SAFETY IN DESIGN: CURRENT STANDARDS FOR SUGAR MILLS

THE QUEENSLAND WORKPLACE Health and Safety Act 1995 prescribes the obligations of owners, designers, manufacturers, importers, suppliers and constructors of industrial plants. The obligations of designers are generally to: ensure sugar mill is designed to be safe and without risk to health when used properly; ensure mill undergoes appropriate levels of testing and examination and is safe and without risk to health when used properly; take all reasonable steps to ensure appropriate information about the safe use of the sugar mill is available. Recently the Australian Commonwealth Government and Queensland Government have released new legislations that outline further guidance on the principles of safe design for plant and equipment. ‘Safety in Design’ processes are an integral part of plants upgrades, and need to be budgeted for, and scheduled into project milestones, to ensure documentation of the applied risk control measures is thoroughly carried out. This paper aims to provide a summary of how to embed ‘Safety in Design’ into the various sugar mill upgrade design phases, so as to meet statutory obligations, as well as aiming for zero harm to personnel through the life cycle of the project.