Minimizing Workplace Risk through Planning and Design
Naval Expert Discusses the Need for Safety Engineering at the Acquisition Level
By Cynthia Greenwood
While the operation and maintenance of military equipment and facilities require careful attention to risk, preserving DoD assets carries a range of potential occupational hazards. In particular, DoD personnel who routinely engage in processes for controlling and mitigating corrosion are vulnerable to risk when they use potentially hazardous materials, tools, and processes on a daily basis.
One of the Naval Safety Center’s main purposes is to enlighten DoD acquisition personnel about such workplace risks and the various ways of preventing them. “Because safety and health considerations should be integral to maintenance and corrosion control, incorporating them into DoD’s acquisition planning process fits into the Navy’s priorities for life-cycle cost and risk management,” noted Mark B. Geiger, an Occupational Safety and Health Manager at the Naval Safety Center’s Washington D.C. area liaison office. (The Safety Center is located in Norfolk, Virginia, while Geiger works in an office located in Arlington, Virginia.)
Geiger helps develop occupational safety and health policy and provides technical assistance to Echelon 2 commands on acquisition matters. He also assists the Naval Safety Center and Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) offices on other workplace safety and health considerations. For example, Geiger and his counterpart in Norfolk, Mike Francis, have worked closely with the Acquisition and Technology Task Force, a subgroup of the Defense Safety Oversight Council. The Acquisition and Technology Task Force has sponsored projects such as creating a safety handbook for unmanned systems and providing input to Defense Acquisition University. He is also involved with the revision of Military Standard 882 (System Safety), the system safety process standard applied in risk management for acquisition as well as for high-risk systems such as unmanned aircraft and nuclear power systems. Read More ...
NACE International Assesses the Scope of DoD Corrosion Training
Leading Corrosion Society Uses Targeted Surveys to Pinpoint Needs
By Cynthia Greenwood
In 2009, the DoD Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office asked one of its strategic partners to spearhead an analysis of how military personnel are trained to battle corrosion. Because corrosion experts in the military come from an array of engineering backgrounds, service divisions, and areas of asset-related expertise, such a study has proved productive and challenging.
“In attempting to understand how well the services are training the war fighter to perform vital corrosion prevention on our weapon systems, we’ve chosen to work with the association that specializes in training corrosion professionals across the globe,” said Daniel J. Dunmire, director of the DoD Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office. “We’re confident that NACE International has the resources to help us understand what kind of corrosion training we offer, how effective it is, and where any gaps might be.”
In June of last year, NACE International, The Corrosion Society, began a detailed two-phase analysis of how the military departments are training personnel who acquire and maintain DoD ships, aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles, and infrastructure. To conduct the study as effectively as possible, NACE has partnered with top corrosion executives in the Army, Navy, and Air Force in order to understand how, and how well, each department trains personnel in corrosion control and prevention.
Currently, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps are each responsible for training personnel in the corrosion control processes needed to maintain the health and longevity of their myriad assets. Since 2005, the DoD Corrosion Office has augmented the services’ proprietary corrosion-related training by funding courses taught in the private sector. This benefit allows acquisition and maintenance personnel to obtain professional certification that is valid in the public and private sectors. Read More ...
|
|
