Last Updated on October 29, 2023 by maximosecrets

This is the first in a series of five articles that will provide a deep dive into the Safety module of core Maximo. This series will include:

• Hazards and how to mitigate the hazard with Precautions.
• Lock Out / Tag Out rules used in the isolation of assets
• Applying Safety Plans to a work order. This will use the safety plans found in the MAXDEMO database and apply them to a work order directly, or via a job plan. It will cover the Work Assets tab on the Job Plans application. 
• Building Safety Plans, the safety information related to a location, asset or their related records and the type of work being performed. This will cover the Safety tab on Locations and Assets applications as these can be used to build a safety plan using the Select Hazards action.
• Hazards on the Item Master application.

You may have found your way here from the article Safety Module Overview, which also contains entity diagrams of the safety module and the safety tables/objects on a work order. If not you may wish to start there.

The Safety module is a sub-module of the Planning module.

A Hazard with Precautions

The Hazards application is where you define different types of hazards. The Type field has ELECTRICAL, HEALTH, MECHANICAL and PROPERTY (Property Damage) as the set of default values. This is governed by the ALN domain HAZTYPE. During the implementation you will probably change some of these values to better reflect the types of hazards you have at your sites.

Notice that the hazards are defined at the OrganizationA structural element of a Maximo database which is used for data sharing and is often aligned to a legal entity of an organisation. More level. All other parts of the safety module and where they are applied is defined at the SiteA structural element of a Maximo database that is used for data separation. More level. The reason why hazards are defined at Organization level is because a material item can have an associated hazard defined in the Item Master application and Item/Organization Details action. The fifth article in this series explains how the hazard associated with the material item is used.

A Hazard can be associated with Precautions, Hazardous Materials and Tag Out records. We will explore each of these with an example. For a new hazard:

• If you indicate that it has precautions, then the “Can Have Tag Out?” checkbox is made read-only. A hazard with precautions can have associated Hazardous Material details.
• If you indicate that it has hazardous materials, then the “Can Have Tag Out?” checkbox is also made read-only. 
• If you indicate that it has tag outs, then the “Can Have Precautions?” and “Can Have Hazardous Materials?” check boxes are made read-only, and the fields in the Hazardous Material Information section are made read-only.

Our first example is the HEAT1 hazard, a hazard with “Temperature from 100f – 400f” as its description. HEAT1 is part of the EAGLENA organization.

The HEAT1 hazard has one Associated Precaution, GLOVES – Wear Gloves. Notice that the Precaution is defined at the Site level, in this case we have only setup the HEAT1 hazard with a precaution in the BEDFORD site. For a record at a different site the precaution would not be copied.

I have navigated to the Precautions application, and we can see that the Precaution GLOVES in the BEDFORD site has been associated with both the HEAT1 and SULFACID (Sulfuric Acid) hazards. 

If you use the action Duplicate Precaution then on the new record the Precaution field will be empty, and the site remains equal to the value of the current record that you are duplicating, BEDFORD in this case. You cannot duplicate the precaution to use it on another site, not without changing the precaution and site field, you may as well use the New Precaution button.

You do not need to create your library of Precaution records before you create any Hazards. I would create the Precautions as you create your hazards by using the New Row button on the Associated Precautions table window and if no suitable precaution is shown in the Select Value, then use the Go To Precautions action to navigate to the Precautions application. 

A Hazard that is marked as a Hazardous Material

In our second example for the hazard SULFACID – Sulfuric Acid, we can see that it has both associated precautions and is marked as a hazardous material. For Hazardous Materials the fields in the section called Hazardous Material Information are enabled, otherwise they would be read-only. 

The first three fields are associated with the NFPA ratings – National Fire Protection Association:

For chemical substances these are:

• Health Risk (blue diamond)
• Flammability (red diamond)
• Reactivity (yellow diamond)

The values are normally in the range 0 to 4 where 4 is high and 0 is none. There is a white diamond in the NFPA Labels, that indicates the specific hazard ACID, ALK (Alkali), COR (Corrosive), etc. 

The fourth field Contact Rating is not associated with NFPA but could mean the level of PPE required. The four fields are all INTEGER fields with no domain to support the values allowed or a description of their meaning. I would strongly recommend a numeric domain being added to each field so that the appropriate description can be provided. The descriptions for each value given by NFPA does differ for the same value, and so each attribute should have its own Numeric domain.

How you use the fourth field Contact Rating, or indeed all four fields is up to the implementation to decide, but better to set it first before records are created with different meanings.

The final field in the Hazardous Material Information section is the reference to a MSDS – Material Safety Data Sheet, or other equivalent Safety Data Sheet (SDS) reference. For example, there would be a Material Safety Data Sheet for each chemical, for example Chlorine, which is normally obtained from the supplier of the chemical. Therefore, when using this field, it is normal also to create an attached document so that the user can examine the details of MSDS PDF document.

There are 20 crossover fields on the HAZARD object, HAZ01 to HAZ20 which can be used for additional information. The data entered into these fields will be copied to the Work Order Hazard fields HAZ01 to HAZ20 in object WOHAZARD. Similarly, there are 10 crossover fields on the PRECAUTION object, PREC01 to PREC10 which can be used for additional information. The data entered into these fields will be copied to the Work Order Precaution fields with the same name, object WOPRECAUTION.

The SULFACID hazard has two precaution records associated with it GLOVES and GOGGLES both for the BEDFORD site.

A Hazard that is marked for use with Tag Outs

To mitigate a hazard, you may be able to isolate an asset with a Lock Out and Tag Out procedure, this is sometimes referred to as LOTO (Lock Out and Tag Out).

In this example the hazard of FLOW – Liquid flow through pipes, can be overcome in the BEDFORD site and for the 11430 asset – Centrifugal Pump 100GPM/60 FT HD, by using the NOFLOW01 Tag Out procedure – Stop water flow to pump 11430. You will have noticed, as you might expect, that isolation procedures are specific to the assets (or locationsA physical place where assets exist and where work can be performed. More) to which they are relevant. 

As there could be many assets (or locations), the number of Associated Tag Out records for a hazard could be many more than the one shown here.

Navigating to the Lock Out / Tag Out application you can see that there is a set of Lock Out operations with specific steps when you start the isolation process and a removal sequence for when the asset is returned to service after its maintenance or repair work.

We will examine LOTO procedures and the Lock Out / Tag Out application in more detail in the next article in this series on the Safety module of Maximo.