
71. Alternative Escape Routes : Escape routes sufficiently separated by either direction
and space, or by fire resisting construction, to ensure that one is still available should
the other be affected by fire.
72. Combustible : Capable of burning.
73. Comprehensive Survey: A detailed survey of all fire safety and fire risk matters, to
confirm the on-going adequacy of the fire precautions at a premise, carried out by a
competent and validated person trained and practised in the relevant legislation and
standards.
74. Emergency Lighting : Lighting provided for use when the supply to the normal lighting
fails.
75. Escape Lighting : That part of the emergency lighting which is provided to ensure that
the escape route is illuminated at all material times.

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 Diploma in Industrial Safety and Fire Management
76. Evacuation Procedure (plan) : Record, where escape routes and places of safety are
indicated and in which rules of conduct, procedure and necessary action by people
present in case of fire are established.
77. Evacuation Signal : Audible and/or visible signal to indicate to occupants they have to
escape.
78. Fire Alarm Call Point : The device provided for manual operation of a fire alarm
system.
79. Fire Certificate : A legal document issued to a building or premises by the Fire
Authority under the Fire precautions Acts, 1971.
80. Fire Door : A door or shutter, provided for the passage of persons, air or objects,
which, together with its frame and furniture as installed in a building, is intended when
closed to resist the passage of fire and/or gaseous products of combustion, and is
capable of meeting specified performance criteria to those ends.
81. Fire Hydrant : An assembly contained in a box or pit below ground level and
comprising a valve outlet connection from a water supply main.
82. Fire Occurrence : A Fire occurs where safety is threatened or damage could result from
flame, smouldering or smoke, irrespective of cause, or where such effect might occur if
immediate action is not taken.
83. Fire Point : A location where fire-fighting equipment is sited which may also comprise
a fire alarm call point and fire instruction notices, the whole being provided and
arranged for the use of occupants of premises.
84. Fire Precautions Check : An inspection of premises against a check list by a responsible
local manager (normal the Fire Precautions Manager).
85. Smoke Vent : Opening in the enclosing walls or roof of a building, intended to release
heat and smoke in the event of fire, automatically or manually opened.
86. Travel Distance : Distance to be travelled from any point in a building to a protected
escape route, external escape route or final exit.
87. Ergonomic : The science of studying people at work, and designing task, jobs, tools,
equipment, facilities and the work environment, so that people can be safe, healthy,
effective, efficient, productive and comfortable.
88. Ergonomics word is derived from two Greek words “Ergos” means WORK and
“Nomos” means RULES. That mean every work has certain rules to perform the job. If
any person neglecting the rules for performing the job they may have suffer from ill-
health and for long term they may suffer from chronic disease.
89. Exposure : The measurement of time during which the subject is at risk from a hazard.

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