Last Updated on November 19, 2022 by maximosecrets

This is the third of five articles on the Safety module of Maximo.

Safety Plans are used to default hazards and their precautions, hazardous materials, and lock out/tag out plans to a work order so that the work can be performed safely. A safety plan can be associated with a job plan so that when the job plan is applied to a work order the safety plan is also copied. Alternatively, a safety plan can be applied direct to a work order by selecting it. Once applied to a work order, the safety data can be reviewed and modified. If there is no relevant safety plan then the hazards, precautions, hazardous materials and lock out/tag out plans can be entered manually on the work order.

The safety information needed for a work order is dependent on the type of work being performed and the location, or asset the work is being performed on. Therefore, in setting up safety plans you would normally associate them with a job plan, as this provides the plan for the type of work being performed. The location or asset the work is being performed on is entered as work assets to the job plan. Adding the work assets (locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More, assets) also makes the selection of a job plan easier on a work order, as by default Maximo shows the job plans associated with the work order’s asset and location.

When building a safety plan, you determine the work assets it can be associated with. Those work assets may already have safety related information associated with it, defined in either the Locations or Assets application, and you can pull that data onto the safety plan. Work Assets may also have other safety related work assets and depending on the work being performed you may or may not wish to include the safety information from associated work assets on the safety plan.

There is a lot to cover, and so I have split the topic of Safety Plans into two articles:

• Applying Safety Plans (this article) will show how a safety plan is applied to a work order, it will use existing safety plans in the MAXDEMO database. This article covers the relationship between Job Plans and Safety Plans.
• Building Safety Plans will show how the safety information related to a location, asset or their related records is used to create a safety plan using the Select Hazards action. As this introduces the Safety tab on the Locations and Assets applications, I also use this second article to demonstrate the use of the Work Order Tracking action Select Safety Hazards.

We’ll start with a simple generic Safety Plan that can be used on a work order.

Generic Safety Plan applied to a Work Order

In the Safety Plans application there is a safety plan SPLAN1 – General Safety Plan used when dust is present. Notice that safety plans are defined at the site level, BEDFORD in this case. There are no specific work assets in this case.

Notice there is no Status field, nor a Change Status action. There are no statuses across all four safety applications.

On the Hazards and Precautions tab the hazard DUST – Airborn dust, has been added to the safety plan, the hazard has one precaution RESPMASK – Wear respirator mask, associated with it. There are no Hazardous Materials or Lock Out / Tag Out plans. The Hazards record is based on the object/table SPLEXICONLINK.

In the Work Order Tracking application, I’ve created a new work order 1287 – MCV not activating during tests, with a location of MTP100 – Materials Transfer Pipe, and asset 26000 – Motor Controlled Valve. We can apply the safety plan direct to the work order, the safety plan field is in the section called Job Details.

The Select Value on the Safety Plan field by default shows All Safety Plans, we’ll examine the other two options in later scenarios of this article. The safety plan we wish to select is SPLAN1 – General Safety Plan used when dust is present. When I say it shows all safety plans, these are only the safety plans where the site on the safety plan is a match to the site on the work order, BEDFORD in this case. In the default MAXDEMO database there is a safety plan CSPLAN for the FLEET site, this is not shown.

When the Safety Plan is selected its Hazards and Precautions, Hazardous Materials and Lock Out/Tag Out rules are copied to the work order. The SPLAN1 safety plan just has the one hazard, DUST, with its one precaution RESPMASK, as we saw earlier.

The most common use for this generic method of applying a safety plan is when there is a generic risk assessment for technicians to consider on a work order, the hazards are a set of risks which may or may not be relevant to that particular work order. Either, as part of the risk assessment the hazards are deleted, or a field is configured to allow the user to mark whether the hazard is relevant, or not, to the job to be performed.

The table window for Hazards is based on object WOSAFETYLINK. The table has a set of spare fields WOSL01 – WOSL05 which are copied from the SL01 – SL05 fields on the related SAFETYLEXICON object which is related to the SPLEXICONLINK table which shows the hazards linked to the safety plan. If you are looking in Database Configuration at the object WOSAFETYLINK you will also see HAZ01 – HAZ20 which are copied from the same fields on the associated Hazard record, DUST in this case, but these are non-persistent fields, the data is held in the related table WOHAZARD. Similarly, TAG01 – TAG08 are non-persistent fields, which are copied from the associated Tag Out record used to mitigate the hazard, not relevant in this case, but copied to the related table WOTAGOUT.

I can hear that deep intake of breath. Don’t worry, the Safety Overview article has two entity diagrams and explains the full set of crossover fields. The tables which you can determine from the Safety Plan tab and its three subtabs are not the full set of tables used to describe safety on a work order, there are several tables, like WOHAZARD or WOTAGOUT, with no user interface.

Organizations – Work Order Options – Edit Rules

The information of the Safety Plan tab of Work Order Tracking application is modifiable at WAPPR status, but once you have approved the work order, or it is at a later state then you will receive the error message “BMXAA4608E – Work safety editing not enabled for Work Order 1287 which has a status of APPR.”

This is being controlled in the OrganizationsA structural element of a Maximo database which is used for data sharing and is often aligned to a legal entity of an organisation. More application in Work Order Options and action called Edit Rules. By default, the Safety Tab is only modifiable at WAPPR status. When safety is being used to apply generic risk assessments, it is common to change this for all status levels except COMP. As you build-out your safety plans, you would probably adjust this back so that modification can only be made at the same time as planning the work order, i.e. at WAPPR – Waiting to be Approved state.

Safety Plans Specific to Work Assets

In this next scenario, which is also based on a safety plan found in the MAXDEMO database we will show how the work assets on the safety plan influence the selection of a safety plan on the work order.

Safety Plan CSELECPO is valid for the BEDFORD site and has two associated work assets:

• Location CSPOLE30 – BEDFORD CS Electrical Service Pole #300
• Asset CS52300 – BEDFORD CS Electrical Service Pole #300/Wood/45 ft/Class 5

Safety Plan CSELECPO has one hazard CSHIVOLT – CS High Voltage, which has two precautions:

• CSPOLICE – BEDFORD CS CSPOLICE officer direct traffic
• CSPROCLO – BEDFORD CS Wear protective clothing 

Safety Plan CSELECPO also has a hazard CS-ELECH – CS Electrocution, with one Tag Out on a related location CSECC220, the Tag Out has two Lock Out operations.

You might have noticed that in each of the screenshots for the four tabs of the Safety Plan application there is rather an annoying area of whitespace below the three columns in the header. There is a tag, height=”240″, which really ought not to be there.

In the Work Order Tracking application, I’ve created a new work order 1289 – Replace yellow guy wire protector on vandalised pole, and referenced asset CS52300 which if you remember was one of the work assets on safety plan CSELECPO. Asset CS52300 belongs to location CSPOLE30 which was also one of the work assets on safety plan CSELECPO.

Further down the Work Order tab, in the Job Details section, we can use the Select Value on the Safety Plan field, this time we will use the radio button “Show Safety Plans for the Current Work Order” and after using the Refresh button it shows just the one safety plan CSELECPO. This option filters using the asset and location on the work order against the safety plans that reference either the asset or location as a work asset.

After the safety plan CSELECPO has been applied the hazards and precautions are copied.

The Lock Out/Tag Out rules associated with the CSELECPO safety plan are also copied to the work order. Notice that you could have multiple Tag Outs for the same hazard, or multiple hazards each with a Lock Out/Tag Out set of rules. When this occurs, you should provide an Apply Sequence in the middle table window – Tag Outs for hazard, so that the engineers know what order to lock out assets so as to reduce the risks from all hazards.

I did a couple of other tests.

• First, I deleted the hazard on the work order in both the Hazards and Precautions tab and the Lock/Out/Tag Out tab, to make sure that the records in associated tabs were also deleted. I then re-entered the same details as that on safety plan CSELECPO but using the New Row buttons on both tabs.
• The second test was to leave the location and asset on the work order blank and enter the same location and asset on a task, and also then in the Multiple Assets, Locations and CIs table window. In both cases, the Safety Plan was not selectable when using the “Show Safety Plans for the Current Work Order”. This radio button only uses the primary location and asset on the work order.

Talking of tasks, have you ever wondered what the big differences are between a work order and a task work order, they are stored in the same table? Well one of those differences is that you can only apply a safety plan to a work order, there is no safety plan field on a task, it exists of course in the WORKORDER table, but it does not exist in the user interface for a task or in the Activities and Tasks application.

Job Plan filtering on a Work Order

In the next scenario we will look at a safety plan being applied when a job plan is applied to a work order. This is the most likely scenario for using Safety Plans, so that safety information can be included when Preventive Maintenance work is performed. But first, let’s take time to consider how job plans are filtered on a work order.

In the Job Plans application and on the Work Assets tab you can associate a job plan with multiple locations, assets, and items. In this context, we should only be considering rotating items, I’ll explain why in a few moments. This is the work assets for job plan JP11430A – Centrifugal Pump Service – 3 Month. The two work assets are:

• Asset 11430
• Item PUMP100

The Work Assets tab is a way of identifying the locations and assets which the job plan is relevant to. When you use the New Row button the Location, Asset and Item fields are mutually exclusive, if you enter a value in one of those fields, then if a value exists in one of the other two it will be blanked out.

So why Item? It does not exist on a work order, except in the work order planned material.

I’ve created a new work order 1293 – Maintenance on Feed Water Pump, against location BR450 – Feed Water Pump-Centrifugal/100GPM/60FTHD, no asset is referenced. In the Job Plans field in the Job Details section, I’ve used the Select Value and it shows Job Plan JP11430A, this was the one where we saw the work assets a few moments ago. 

Location BR450 on the work order wasn’t one of the work assets on the job plan, however location BR450 has a rotating item of PUMP100.

The Job Plan Select Value is showing job plans where the location or asset is referenced in the Work Assets tab on the job plan or if the primary location or asset on the work order has a rotating item, then it also shows the job plans where the Work Assets tab references that rotating item.

Safety Plans applied with a Job Plan

Now we appreciate the matching against work assets, we can look to see how the safety plan is applied. I’ll first change the work order to reference asset 11430 which is one of the referenced work assets for job plan JP11430A, it also specifies Safety Plan SPLAN2, and the Default Safety Plan field is checked.

With work order 1293 now referencing asset 11430 and location BR430 the Job Plan Select Value now shows three possible job plans, including JP11430A which references asset 11430 as a work asset.

With job plan JP11430A applied on the Plans tab you can see that 6 tasks have been created as well as two planned labor records.

On the Safety Plan tab, the two hazards with Lock Out/Tag Out rules on safety plan SPLAN2 have been applied as part of the same process as applying the job plan.

I’ll do another scenario on the same work order but first I will need to remove the Safety Plan.

Remove Safety Plan

There is an action on the Work Order Tracking application – Remove Safety Plan. When using this action, you will receive the information message “BMXAA4683I – Are you sure you want to remove this safety plan?”, I replied using the Yes button, the other button is No. You will then receive information message “BMXAA4694I – The safety plan has been removed.” There were now no records in the Safety Plan tabs.

Show Safety Plans for the Job Plan of the Current Work Order

With the Job Plan JP11430A still applied, using the Select Value on the Safety Plan field and then selecting the “Show Safety Plans for the Job Plan of the Current Work Order” radio button and the Refresh button, the SPLAN2 safety plan that was just applied is the only one shown. It is the safety plan specified for asset 11430 in the Work Assets tab on the job plan. 

Now we’ll see whether a safety plan associated with the rotating item of the asset or location shows up in the Select Value.

In the Job Plans application and Work Assets tab I have added a Safety Plan to the PUMP100 Item record, SPLAN1. 

Back in the Work Order Tracking application for work order 1293 and with Job Plan JP11430A still applied, using the Select Value on the Safety Plan field, selecting the radio button “Show Safety Plans for the Job Plan of the Current Work Order”, and using the Refresh button, then both SPLAN2 and SPLAN1 safety plans are shown.

The same logic for selecting Job Plans is being used for selecting Safety Plans based on the job plan work assets. To show in the Safety Plans Select Value, either the asset or its rotating item, or the location or its rotating item must be referenced on the Job Plans Work Assets tab.

SPLAN2 is shown because asset 11430 is one of the work assets on the job plan JP11430A, SPLAN1 is shown because either asset 11430 or location BR430 references the rotating item PUMP100 which is the other work asset record on the job plan, as it happens both asset and location on this work order reference this rotating item.

With both safety plans available to be used, when applying job plan JP11430A to a work order, then which safety plan would be chosen to be applied? We’ll answer that in the next scenario.

Which Safety Plan is applied when a Job Plan is applied?

In the Work Order Tracking application, I’ve created a new work order 1294 – Maintenance on Centrifugal Pump, and selected asset 11430 which has defaulted its location BR430 to the work order.

In the Job Details section and using the Select Value on the Job Plan field the job plans have been filtered to those where there are work asset records that reference asset 11430, location BR430 or item PUMP100, as both asset 11430 and location BR430 reference rotating item PUMP100.

We have applied job plan JP11430A and safety plan SPLAN1 was also applied. In the Work Assets tab of the job plan, safety plan SPLAN1 is coming from the rotating item PUMP100. This must be coming from the location BR430 that references rotating item PUMP100, and so the location must have priority over the asset in the selection of the safety plan. If SPLAN2 had been selected, then the assumption would be that the asset is taking priority over the location.

We can prove this by adding location BR430 to the work assets with a different safety plan and seeing which is applied when we apply the job plan. But first we need to remove both the safety plan and the job plan.

Remove Work Plan

If you use the action Remove Work Plan you receive the warning message “BMXAA4719W – Changing the job plan will eliminate the requirement for the current safety plan. Do you want to remove the current safety plan? Click Close to leave the job plan and safety plan unchanged.” There are three buttons Yes, No and Close, I chose “Yes”.

You will now receive the information message “BMXAA4693I – The work plan has been removed.” and both the job plan and safety plan fields will be blank. If you check the relevant Plans and Safety Plan tabs you will find all records have been removed.

Using the Remove Work Plan can also perform the Remove Safety Plan action.

The logic for which Safety Plan is applied with a Job Plan

In the Job Plans application and Work Assets tab I have added a new work asset for location BR430 with a safety plan of ELECPOLE, I know that safety plan doesn’t make sense, but I am just trying to prove how Maximo choses the safety plan to apply.

Back in the Work Order Tracking application for work order 1294, when we apply job plan JP11430A, this time the ELECPOLE safety plan was selected.

Therefore, the logic for selecting a safety plan when a job plan is applied is as follows:

1. Use the safety plan associated with the location referenced on the work order
2. Use the safety plan associated with the location’s rotating item
3. Use the safety plan associated with the asset referenced on the work order
4. Use the safety plan associated with the asset’s rotating item

I expect also that the Default Safety Plan checkbox must be selected. 

The Default Safety Plan attribute

You might decide that you only want safety plans that match the asset to be automatically applied with the job plan, and a match on location or rotating item would need to be manually set through the Safety Plan’s Select Value. Let’s test that by deselecting this for the new BR430 work asset.

In the Job Plans application and Work Assets tab I have deselected the checkbox “Default Safety Plan?” for the BR430 work asset. I have shown the details area for the table window, and you will notice that there is a Purchasing Details section. This is used when the work asset is an Item that is being purchased. During receiving of the item, it allows a work order to be created to inspect/test the received items. I have already written about this in an article called Item on Job Plan Work Assets which you can find here http://maximosecrets.com/2020/08/06/item-on-job-plan-work-assets/

In the Work Order Tracking application and work order 1294, when job plan JP11430A is applied this time, then safety plan SPLAN1 is applied. Therefore, the checkbox “Default Safety Plan?” is determining whether the safety plan can be applied when the job plan is applied. 

The field help on the checkbox says, “Identifies the default Safety Plan for an asset, location, or item.”, this is also true. If you reference the same asset, location or item multiple times you can have different safety plans, but only one of those work asset records can have “Default Safety Plan?” checked. 

I can’t think of a business case why you would have multiple safety plans for the same work asset and job plan, for me, that doesn’t make sense, and is possibly confusing. There is no uniqueness check taking place on the work assets table window which is based on table JPASSETSPLINK. You can have two records for the same work asset that reference the same safety plan, Maximo does not validate against this.